“Call Spider. Tell him to get that shit started. We’ll be there.” I tell Noah as I turn away. I quickly round the car but before I can open my door, Emmett speaks then and I still in my tracks.
“Are you going to tell her?” He questions in a low voice.
I close my eyes for a split second.
This is not what I had planned for tonight. This is not what I wanted to happen tonight or any night for that matter but once again, events that I never seem to see coming have dictated the pace of this hellhole.
Tonight, I played football for her. It was her first time watching me do my thing on the field and I did it for her. I was planning for us to go away after the party and just be us but my mother practically pissed all over my plans, doused that shit in gasoline then Amanda Fields lit the match.
Telling me about a possible marriage arrangement between. . .fuck!
“I’m not going to lie to her.” I grit out and then quickly get in the car, if I stay, I’ll fuck Emmett up so bad.
I start the car, ignoring the multiple gazes on me and my girl.
I glance over at her. She is staring ahead but seeing absolutely nothing. It’s almost as if she isn’t even here but I know better, her mind might be racing but she is piecing things together as she goes.
Switching gears, I peel out of that fucking school, turning away from the estates, going through some private roads that lead to a specific highway that I would like to take her to.
Again, not a plan for tonight, but it has to be done.
Switching gears, I press down on the gas pedal, leaving all the madness that only makes things worse for anyone who wants to go up the social, economic ladder of Westbrook in the rearview mirror.
“You knew.” Her voice is hoarse but still so damn sexy. I glance over at her and then back towards the road.
I’m not going to lie to her or withhold anything anymore. Not ever.
“Yes.” I grit out, pressing down on the gas pedal. We shoot forward, faster.
“I stood there, looking at Denise wondering why on earth she would admit to murdering my brother. I mean, she is too smart, too calculating for that. . .”
Silence.
“But then again, I’m the stupid girl that needs answers about what happened to her twin—oops, not my twin, apparently I’m part of a triplet band!” She starts laughing then but it’s hard, dry, without a trace of humor.
“And to top it all off, my wombmates are all gone and I’m the only one left. . .” Her voice breaks and something in me breaks along with it.
Being unwanted is not exactly something new to me, but for Star, finding out that she had another sibling—her triplet—and never got to know her or experience being together, that’s a kind of heartache that she hasn’t even started processing yet.
She might not even know that she is feeling that heartache too.
“You knew and you never thought to tell me.” She whispers and I briefly close my eyes. I won’t lie to her.
“You weren’t ready for that yet.”
“Oh, and you are the one who gets to decide what I’m ready for and what I’m not ready for, huh?” I can feel her fiery gaze on me, watching me, judging me.
“Were you ready to hear just how shitty your mother is or just how much she never wanted you to begin with?” I question her quietly, knowing that she won’t answer that.
It’s not my intention to hurt her but I won’t lie to her and I won’t ever allow her to lie to herself. I want her to see the full spectrum of what’s happening and what has happened in her absence.
Silence spreads between us in the car but I just keep driving. Soon, the agitation in the car is so damn loud and strong that I reach for my dash and grab a joint, then light it up as I lower down the window.
“Pass me that.” She demands, the tears now long gone, only a stealthy kind of determination on her face.
I pass the tightly wrapped joint to her and she puffs it like a pro, then passes it to me.
“Where are we going?” She questions, looking out the window.
“I want to show you something.”
“Does she know that she is going to marry Syrus’ son?”
Fuck.
The twisting in my fucking chest and the tightening of my hands on the steering wheel are all evidence that I want to fuck some shit up.
I slow down when I get closer to our destination and then park the car at the shoulder of the road. I don’t bother explaining where we are because she sucks in her breath as soon as she notices what’s right ahead and then she is fumbling with the seatbelt so she can get out.
“Oh God.” She breathes and then she is out of the car. I watch helplessly as she slowly starts walking towards the very spot where the wreckage happened.
The spot where fragments of broken glass, pieces of metal from the car and bits of blood are smeared all over the place, leading to the large tree where George’s car is said to have crashed, folded in itself, killing him on impact.
I watch her from the car as she takes in the tragic scene before her, a hand covering her mouth as she sees it for herself. Her tiny frame is shaking, her long hair blowing in the wind but she keeps walking as if drawn to the area of the damn wreckage.
The area where her brother died.
As soon as she starts shaking so damn hard, I get out of the car and quickly walk over to her and wrap her in my arms. I can feel my sweatshirt getting wet with her tears, her sexy body shaking so violently in my arms, but I hold her tighter to me, kissing the crown of her head repeatedly.
“Why did you bring me here?” She whispers in my chest, tears clogging her throat.
“I need you to understand something, Star.” I start, barely aware of the hoarseness in my own voice. “I need you to understand it all”
I frame her face, moving the tresses of her hair away as I stare into her tear filled eyes. I fucking hate these tears. I’ve hated them since forever ago.
“But most of all, I desperately need you to stand with me, baby.” I finish.
I need her to see that everything has a consequence, a price, a sacrifice. And as evidenced by where we are currently standing right now, those consequences can sometime be fatal.
I refuse to lose her, to anyone or to anything. When she was away in London, at least I could say that she was still living and breathing even though it was excruciating pain for both of us.
But in Westbrook, I have no idea what might come at us, but I know something is already in the works for both of us.
I just need her to stand with me.
“Why does it feel like this is just the beginning of a war?” She sniffles in my sweatshirt but I don’t fucking care.
“That’s because we are in the middle of it and the enemy just showed up.”
“She doesn’t want us together.”
“They want us to dance to their tune for the sake of the great land.”
“What do we do, Ace?” She questions, looking up at me.
I lift my hand and wipe the remaining tears that fall on her cheek and my fingers. Her tears burn into my skin and I just want them fucking gone.
I wish I had better words to tell her. I wish I had the courage to tell her that everything is going to be alright but I’m not going to lie to her.
Everything is going to go to shit, but I refuse for that to include us.
“We do what we do best.”
“And what’s that?”
I lean down and kiss her forehead, lingering there as I take a whiff of her. She smells like a heaven and temptation at the same time, I might just die in her scent.
“We fuck shit up.” I groan, as I look down at her, feeling the tenseness of my entire body.
She smiles then, a sad, tired smile. Tonight has been too much but I don’t think it’s over. Not for us anyway.
“Promise me something.” She starts, looking up at me, with the wind blowing her hair into her face. I move the silky strands away, staring into her eyes—hard eyes fille
d with so much confusion right now.
“Anything.”
The entire world if you want it. The moon and the stars are yours, you rule them all.
Me, baby. I promise you me. . .
“Promise me that you will never lie to me. Or keep anything from me.”
I had a feeling this was coming.
At this point, I’m not sure if lying will keep her safe or if it will make things worse. Something tells me that the latter is much more probable now with the stench of war in the air.
Will she lie to me too?
“So long as you promise to do that too . . .”
She nods her head, then reaches for my hand that cups her cheek. She loops our pinkies, mirroring something we used to do whenever the boys were around.
I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her with the boys watching but sometimes, I could sense she was sad or she could sense that something was happening with me. So, she would come stand close to me, but we wouldn’t look at each other as our pinky fingers interlocked under the table, or at our backs where no one could see.
God, I’m a sucker for this girl. Been a fool for her my whole life.
“I promise.” We whisper at the same time.
I have no idea how long we stand there but I just hold her, feeling the emptiness that’s in me with the absence of George and the intense need to protect my girl at all costs, including the demons that she battles. That we both battle individually.
But George? I should have protected him. I should have seen that coming. And tonight, I should have protected Astraea against my mother. I should have done so many things differently, but once again, I failed.
Failure follows me like a vicious poison that I have no idea how to deal with or exterminate but when it comes to my Blue Star, I will be damned if failure wins out.
It has already won more times than I care to admit to myself.
“Tell me.” She croaks out, her arms circled tightly around me like she is scared to let go.
I don’t know why, but just that feeling alone, has my heart pounding. I wonder if she can feel that we are a target. That us being together is a problem for a lot of people.
I wonder if she can feel what she does to me just by being so close to me. Or if she can feel that something is in the air, something is out to get us.
“Tell me everything.” She demands, looking up at me. So, I start.
“One moment, the threats were coming fast and frequently. Pictures of you started showing up in various places, unexpected places that no one should have access to. . .”
I frown, thinking back to the time one of those fucking blue envelopes showed up in my locker that I hardly use, at school. It didn’t have any finger prints on it making us nervous.
“But George. . .” I take a deep breath just thinking about it all.
“He started panicking.” She finishes for me. This is not something she is just going to let go, so I don’t ask her to, knowing that she is gearing up for a fight right now.
It might just be the fight of our lives.
“Yeah. The bastard was so damn hot headed and paranoid after you left.”
Hell, we all were.
“He was convinced that something had happened to you. Of course, he knew I burned down the house but I was a heart broken fool who didn’t want to talk about losing you at the time, too fucking immature, so damn mad at you. . .” I groan, looking down at her.
“I was mad too.” She whispers and I can see the hurt in her eyes, hurt that her boys caused by ignoring the signs of trauma that were already there in front of us, but we were self-serving assholes who let her down.
Let her down hard.
I owe her an apology. We all owe her an apology but Noah wants to fucking do some grand shit for that so I have to fucking swallow my tongue for now.
“George had a lot of questions after that. He questioned everything, naturally one of those questions was your past.”
“Where we came from.” She breathes, connecting the dots as if she is in her brother’s shoes right now, seeing things from his point of view.
“Yes.”
“We never knew where we were born.” She whispers and I look towards the tree that I can sketch with eyes closed, its memory engraved behind my eyelids just from all the hours I spent staring at it, days after the accident that shook all of Westbrook.
“I know, baby.”
“So why was he searching to begin with? It never mattered when we were younger.” She sniffs.
“Because around that time, your mother started sleeping with my father and George found out about it.” I can’t control the bite in my voice or the way the words are harshly spilled out of me.
“Oh God.”
“It was clear to see that Richard knew about it but he just didn’t care.” I go on.
“Probably because he was boning my aunt by then.” She mumbles, looking at my chest then she looks up again, a question in her eyes.
“Why did he act surprised tonight though?” She pushes away from me then, her eyes filled with anger, disappointment and fear. “Why did he act like the entire world came crumbling down right then?”
“Because believe it or not, the fool actually believed what Amanda told him all those years ago. That he made her pregnant and then he disappeared. I have no idea the history behind that though but Amanda lied to him that you were both his because they had already crossed paths before she was pregnant.”
“So it’s true then? My mother is a certifiable whore.”
She sucks in a deep breath and the tears she has been fighting for a cold second begin falling down her cheeks, gasping for breath like she is losing it.
“Hey, you’re not her.” I grit out, the words feeling like they need to be said. God only knows what’s running through her messy mind right now, but not on my watch will I allow her to surrender to that shit.
“I know.” She whispers but it’s not convincing. I open my mouth to reprimand that notion but she beats me to it, changing the topic. Her coping mechanism.
“So that settles it then, Richard is not my father?” She questions, her voice breaking with each word uttered, but I can see the answer in her steely eyes.
All I can do is shake my head, confirming what she already knows. Time for another dose of truth. Here goes nothing.
“George figured it out early on that he wasn’t your father..” I start.
She looks up sharply at me, suspicion and confusion dominating her features.
“When?”
“Around the time you moved to the estates.”
“What?!” She breathes. “He never said anything.”
“He wanted to protect you. You loved the man.” I grit out, thinking back to all the time she spent with that asshole, neglecting me. But more than that, I knew the exact moment Richard Fields chose money and power over Astraea. I knew that heartbreak was inevitable for her so I had to nip that relationship in the bud.
“I remember George stopped interacting with my fath. . .um, with Richard.” She starts, pacing now.
“Then there was asshole you who continuously made sure that I never had a relationship with him. . .” She stills then and sharply turns to look at me with horror all over her face.
“The plane. . .” She whispers as realization dawns of the first time I started breaking any ties she had with Richard. Stupid things like gifts and shit, I destroyed because I never wanted her to grow attached to that asshole who wasn’t man enough to actually love Astraea and not allow his fucking wife to use her as a pawn!
“Oh God.” She breathes, her body growing tense, no longer relaxed. Her anger coming back tenfold.
I remain still, unmoving and completely silent as the dots connect.
I can practically see the memory that just flashed in her mind as if I’m experiencing it with her.
I can see the day I broke her leg, after destroying the fucking plane that she was so damn fascinated by, spending all her time on it, ignoring me lik
e she couldn’t see me.
A plane that was bought by a man who claimed to be her father but he wasn’t.
“Oh my fucking god, Ace.”
I knew that the truth was inevitable then. I knew it was all going to come out one day and she was going to be caught in the crossfire. I knew that if she ever grew attached to the bastard, he was going to break her.
I was already going to break her with my baggage, I wasn’t going to allow her to be damaged like I am in the parental heartache.
But some pains and aches, as I’m learning, you can’t keep them away from the people you love.
“You have known for years that Richard wasn’t my father.” She gasps. I remain silent.
I won’t lie to her anymore. If she wants the truth, she’ll get it. If she wants my insides, she will get those too.
I see it coming before she even moves so I let her charge towards me, her fists raised and watch as she starts pounding my chest in anger, her tears falling fast and hot.
“You sonofabitch! How could you?!” Another hit, directly over my heart.
Her fists don’t hurt me as much as the pain in her tear filled eyes or the pain that makes her body tremble, gutting my insides, twisting me up inside. Her tears are like gasoline, poured all over those damn twisted insides and her pounding fists starts the inferno in me.
“How could you?” She cries, but she is growing tired so I wrap my arms around her, crashing her to me, but Astraea being who she is, she keeps fighting, thrashing around in my arms, but I won’t let go.
“You have fucking known since we were kids that he wasn’t my father and you let it go on!” She screams into the night, fighting to be let loose, but I don’t let her.
I lift her up then. On instinct, she wraps her legs around my torso. I clamp both her wrists in one hand, restraining her. Her fucking gorgeous face is now aligned with mine and we stare at each other.
Her tears keep falling but I don’t look away. I look her straight in the eyes until she calms down, her chest heaving so damn fast moving with mine.
She fights the grip I have on her wrists so I let her go when I’m sure that she won’t fight me. I wouldn’t put it past her to slap the shit out of me like she did before, even if the remorse will eat her up immediately after.
Vicious Hate (Westbrook Blues Book 2) Page 6
