Blacklisted (Loveless, Texas #3) - Jay Crownover Page 0,96

would do this. I thought I knew him better than that.” She looked like she might cry, while I suddenly felt like I was made of ice. “I’m so sorry, Presley. I already plan on having Case and Crew kick his ass for you. And if Case can find a reason to lock him up, I’m all for it. You deserve to be treated so much better than this.”

Cold.

Everything inside of me was suddenly frozen.

I’d been told I was frigid on more than one occasion. But this was the first time the words actually fit. I was winter. My emotions a blizzard whipping through me as arctic winds blasted through my heart.

“Which room did he go into?” My voice cracked and broke. The words were barely audible. I felt numb, and getting my body to respond to the signal from my screaming brain was difficult.

Kody blinked in obvious surprise. “You want to confront him?”

I wasn’t a violent or confrontational person. That was partly how I ended up such an easy target for Ashby in the first place. However, I wanted to see the proof that Shot betrayed me with my own two eyes. I had no clue what I would say to him if Kody’s accusations were truthful. I was holding on to a shred of hope that she’d just misread the situation. As much work and effort as Shot had put into trying to convince me he was serious about being with me, it didn’t make sense that he would throw everything away after one silly argument. He was reckless and dangerous, but he wasn’t careless or thoughtless. In fact, he was probably the most compassionate man I’d ever come across. He definitely understood me better than anyone else ever had, so he had to know what finding him with another woman would do to me.

He couldn’t be that cruel…could he?

I had to shake Kody to get her to stop ranting about the bodily harm she was going to inflict on Shot, and to get her to focus long enough to give me the room number. It was another battle when I told her I wanted to go alone. I appreciated her support and the unending sisterhood she was displaying. She’d known Shot longer, had been much closer to him than she was with me, but all of that aside, she was one hundred percent on my side and ready to do battle for me, no questions asked.

I loved her from the bottom of my heart. Not since I lost my mother had I been so certain of how I felt about another person, but I knew I adored Kody in a way only one sister could feel for another. She was part of me and I was obviously a huge part of her. Finding the space for her had happened when I wasn’t even looking, and I was so glad she claimed it.

I was shaking from head to toe as I got closer to the motel room door. My head demanded to know if Shot had crossed a line there was no coming back from, but my heart was scared to death of the answer. I couldn’t believe he’d gone from standing guard over me on a regular basis to hooking up with someone else all within the span of a couple of days. It made no sense, and I’d learned there wasn’t much Shot didn’t do without a rock-solid reason.

I could clearly hear voices on the other side of the door.

One male. One female.

That little sliver of hope I was desperately holding on to started to ice over and crystalize like all the rest of my insides.

Lifting my hand, my fingers curled into a fist and hung in the air for a long moment as I wavered over whether I could face what was on the other side of that door or not. After a brief pep talk, where I reminded myself I had survived losing my mother, finding out my father was a terrible person, learning I had a whole new family, and almost going to jail for murder because of my best friend, I let my fist fall. I pounded on the door, imagining it was a vital part of Shot’s anatomy instead.

The voices on the inside of the room went quiet and a moment later the barrier was jerked open.

He looked shocked.

Not guilty.

Not sad.

Not afraid.

Not remorseful.

Just stunned to see me standing there, almost as if he’d been expecting someone else.

He didn’t have his leather