I had every intention of walking away and never looking back. I’ve never been betrayed like that before and just as I was walking back to your Ferrari, a black SUV came past and opened fire on us.”
Colton flinches and I feel his chest stop rising and falling as he captures his breath, holding it in fear of what I might say next.
“Nic threw me down to the pavement, that’s how I ended up all cut up. I could hear the bullets zooming past me. I’ve never been so fucking scared in my life. It was only a few seconds but it felt like it went on forever and when they were finally gone … Nic’s dad …”
“Fuck, Jade. Tell me this story doesn’t end how I think it does?”
“It’s so much worse.” Colton holds onto me, just letting me be at one with my thoughts and waiting until I’m ready to go on. “Kian’s dead,” I finally say, my tone sounding robotic and completely drained of all emotion. “I should have left after that, but I didn’t think it could get worse. I couldn’t leave Nic when his father’s body was still laying warm on the concrete and Eli … he’d been shot. I just … I couldn’t. I had to make sure they were going to be alright, but then …”
“Shhhh,” he soothes. “It’s okay, Jade. You’re home now. It’s over. You don’t ever have to go back. You never have to see them again if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t know what I want. They were supposed to be my family. Nic would always say ‘no friends, only family,’ and for a while, I believed him. He was supposed to be the one who was always by my side, but he’s … he’s a monster.”
“Well, that’s just the thing about family,” he tells me as the memory of Nic’s blade slicing across the necks of those men splits through my mind, bringing on the worst kind of headache. “They always have a way of screwing you over, no matter what their intentions.”
I’ve never heard truer words.
Needing the heaviness to fade away, I raise my head and meet his eyes. “You waited up for me.”
His eyes flick away and focus on the blank TV screen. “I mean … I was up anyway. It’s not like I was pining for you and waiting by the door.”
Somehow he manages to pull another smile from deep within me. “You were waiting for me,” I tease.
Colton rolls his eyes and with a heavy sigh, gives in. “Yeah, okay,” he says, grinning back at me. “So sue me, I was waiting up for you, but you can’t blame me. One minute you’re here and the next you were out the door like someone had lit a match under your ass. I was concerned and it turns out that I had every right to be.”
“I’m okay,” I whisper. “They might not care about betraying my trust, but they’d move heaven and earth to make sure I never got hurt … you know, physically.”
“Yeah,” he grunts, grabbing my waist and rolling us until he’s hovering over me. His lips brush against mine before he pulls back and meets my eyes. “How am I supposed to compete against a guy who saved you from a shower of bullets?”
“Easy,” I whisper, being more honest than I ever intended. “There is no competition. Not where you’re concerned.”
His eyes glisten with joy and I allow his warm smile to light something within me, if only for a second. Colton begins dipping his head and I know that the second he kisses me, this moment of tenderness will wash away and I’ll plunge right back into the darkness of my night and I can’t allow that to happen, not yet at least. I’m not ready to face it again.
His lips come crashing down toward mine but I stop him with a finger on his lips, wishing so badly that I had it within me to kiss him with everything that I’ve got and allow it all to fade away.
I shake my head as his face hovers just above mine and I give him a sobering look. “There is a little something I should probably tell you,” I say with a cringe, watching as his brows begin to furrow. “You know that whole drive-by shooting I was telling you about?”
“Yeah,” he says slowly.
I can’t help the grin that tears across my face, knowing damn well that I should be serious about