HEATH'S POV

It's been three days since all the crap happened with Brax and Buckton, three days since Pirovic's death. I would have liked to have gotten my hands on the scumbag myself, but instead I was babysitting a paranoid cop; I'll just have to settle for killing Brax instead, seeing as he's the one who got me the babysitting gig in the first place.

As I head towards the diner, I can hear the ever cheerful sound of Colleen Smart's voice, off on another one of her gossiping tangents that nobody cares about I suppose. The woman hasn't stopped to take a breath since she got wind of the shootout between the cops and Pirovic, and Brax. As I step inside, the old woman looks at me for two seconds before she rolls her eyes. That has to be some kind of record.

"Ohhhhhh, just what we need, more trouble!" Colleen cries, hurrying to busy herself with something so that she doesn't have to serve me, which is just fine by me.

"And good morning to you too Mrs Smart," I greet her with a casual smile.

"If you were genuine in wishing me a good morning, as you so often do, then you'd stop visiting the Diner altogether!" She rushes off, two plates in hand.

"Sorry about her," Leah says to me from behind the counter. "What can I get you?"

"Three coffees," I order, and she gets to work.

"How's Brax?" she asks me.

"You know it's funny, because I was actually going to ask you the same question. I wouldn't know, because I haven't really seen much of him since the shootout. He's been too busy with ... well ... you know."

"Believe me, it's not by choice that I have him under my roof so often," she says without looking up. "If it were up to me, he wouldn't be around there at all. I'm still cleaning up from the other night..." Just as I am about to say something dirty to that, Colleen comes back. Because I have the utmost respect for her, of course I restrain myself.

"Of course, the real question is, why was the shootout necessary?" she says. Apparently, she'd still been ranting as she'd walked away. "How do our local law enforcers lose track of such a dangerous criminal? I'm beginning to wonder about the integrity of this town, not to mention its safety. And it's all because of troublemakers like you!"

"Colleen!" Leah shouts, handing me the coffees, as I hand her the money. As the old woman disappears into the kitchen, where she's actually out of earshot, Leah says to me through gritted teeth, "Of course, the shootout really wouldn't have been necessary if the two of them had just come clean about their relationship. It's what got them into trouble in the first place."

"You're preaching to the choir," I tell her. "Thanks for the coffees."

As I head out of the diner, I hear Colleen start up again about how much trouble the boys and I have bought to the bay and something about fighting and guns and who knows what else. The thing that catches my attention though is the group of ugly brutes standing just around the corner. They eye me troublesomely...I think they want something from me – but then, who doesn't?

"You're scaring away the customers!" I shout out. They smile – I have that affect on people – the ugliest smiles I think I've ever seen. They quite obviously belong to Pirovic's gang.

"Funny, Braxton," one of them says to me. "Where's your brother?"

"Don't know. I'm sending out a search party this afternoon, although I don't think we're going to have any luck. If you clever fellas don't know where he is then I guess there's no chance for the rest of us finding him."

"The guy's got jokes," he says to his mates. "Well, when you find him, give him a message for us. Let him know that icing Jake solved nothing."

"That wasn't some pathetic attempt at a threat, was it boys?"

"Look at that – funny and smart."

"And incredibly handsome. You forgot incredibly handsome." The boys laugh to themselves, before finally stepping aside to let me pass them.

I've decided that I'm now definitely going to kill Brax myself.

CHARLIE'S POV

As I lay snuggled close to Brax, my mind drifts back to everything that has happened in the last few weeks, and it makes me quite happy that he and I are still strong. Thinking back I realise that we could've avoided this mess if we had have just come clean with our relationship and dealt with it then and there. But no, I forced Brax to keep us a secret. He wanted to come clean, but I wouldn't have it. I can't help but feel partially responsible for the loss, tears, and bloodshed. I look over at Brax sleeping peacefully. I kiss him lightly on the forehead before getting up from under his grasp. I need to go for a run I think, clear my head. As I run down the beach, I realise that to keep my family and friends safe, we have to come clean. I panic slightly at the thought of how people will take the news. Still, I know it's what must happen,

I turn home to tell Brax.

I walk into the house puffing heavily from my exercise, and am shocked to see Brax and Heath chatting in the lounge room. The conversation doesn't exactly seem happy.

'Hey babe, I didn't think you would be awake when I came back. Heath, what are you doing here?' I ask as Heath hands me the third coffee sitting on the table in front of him.

Cutting to the chase, Heath blurts out, 'You two need to come clean about your relationship. This crap's gone on for long enough!"

As Heath gets all worked up, all I can do is choke on my words. 'I -' I begin to tell him that I feel the same way, when he cuts me off. '

"Don't give me excuses about why you need to keep it a secret! This is ridiculous! You need to come clean!' he is beginning to get very angry. Brax can sense his brother's fury and steps in before things get out of hand.

"Easy bro, you need to calm down!' he yells and they begin to argue.

I am losing patience. If I could just get a word in, I would be able to stop the fight by telling them that I agree, but they are too busy senselessly yelling at each other.

Eventually I just lose it. 'ENOUGH!' I yell, and finally the boys stop, looking at me with identically shocked and confused faces. 'If you two would stop fighting like 3 year olds for just one second, I would be able to tell you that I agree. We need to come clean.'

BRAX'S POV

I cannot believe what Charlie has just said.

'Charls – are you sure about this?' I ask her, and she looks at me as if the answer to that should be blatantly obvious.

'We're not the only ones who have been hurt by this secret,' she says. 'It's obvious we're putting other peoples' lives in danger by keeping this to ourselves.'

'I wouldn't go that far – ' I start to argue, but she cuts me off. In arguments, she only really does that when she's made up her mind about something.

' – I would. It was Leah's house that got trashed – Our secret put her, her son, and my daughter in danger. Okay? Casey could be next, for all we know.'

'Casey can take care of himself,' Heath says. Idiot. He still has to argue something even when someone is on his side.

'But others can't,' Charlie says, looking straight at me. Her eyes are glassy and pleading. I wanted to be straight about this from the beginning, and now it's as if I'm the one keeping her from telling the world. That's what I wanted most of all – to tell the world that she was my girlfriend – while all she wanted was to hide it. 'It's just better if we tell people,' she says. 'I don't know how we're going to ... but we don't have any other option.'

I nod. 'I know,' I say, and I pull her in for a hug.

In the corner of my eye, I see Heath roll his eyes. 'You know you could start with Colleen,' he says without looking at us. 'I'm sure she'd be more than happy to tell the world your little secret.'

Even Charlie laughs at his little joke. 'Alright,' she says, 'I'm going to go and have a shower.' She kisses me on the cheek. 'Thanks for the coffee, Heath,' she says, with what could almost have passed for a smile. She never smiles at Heath. I don't think my brother knows what to make of it, because when Charlie is gone, he looks at me with an expression of incredulity.

'I'm pretty sure Hell just froze over,' I say to him, 'because you two just agreed with each other on something.'

'Yeah, well, now that she's gone bro, I need to tell you something else,' he says, sounding serious.

'What, have you got an opinion on something else that's none of your business?'

'You guys made your relationship my business when you asked me to keep it a secret from people – the same secret that almost got the both of you killed. I'm glad that it didn't, because that means now I get to kill you, but – '

'Get to the point, Heath,' I interrupt him, before he forgets what he has to say. I wouldn't put it past him to do that.

'When I left the diner,' he says, 'some of Pirovic's boys were outside waiting for me.'

'What'd they want?' I ask. If this is spelling out more trouble, then I have no time for fooling around. I can't put Charlie through any more danger.

'They had a message for you,' he continues. 'They said that Pirovic's death didn't solve anything.'

I think about this for a second. Obviously the message is an indirect threat – I've heard and given enough of them in my time to know what they sound like. Almost out of habit, I start to think of ways we could retaliate to that – and then I remember that I quit the River Boys. 'Well, they don't know about the relationship between Charlie and I, do they?' I ask.

'How the heck would I know?' Heath asks.

'They couldn't ... Jake wouldn't have had time to tell them ... Hammer's out of the picture...' Surely they don't know ... surely they're not going to hurt Charlie again ... There's no way I'll let them if that's what they're planning on.

'You know, not everything is about the two of you,' Heath scoffs, sounding disgusted. 'Kay, you're probably right – they probably had no idea about you two being together, and if I had to guess, I'd say they wouldn't particularly care even if they did know. What they would care about is the death of their leader – you got Jake killed. That means the Boys got Jake killed, which means they're going to come after us.'

'I'm not one of you guys anymore,' I remind him.

'Yeah, yeah, so you keep saying,' Heath says. 'Believe that all you want, because Jake's boys aren't. And your boys aren't gonna care – if this fight is against you, then it's against all of us. Blood and sand.'

He looks at me intently, and I know that he is right. No matter how far away I get from the Boys, and despite the best efforts of certain members in the last few months, I know they will always be at my flanks. If Jake's gang wants a fight, then that's what they're going to get, whether I'm involved or not. That's just the life.

I just don't know how I'm going to tell Charlie.