Trust

by Casey Diam

  The vehicle slammed into my side of the car with a loud bang, the tires screeching as we spun around. My head whipped from side to side and then smacked into something hard.

  Images of my childhood flashed before mine eyes.

  Reese, Alaina, and I racing down the grand staircase to open our presents at Christmas...

  Reese, Alaina, and I sprawling out on a bed, talking about everything—boys, college, graduation, music, the future...

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Caleb

  Unfastening my seat belt, I kept my eyes on Paige. She was unconsciousness in the passenger seat, and judging from her position against the B-pillar, she’d hit her head where the seatbelt was anchored. I pressed on her seat belt’s release button and scanned her body for any other obvious injuries.

  Pressing two fingers to her neck, I felt the tick of her pulse and sighed. “Paige. Baby, I need you to wake up.”

  The roads were unoccupied of any other vehicles, except for the SUV that had crashed into us. Glancing to the back, I saw my rear window was spiderwebbed all over. Strong winds whistled outside, and the traffic lights over the intersection swayed back and forth.

  The tornado warning.

  I smoothed my palm over the right side of her cheek against the door and felt something wet and slippery.

  Blood.

  “Paige.”

  My reflexes had been off, and if I hadn’t jammed my foot on the gas pedal the moment I saw the SUV heading for us, the vehicle would have slammed right into Paige’s door instead of the tail. Glimpsing a light, I lifted my eyes to the same SUV advancing toward us in the middle of the intersection. A man hopped out, and my heartbeat sped up. The way he moved was too familiar. The dark-tinted SUV was too fucking familiar. My gut twisted. Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t just an accident.

  Everything started to replay in my head from the moment I’d picked up my phone at the hotel and drove to Chelsey’s apartment. I could have easily been followed. I’d been too preoccupied with getting in contact with Paige, then dealing with her friends over the phone. And on our way back, I’d been too distracted with her.

  Fuck, and that cop from the highway.

  She was the last person who’d seen me, who’d known my exact location. With that, Connor’s men could have easily pinpointed where I would have exited the highway to reach this convenient intersection. Could my father really have had a cop on his payroll? Shit, I didn’t want that train of thought to be accurate because, if it was, Connor’s men would be inside that SUV.

  My phone had flown somewhere in the vehicle from the impact, so I couldn’t call anyone this second. Anyone meaning Calvin and his guys. They were the only ones I trusted. My dad couldn’t find out about Paige, not yet.

  To make matters worse, his package should have been sitting on his desk over an hour ago. So, it was no wonder this was happening. Reaching under my seat to the pocket embedded under there, I removed the 9mm along with the metal rod suppressor. As I screwed on the suppressor, the man approached Paige’s door, but he couldn’t see a thing inside with the zero percent dark tints on my windows. My finger slid into the curve of my door lever, and as I pulled, I shoved my door open. The wind whipped against my face and blew my tie over my shoulder, but the rain was only a drizzle now.

  The man’s head shot up, and I glared over the roof at him. A baseball cap was pulled low over his forehead, so all I could see was a slit of his eyes and the round cheeks beneath. I didn’t recognize him as one of my father’s men, but I didn’t know half of them anyway.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Just checking to see that you guys are okay. That was quite a hit.”

  You guys? How does he know there’s someone else inside?

  It was impossible to see inside my car at one o’clock in the afternoon, much less at one in the morning.

  “I’m good. Thanks.”

  One of his shoulders moved back like it would if he was drawing a weapon.

  My jaw tightened. “What do you want?”

  A white car skidded to a stop in the middle of the intersection. “Is everyone okay?” a lady yelled from her half-opened window.

  “Yes, we’re fine. Just exchanging insurance,” the man yelled, backing away from my car and to the black SUV behind him. “It’s four of us against you and your little girlfriend. How is she, by the way?”

  My teeth clenched. I was right. He did work for my father, and this hadn’t been an accident. For that alone, my fingers itched to pull the trigger on this prick.

  “What do you want?”

  “Payback for getting in the way. A million dollars cash—unless you want the boss to find out about your meddling with his package.”

  I knew he wasn’t talking about the package in the trunk, and it pissed me off that he was referring to Paige as such. Even if the cop had something to do with Connor’s men knowing my whereabouts, she hadn’t asked for Paige’s ID. Paige was still in the clear. They might have known someone was with me, but they had no proof it was Paige.

  “You’re going to have to elaborate because I do have a package in the trunk for A.C., and, man, he’s going to love this carelessness,” I gibed.

  “You’re the slow one, aren’t you? That’s a low value compared to the other—”

  “Other what? You have something against one of my friends? Anyway, I already dropped her off, and you’re an idiot because your boss hates fuckups.” An evil grin crossed my lips. “And guess what you just did?”

  “No, you’re lying.”

  “Why don’t you give that cop you paid off a call and ask her the name of the girl I was with?”

  “Our information is always valid.”

  He wasn’t denying the cop.

  He rushed back to Paige’s door and yanked it open the same time I raised my weapon and fired one untraceable bullet into his upper arm. He grimaced, clutching where the bullet had pierced.

  “I suggest you back away, or the next one will be in your head.”

  “But she was with—”

  I pointed the pistol at his head, surprised by my lack of emotion as I aimed to kill. “What did I say?”

  “We thought...” Confusion and shock registered in his eyes as if he hadn’t seen Paige sitting in the front seat, which was weird since she should have been there. Also, why had this guy sounded so sure of himself. Like it had been confirmed that I was with someone. My mind lingered on the cop again.

  If she’s on Connor’s payroll, I need to know for a fact.

  I needed know who and what I would be up against.

  The SUV’s driver’s window rolled down, and an even more familiar face stared back at me.

  Brad.

  “You fucking asshole,” I seethed.

  “Oh, calm down. Idiot, get in. Apparently, this pussy has finally grown some balls, and I’m assuming you want to live tonight.”

  “Why?” I asked through gritted teeth, my eyes firing daggers at my brother, no longer the other dickhead climbing into the SUV.

  “I was bored, and I had a hunch.”

  “A hunch about what? Who are you looking for?”

  “No one.”

  “So you guys are working with the cops now?”

  He cocked his head. “Just when you think there’s someone you can trust. Who will you run to now, brother?”

  The vehicle’s engine revved, and tires squealed as my brother sped off, running the red light ahead of him.

  Remembering Paige, I ducked back inside the car to find her on the floor of the backseat, disguised beneath my jacket and her hoodie.

  I sighed.

  Fuck, what am I going to tell her now?

  I wished she hadn’t been in the car with me, but she was. Placing the weapon at my feet, I stretched across to pull her door closed and then turned on the light to search for my phone. It wasn’t anywhere in sight, so I felt around the floor beneath my seat until I felt the hard tip of it. Putting the car in drive, I waited for the light to ch
ange before I turned into the direction I had been going, the rear bumper dragging on the ground behind me.

  I’d been a witness to brutality more than once, but I’d never had to shoot anyone. I’d never cared to, no matter how much they’d tortured someone else in front of me as added incentive to carry out the task. Yet, tonight, it had been an easy decision, and I probably would’ve killed him if he’d found Paige in my car and tried to take her. I knew I would have. I felt it. A raw, savage emotion I’d never felt until tonight.

  No remorse for the man I’d shot.

  No remorse for the guy I’d punched.

  How fucking ironic that I’d become the man my father wanted me to be but for the girl he wanted dead. I’d never wanted to protect anyone like this.

  I dragged my thoughts back to the loose ends still dwindling in the stormy night as the rear bumper scraped along the boulevard. With my impulsive brother involved, there was no telling what could happen. I needed to call Calvin because she would never agree to come back to my place after everything she’d witnessed tonight, and those heartless pigs would be lurking around her apartment, which meant I couldn’t take her to that neighborhood.

  Paige, fuck...

  I’d been so caught up with everything spiraling out of control and needing to leave the intersection before the cops showed up that I’d forgotten to tell her we were okay.

  How could I have left her in the backseat like that?

  A hand brushed the top of my hair, and I went rigid.

  Shit.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Paige

  My palm lowered and clasped the warm skin of Caleb’s forehead as I pulled his head back to the headrest and placed the sharp edge of my knife to his throat.

  Pushing the splitting headache to the back of my mind, I muttered, “You’re one of them.”

  The weapon I’d spotted in his hand after I became alert was enough to bring me to this point. Not only that, but I hadn’t had to see when it happened to know that he’d shot that man tonight. I hadn’t placed the sound at fifteen years old, but it was the same stifled blow I’d heard in the mansion right before my sister stopped screaming.

  “Paige, don’t. It isn’t what you think.”

  I didn’t want to hurt him, but after everything I’d heard, I had to protect myself. I was all I had.

  “They knew you, knew I was with you, but you also lied. What are you doing, Caleb?” I asked. “Having a little fun before you hand me over to the rest of the boys?”

  The meaning behind my own words skirted around the throbbing ache in my head, and I was thankful because I didn’t want to think about the magnitude of his betrayal. That accident had been no coincidence. Someone in the other vehicle had been looking for me, and they had known who Caleb was. Caleb might not have been old enough back then to be involved with my family’s deaths, but he was associated with those same men. And who knew how many others they were still targeting, still killing?

  He’d been trying to get closer to me, but they could be different from my reasons for wanting to be close to him. Because he was working for them.

  “Paige, be careful with that knife.”

  “Answer my questions.” I looked at the unfamiliar road ahead of us. “Where are you taking me? Pull over.”

  “Tell me what this is about. If you’d just talk to me, I could help you.”

  The obnoxious scraping coming from the vehicle aggravated the pain in my head.

  “Pull over,” I commanded.

  “I would never hurt you.”

  “Pull over!”

  “Paige, think about it. You know me.”

  “But I don’t! So, unless you want my knife cutting into your throat, Caleb—or whoever you say you are—you’d better pull over. Now!”

  As I drew in a breath, the last part of his conversation with the guys at the intersection came back to me.

  “Who are you looking for?”

  Why would he have asked them who they were looking for if he was working with them? Why would he have tried to pretend he was alone in the car? Why would he have shot that guy? Was he really trying to protect me? And, if he was, how did he know I needed protection?

  The car came to a halt in a suburban neighborhood, and I shuddered inside while I tried to keep my hand steady.

  “Are you truly capable of doing this?” Caleb asked, his voice warm and soothing.

  It reminded me of the guy I’d been sleeping with, the guy who’d been so patient with my craziness. I’d bet he was regretting the day he’d stopped me in that coffee shop. Using the last bit of my temper, I cursed the overwhelming guilt. The only certain thing in this life was that I couldn’t trust anyone. Not even myself. So, could I do this?

  “You have no idea,” I told him.

  “I might deserve this but not from you, Paige. I’ve done nothing but try to protect you, try to get to know you.”

  As my rage tempered, his words began to sink in. He had tried to protect me, but why?

  Damn it, why isn’t anything making sense?

  An excruciating pain hammered into the right side of my skull, and I cringed, removing the knife from his neck before I unintentionally harmed him. I dropped back into the seat, causing my head to bang against the headrest, and I squeezed my eyes shut. There was no way I could continue to analyze everything through the throbbing ache in my head.

  “Hand me your gun,” I said, my voice low.

  “I’m removing the magazine first.”

  “Fine, but if I was going to kill you, you’d already be dead.”

  The sound of metal sliding against each other and clicking back into place was the only response I got from him. At which point, I leaned forward between the driver seat and passenger seat to watch him. The glow coming down from the streetlights was enough for me to see what he was doing. I wasn’t planning to kill him, but I couldn’t leave him with the opportunity to kill me either.

  He turned his head, and when his eyes met mine, my insides dissolved.

  What have I done?

  I looked down at his lap, not wanting to see the gaping wound in his eyes.

  “Take it apart and hand me the firing pin.”

  Caleb might claim he didn’t want to hurt me, but he knew the men who did, and with that in mind, I’d be stupid to stick around for a finale. I needed to run. Needed to disappear. Because, this time, I hadn’t imagined it. The demons who had been haunting me for years had finally caught up with me.

  The five seconds it took him to hand over the firing pin and the other five it took for him to reassemble the weapon were proof of his skills. Skills that he’d been hiding from me.

  Still avoiding his eyes, I swallowed. “Open my door. All the way.”

  He stretched across and shoved the passenger door open, and I moved behind the seat and pressed the button, gliding the seat forward. My escape would have been so much easier if he’d been a normal jerk like Ian, who drove his girlfriend’s four-door car. I shook my head, and the movement intensified the ache pressing against my forehead.

  “Drive away when I close the door. And stay away from me.” I paused before stepping out.

  What am I doing?

  He knew who was after me. If I knew who they were, too, it might lead me to the person who’d put a hit on my family. On the other hand, it wasn’t as if I didn’t have his number. I could call him for information later in the week. Right then, the faster I got away from him, the safer it was for me. As that plan took root, I got out and closed the door but kept my hand on the car for balance.

  The wind outside was stronger than normal, and my head felt like it was being hit over and over again with a wrecking ball. Backing away, I brought a hand up to my forehead and staggered off to the side, struggling to see straight.

  “Yes,” I forced out.

  Was that Caleb? Hadn’t he driven away like I’d told him to? The more I tried to process things, the harder the pain bashed into my head.

  “Are you okay?”
>
  A hand touched my arm, and I yanked away, tipping off-balance but was quickly pulled into a hard chest.

  “Go away.”

  “You hit your head. You need to go to the hospital.”

  “No. It’s fine,” I bit out. “Leave me alone.” My voice plunged into a defeated tone as I remembered what I had done to him and how he was still trying to help me. “I need you to leave, please.”

  “At least let me call you a cab.”

  “No, just go,” I groaned as a lightning bolt struck the right side of my forehead. I drew in a sharp breath.

  “Paige, please, let me help you. I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “No hospital. No.” I hadn’t had health insurance since I turned eighteen. One of the more irresponsible decisions in my life. But I’d be fine. I was just a little woozy.

  A gentle finger stroked a sore point on my head, and I flinched.

  “You’re still bleeding.”

  I jerked my head. “I’m fine.”

  His hand guided my head to rest against his chest, and with the support, the pain seemed to ease, so I stopped fighting, but only for a moment. Because then I heard him talking on the phone.

  “Hey, I know it’s late, man, but I need a favor. I just shared my location with you. Can you send one of the guys to meet me here with your car? I need to borrow it, and whoever you send can take mine. I’ll give you further instructions when you get here... Yeah... that would work too. That’s even better. Thanks, man.”

  I supposed he started talking to me, but I was only catching every other word through the throbbing in my head as I tried to pull away.

  “Hospital. Don’t know... bad... hit... and you... pain... can’t be good.”

  “I told you, I can’t go to the hospital. I’ll be fine. I don’t need you. I don’t need your help,” I lied, forcing him away.

  Even though I needed him, I didn’t want to. I wanted to despise him for the connections he had to those men. For all the cruel things he probably did for them. But I couldn’t. Not after the moments I’d shared with him, and I hated him for that. I hated him for putting me in this position because I felt weak. I had already become used to his presence in my life and the comforting heat radiating off his body, lulling me to sleep at night.