Sweet Venom (Crazy in Love #1)

by Kirsty-Anne Still

  “She did that before,” Leo tells me. “Why is that important?”

  “Because now she can scare those who threaten her place in her old life,” I say, keeping my words concise. “She uses it to assert herself because she knows it works.”

  “And she hasn’t lessened her ways with you which tell me she see’s you as a threat,” Leo states, almost dryly. “I’ve shown I take no mercy on my children, nor the girl I watched grow into this young woman. I don’t intend to make you an exception.” He quickly changes his tune, uncaring of what I’ve had to say prior. “You want to stay by my son’s side; you have to make sure you’re prepared for everything that’s to come. It won’t get any easier from here,” Leo utters, his tone almost threatening.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I state, precise and clear.

  “Didn’t think so,” Leo affirms. “And I don’t think Eden will be runnin’ anywhere when she has to prove herself to everyone again. Right, Eden?” Leo asks, turning his head.

  “No,” she says, flaring her nostrils as she allows the tension to stiffen her body. “I’m not leavin’ again … not unless I have to.”

  “Are you done?” Lawson asks, his anger no less than it was.

  “I think so,” Leo says, nodding his head.

  “So, what does this achieve?” Lawson asks, stepping toward his father. He’s a man thrown into a chaotic storm of emotion. I hear he’s trying to calm himself, trying to move this on and find out what his father’s goal was. “Where do we go from here?”

  “We move onto the new game plan.”

  Leo is smooth with his actions, he reaches behind him and in the same second raises his gun and shoots without a moment of hesitation. The bang of the gun echoes around the room, blood hits my face, followed by the shrill scream from Tess beside me.

  I barely even pick up on the thud of a body near me, too far into my shock to even look at first. Slowly, everything comes back to me. First, the ringing in my ears, followed by the upset of everyone in the room. I pace my breathing, telling myself to look at who took the bullet.

  “Liam!” Lawson cries, finally forcing me to look.

  Lawson sits on the floor, Liam pulled into his arms as he wills him to wake up. Eden sits opposite him, her hands barely touching the bullet wound on his head as she shakily tries to make sense of what just happened.

  I try to swallow, but I find it impossible as I watch the horror unfold before me.

  Part of me is thankful Lawson isn’t harmed, but I know, from the short time I’ve known him, that the loss of Liam will be just as great as the loss he felt when Eden disappeared.

  It’s like it’s on repeat.

  That one moment that bullet ripped our lives apart. Looking at my hands, his blood still marks my fingertips, his blood still splattered across my cheek. Shakily, I turn them over, trying in vain in the shallow hope it’ll make the crimson disappear.

  It doesn’t.

  The fact alone forces me to hunch forward and allow the sob to uncurl from my throat. My hands come up to my head, fingers hit my hairline before tangling around strands of loose, blood cover hair. I cry out for my loss, for the grief Liam’s death has shadowed my world with.

  This isn’t real.

  It can’t be.

  Where do we go from here?

  Because in my head the only way means leaving Lawson. I can’t deal with the weight of Liam’s death on my shoulders when I’ve barely managed to adjust to the heaviness of my father’s. My homecoming had forced Lawson to start losing sight, more so than Ashley’s addition to The Firm. Leo killed Liam to set a precedence.

  We’re all expendable.

  I always knew that brutal truth, but somewhere, deep within, the fact I was Joseph Roberts’ daughter somehow meant I was exempt from any malice attitude from The Firm itself.

  How wrong was I?

  How wrong me and Lawson were.

  We were not only foolishly in love; we were foolishly powerful.

  I close my eyes, but Lawson haunts me. In the moments after realizing Liam was dead in his arms, he turned feral, losing all manner of his being and turned into a monster. He went for his father, uncaring of consequence and threatened his father’s life.

  You thought I upset your perfect life. Just you watch – Lawson’s words would come back with regret, I knew it then, and I know it now. Lawson wouldn’t be able to do anything while the cloud of grief was cloaked so heavily around him. I wouldn’t allow him to do anything to jeopardize his life, regardless of how careless he became.

  I hear someone behind me, and from the soft set of their feet on the concrete slabs of the balcony I know they’re females.

  “Thought you could use this,” Ashley declares, holding a glass of whiskey over my shoulder.

  “What did you put in it?” I ask, my sarcasm dry.

  “Ice,” she mumbles, not reacting to my sarcasm.

  I take it, albeit begrudgingly, and mutter my gratitude.

  I wipe my face with my free hand, clear my throat and place the mask I grew to depend on. I don’t want Ashley to see any more of my weakness.

  “I won’t think any less of you for crying,” she tells me, moving around to face me. “He was your friend.”

  “He was more than my friend,” I say, bitter. “He was my family.”

  “So, I’m learning,” she says, and I can pick up her hesitancy. “He won’t let anyone in. I think maybe you could help.”

  “He won’t let me,” I tell her, remaining in my seat, my eyes set forward.

  “I think he will,” she tells me, sitting on the seating directly forward.

  “What makes you think that?” I ask, setting the glass onto the seat beside me. “Lawson just found that because I ran scared of his proposal, I got scarred for life and ran because I didn’t believe he could love me or look after me.” I give her a pointed look. “And to top it all off the man he confided into pretty much all of his life had been lyin’ to him for the better part of a year on my say so.” The bitter truths of the lives I’ve torn apart now gain clarity. “So, why would he want me?”

  “Because he still loves you,” Ashley admits, desolate emotions tweak her words. “And you’re the closest thing he has to Liam, now.”

  I lift a hand to my forehead, the pang of a headache starting to pound behind my eyes. I think of my bag back in the apartment, the one with my pills and know I need them. They lose focus when her final words hit me hard.

  I am to him what he is to me – the last link to Liam.

  “I was never back to reclaim my place,” I tell her, reaching for my glass as I begin to push myself toward the edge of my seat. “Regardless of how I behaved I knew it wasn’t goin’ to be easy just comin’ back home. I knew that was long gone. I was just back in the hope I’d find myself again.”

  With that said, I stand, taking myself back into the apartment, glass by my side as I walk. I walk passed my bag, tread carefully through the quiet of everyone’s heartache. I step into the hallway that leads to Lawson’s room, passed the devastation ripping us apart, the same destruction that threatens to pull us all apart finally and make my way to him.

  I come to stand in the doorway, frozen with fear, waiting for the invitation to get close to him.

  It never comes.

  Only silence rewards me, and I’m left looking in, watching over him and his broken heart.

  I scrutinize him from the distance between us as he lies insentient on the bed, his silence louder than any outrage he could’ve committed himself. Wiping my own eyes and pushing back my own grief, I set the glass down on the dresser just inside the door and cross the room. Without fear, I climb onto the end of the bed, crawling up until I’m able to lay before Lawson – right in the spot I used to sleep. While his eyes are open, they’re vacant, void of anything as he distances himself from what we witnessed.

  “We need to talk,” I whisper to him, reach out to wipe a tear that sits in the corner of his eye, unable to fall. “Liam-”
r />   “Is dead because of me,” Lawson utters, his voice completely wrecked.

  “No,” I whisper, finding myself unraveling. “No, he’s not, Lawson.”

  “He is,” Lawson defies my comfort. “Because of my bad behavior, he took a bullet.”

  That moment plays out in my head, the feel of the blood against the side of my face is a memory that hasn’t lost any clarity. I close my eyes, trying hard to forget but the visual brightens the tighter I close my eyes.

  “That was Leo’s doin’. That was your father’s doin’.”

  “He did it to prove a lesson to me,” he tells me, all life seemingly lost in him.

  “Maybe so, but that doesn’t make it your fault,” I tell him, watching the anguish in his eyes only grow by the second. “Leo will do anythin’ a sane man would hate.”

  “Well, he chose well,” Lawson remarks. “This world took you … now it’s taken, Liam. Who’s next?”

  I drop my gaze and begin to toy with a button on his shirt. The intimacy of the moment ices the pain in my heart, relieving my body of the ache death has warranted. I could get lost in Lawson Matthews – knew it, in the beginning, I’d know it at the end.

  He reaches out, the soft pad of his thumb runs across my cheek, forcing my eyes closed with nostalgia. It’s almost like he understands the feeling and grants himself a moment of calm. The problem is I’m not the fix to the problem here; I’m the drug that prevents the pain.

  Once upon a time, I believed he was the cure to me, and I was the remedy to him, but now I’m the drug he craves to make it through the night, and as much as it breaks my heart, I finally realize that Ashley could be the real cure. Once the grief lessens and Lawson opens his eyes, he’ll see the world – his world – with such an abundance of clarity he’ll know what he wants.

  And as much as the truth intimidates my survival, I’d die a thousand deaths for Lawson.

  The truth was bitterly beautiful.

  I wanted him to crawl inside of me, find the spot where I was most ruined and love me. I didn't want him to love my physical scars but the ones that brutalized my heart and blackened my soul.

  I wanted to be loved for the demons I held.

  Not the ones I play with.

  I wanted Lawson to see passed my weaknesses, see passed my flaws and remember the girl I was before I sinned without him.

  But that couldn't happen now.

  Maybe later.

  Maybe when we healed.

  But not now.

  Right now, he needed the chance to love again, to learn to live once more and remind himself that grief is a passing emotion.

  Lawson needed me gone.

  And while that took my careful plan and tore it into a million pieces, I would leave at his request.

  Because loving someone meant that you had to let them go. If I held on any longer, he would resent me more than he does and I couldn't cope with reaching a moment in my life where Lawson's love for me was tarnished to hate.

  My homecoming pained him, my constant appearance only angered him, and now he was grieving. He had no room to love me or hate me. He only had time to grieve the loss of Liam.

  And he deserved to.

  “You don’t need to suffer alone,” I whisper, preparing myself for what’s to come. “You have a family out there who are all at a loss after tonight.” His fingers graze the side of my cheek, and I struggle to remain true to plan. “You need them.”

  “What about you?” he asks, his voice raw.

  I sit up, uncaring of his tenderness. “I’ll find a way to survive.”

  “What?” he asks, pushing himself up onto his elbow. “Eden ...”

  “Don’t,” I stop him, looking down as tears beckon on my lashes. “Please, don’t make this harder on me.”

  “You’re leavin’?” he questions, that hardness of anger hits the back of his tone. “Why?”

  “Your world would be easier if I wasn’t in it,” I say, almost shamefully as I break my fragile heart more.

  “It wouldn’t be my world without you in it,” he confesses, his gentleness wraps around my grief.

  “But it will be, though,” I admit, softly. “You need to grieve … without me,” I admit, and my heartache breaks my voice. “I’m not good for you anymore.”

  “You don’t know what’s good for me anymore,” he tells me, unwilling to let me walk away again. “Don’t leave,” he begs, hands coming to capture my face, forcing me to stay. “Don’t go.” His breathing falters, his eyes lose their anger, falling straight back into the darkened orbs his anguish is forcing onto him. “I need you.”

  “Okay,” I agree, shallowing each inhale.

  It’s at this moment, his eyes meeting mine that I feel like every single moment is suspended around us, held up for the world to see. There’s life in his eyes as he realizes grief has met a fiend.

  Slowly, he draws me in, but quickly I lose myself. The past year vanishes, the pain disappears, as does every thought and feeling I’ve burnt through since leaving. Everything washes away until it’s just us left – him and me.

  “No,” I whisper, pushing him away until my lips are barely touching his. “Not like this,” I tell him, my words nothing more than a sweet mumble. “This is your grief talking. Don’t break hearts to make yourself feel better for five seconds, Lawson.”

  “You don’t love me, do you?” he says, and I know it’s his misery talking.

  “I do,” I mutter softly. “But I’m not the only one who feels that way. I’m not the only girl your heart beats for now.”

  “Ashley,” he whispers her name like it’s a litany and I see the conflict he dealt with before Liam’s demise still sit there, torturing him.

  “Yeah, Ashley,” I remind him. “The other girl you’re falling for.”

  “But I already fell for you,” he tells me.

  “Doesn’t stop your heart makin’ you love another,” I say, keeping my pain deep. “No one said it was a crime to love two people at once.”

  “I say it is,” he admits and I for once I see the guilt over the situation. “It would be all simple if you hadn’t have come home.”

  “Then I’ll go.”

  “If you leave,” he starts, a malice to his words. “You never come back. I never said I didn’t want you home. I just said it would have been simpler if you had never come home. But if you leave, don’t come back for me, Eden.”

  The Lawson I knew was gone. Dragged straight into the pit of hell I was barely surviving in. I opted to leave but never was this ultimatum one I thought I would have to deal with. That was never in the plan because I never expected him to feel much passed the fresh ache in him.

  “Lawson,” I exhale his name, this time my sorrow can’t be controlled.

  “No,” he stops me, sitting up straighter, suddenly more alert. “I let you walk away without fightin’ for you once … if you walk away, you’ll do so knowin’ I truly didn’t want you to leave.”

  “It’s what’s best for you,” I say, hoping he’ll see different. “I’m leaving to give you the chance to survive this.”

  “I barely survived without you before … can’t you see that?” he asks, his voice broken. “You’re like pure poison,” he tells me, his lips hover above mine once more. “My brand of sweet venom.” I resist kissing him, proving my agreement with that comment. “I crave you … always have.”

  “Always will,” I say, continuing what he said.

  He’s not the only one who got hooked on love.

  “Then why are you so eager to leave?” he asks, picking up on the things I never said.

  “Because I had a hand in how tonight ended,” I admit, shame wraps around each of my words. “Everything I touch falls apart. You said it to me once, and I now see it.”

  “No,” he starts, his whisper barely audible. “I was angry. You were gone, and then you were back. I was angry.”

  “I know,” I tell him and offer him a smile, trying to hide my sadness. “And I understood every
ounce of it. I put you in an impossible situation. I guess I did assume you’d see me and you’d forget about the past year and we’d just go back to where we were.” I breathe slower, reminding myself of the time I found out that Lawson was falling for another girl. “It didn’t happen like that.”

  “Because of Ashley,” he finishes my statement.

  “Yeah,” I bite monotonously. “So … you need me to go to heal properly.”

  “You leave … you don’t come back,” he says, reiterating his earlier ultimatum. “I mean it, Eden … I can’t live another day waitin’ for the day to come when you’ll decide to come home.”

  “You’re makin’ it impossible for me to do the right thing,” I tell him, my frustration burning into anger. “I want to do what I know is right for you, but I want to stay here and do what’s wrong.”

  “Being here isn’t wrong,” he tells me, furrowing his brow as he struggles to make sense.

  “It is!” I argue, almost grinding the words through gritted teeth. “You gave up a part of me to let her in, Lawson. Can you not see that?” I ask him, forcing the question onto him. “You gave yourself a chance to feel somethin’ for her. I saw it on that balcony the night I came back.”

  I’m caught in the throes of a constant struggle. It’s the same one I thought with when I decided it was time to come home. I wanted my life back, but when I heard about Ashley, I didn’t think it was worth it.

  Until Liam.

  His gut instinct told him not to trust her, and I told him he was crazy, but he was convinced she was no good to Lawson or to The Firm. I guess we’ll never know why he felt that way and I can’t now brandish the same claim without sounding like a complete lunatic driven to insanity over a lover’s quarrel.

  However, someone’s doubt overseeing someone’s feelings are two completely different things. Lawson looked free while he kissed her, he looked at ease. It reminded me of how we once were, and he deserved the chance to feel it all again. He deserved to get lost in love again.

  “I have to know somethin’ first,” I say, knowing I’m going to be forcing the conversation to change.