Prisoned - Marni Mann Page 0,92

Heart, but there were things about her that hadn’t changed at all.

I put my phone away and glanced at her again. She looked so fucking beautiful when she slept. Shit, had things not ended the way they did, had I not been tipped off, she could have been my wife.

But things hadn’t gone that way.

And, now, as I looked back at the road, I saw the headlights up ahead. Three quick flashes, telling me it was him.

I ground my fingers over the cheap leather of the steering wheel and leaned over the seat, pressing my lips to Kyle’s ear.

“Take a deep breath, baby. This is your last smell of freedom.”

Thirty-Five

Kyle

“I won’t hurt you,” Garin repeated, as though I hadn’t heard him the first time.

I was straddling his lap, his breath hitting my lips, his stare trying to pull the truth out of me. It was impossible not to hear him. I just didn’t believe what he’d said. And I knew that, once he found out the truth, he was most definitely going to hurt me.

But I couldn’t let my fear keep me from doing what was right.

Not anymore.

Billy was the second person Anthony had murdered. I was the only one who knew it was him. I had to put a stop to it.

I climbed off Garin’s lap and let my feet drop to the floor. The moonlight showed his eyes, his lips. I reached the sliding door that led out to the balcony, leaning my shoulder into the glass. This spot had the best view of the water, and if it was going to be my last time seeing it, I wanted to be as close as possible.

There was no breath to be found. No air.

Just words.

And those words needed to describe when Anthony had put up the first bar of my prison.

“I saw Paulie when I walked out of your apartment that night…”

I was suddenly no longer in my room. I was in The Heart. It was night; there was total blackness, and I saw Paulie from the glow of his cell phone. He went to his car, and I heard his footsteps…his breathing.

Every detail was coming back to me.

I just let them pour out.

When I reached the part where Anthony demanded I get in his car, I wrapped my arms around my stomach and slid to the floor. I was in the corner between the mattress and the windows, and Garin was looking down at me from the bed, just like I had sat and waited in his room all those years ago. But as I looked up, it was Anthony peering out from the car, and I was clinging to the side of the tire. My eyes were shifting between Paulie’s blood and Anthony’s blacked-out window.

But there was no blood and no window. It was just Garin, the moonlight, and the intensity of his eyes. He didn’t make a sound.

I hadn’t said Anthony’s name. I’d referred to him as he.

“I want to rewind my life, Garin.” I tucked myself into a small ball. “I want to go back to that moment and not get in his car. I want to run to your apartment and take whatever those consequences were—whether he tried to shoot me or run after me. I just want to do it all over and not hide anything from you this time. And I want to tell you all of it.” I tried to take a breath even though I couldn’t, even though it felt like the room was closing in on me and I wouldn’t be able to push my way out.

“I want to tell my younger self that twelve years’ worth of guilt wasn’t worth it because I was protecting a person who didn’t deserve to be protected.” I wrapped my arms tighter around my legs, and I rocked, my nails pressing so hard into my elbows that I could feel them piercing my skin. “It was Anthony. He killed Paulie, and I’m positive he killed Billy, too.”

“That motherfucker.”

That told me everything I needed to know.

Garin was murderous.

But I wasn’t done. He needed to know the rest.

I picked up the story from the moment I got into Anthony’s car and took Garin through the entire ride until Anthony dropped me off much later that night. I told him about the threats. The rules. The orders. I told him about our trip to Florida later that week when I had gotten into college and when Anthony had bought his first house.

“He wanted me