I Just Need You - J. Nathan Page 0,74
telling me this? Won’t it just make me more prepared for you? I can add more security. Install more cameras and alarms.”
“Oh, a challenge,” he said with false laughter in his voice. “I do love a challenge, especially from such a feisty knife-wielding girl like you.”
“I wish it didn’t have to come to that,” I said, trying to keep him talking. “But you left me no choice.”
“It was just an eye,” he said.
An eye?
“And though I lost sight in that eye, I’ve never stopped having my sights set on you. Blinding me just made the reward that much sweeter. Jusqu'à ce que nous nous revoyions.”
Until we meet again.
The line went dead. I stood frozen, afraid if I moved, he’d see me.
“He could be here,” Briggs whispered as he and Tristan crowded around me.
Tristan called his team at the office, making sure they got whatever they could from the call. Then, he looked to Briggs, avoiding my eyes. “We need to get her back.”
They flanked me on both sides, a good thing because a sudden lightheadedness swept over me. We began to walk and they kept their eyes on everyone and everything around us as we made our way through the busy quad and down the path to my dorm.
I didn’t exhale until I was safely back in my room with Briggs outside my door and Tristan leaned against my desk.
“I just need to think,” he said as he dragged his fingers through his hair. “Fuuuuuck.”
“Tristan, stop. You’re scaring me.”
“How hadn’t we realized?” he said.
“Realized what?”
“You blinded him.”
“I just started stabbing at him.” I swallowed hard, the recollection clouding my vision with tears. “I knew he grabbed at his face, but everything happened so fast and then he was gone.”
“He wants revenge.” Tristan scrubbed his hands up and down his face. “God, dammit.”
“Tristan,” I pled, needing him to be the calm one.
“When we thought this was just a ransom situation, we could track money exchange. We could follow leads. We could monitor things happening out of France.”
“So?”
“This isn’t a ransom situation. This is personal.”
I searched his face. “Which means what?”
He stared back at me long and hard, so many thoughts playing across his face. “I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes, my limbs beginning to tremble. Tristan always knew what to do.
“I’m sorry.” He rushed to sit down next to me on my bed and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me into his side. “I’m not trying to scare you, it just hit me all at once.”
“You’re worried about me. I understand that. I’m worried too. He could be here. He could be anywhere trying to get to me.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Tristan promised.
I needed to talk to my parents. I needed to tell them what happened. Why these men had come after me. Why they were still coming after me. I needed to go home. I’d be safer at home. This was the first time since coming to Remington that I truly believed that. I needed to think of my parents. They couldn’t lose a daughter because I was trying to prove that I was strong. They deserved better than that.
“I think you should go home,” Tristan said.
“Me too.”
He pulled back and met my gaze. “Yeah?”
I nodded. “This isn’t a game. He’s really coming for me.”
“You’ll need to stay home until he’s caught,” Tristan said with undeniable certainty. “And, that’ll take time.”
“We could always buy that island,” I said, trying to ease the tension in the room.
“I wish I could buy it for you. I wish I could make sure nothing bad ever happens to you again. But I can’t. That’s obvious now.”
I sat up and faced him, stroking his cheek so he met my gaze. “I love you, Tristan.” I didn’t care if it was too soon. He needed to know how I felt. “I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear that, but you are it for me. I think I knew it the first time you sat outside my door. I just didn’t want to admit it. But I’m admitting it now.”
“Good.”
My brows furrowed. “Good?”
“I don’t know how any of this is going to play out, but I do know I love the hell out of you.”
I laughed, unsure how it was even possible given the circumstances. “I knew it.”
He chuckled before leaning in and pressing his lips to mine. I took it as his assurance. That he’d always protect me…and my heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Kresley
By three, I’d packed most of my belongings into cardboard boxes Elodie found