by Bella J.
“She died!” Scarlet cried out while he continued to shake her. “My sister died that day.”
Hunter stilled. “Did he—”
She shook her head. “No. But he might as well have.”
Scarlet cried so hard that Hunter had no other choice but to pull her hard against his chest. Dear God, this poor woman. The horror and the pain she had been through, and she still managed to stand strong. How the fuck did she do it?
“You listen to me, Scar, and you listen fucking carefully.” He pulled her face from his chest and held her cheeks in his palms. “I envy you because you are the strongest person I know. I wish I had your strength, your determination. But I don’t. After all you’ve been through you’re still here, still living. You’re still fucking human. You’re a survivor just like that tattoo says on the inside of your thigh. A survivor, Scarlet. I envy you because you’ve been to hell and back and you still. Fucking. Survived.”
Without thinking, he kissed her. He kissed her so hard, as if trying to remove all her pain, all her anger and torment with that one kiss. It was a bittersweet kiss mixed with the saltiness of her tears. If there was one thing he could wish for, it would be to take away every bad thing that had ever happened to this woman. To give her a life filled with nothing but love and laughter and joy. She deserved it. She. Fucking. Deserved it.
Scarlet pushed back and cried out in pain. Her demons were torturing her, killing her from the inside, and there was nothing he could do about it.
“It’s my fault she’s dead, and the only reason I choose to survive is because I don’t deserve to die. I deserve to live and be tortured by her memory, knowing that if it wasn’t for me, she would still be alive.”
“That’s bullshit.” Hunter shook his head. “That’s a bunch of horse crap and you know it.”
“Fuck you, Ace. You don’t know me. Just because we fucked and shared a few moments does not mean you know me, that you can analyze me and be right.”
He grabbed hold of her arm and yanked her toward him. “Your sister is dead because of that son of a bitch and what he did to you. It’s not your fault.”
“Stop saying that!” More tears, more cries, but Hunter refused to let go.
“Scarlet, stop. You can’t keep on torturing yourself like this.”
“He fucked up my entire family, and now he has everything. Even my home. My home, Ace. Bella Vista was my home, and now it’s his.”
Hunter froze. “What did you say?”
Scarlet wiped at her cheeks with her hand. “Bella Vista will never be home again. Brent has everything now right in the palms of his filthy hands.” She jerked her arm free from his hold and stormed up the stairs. Hunter’s entire body went numb and he didn’t even try to stop her.
Bella Vista. Blue. The estate with the huge-ass walls.
No. No, this can’t be…
This can’t be happening. This can’t be fucking happening. No way.
Hunter stared up the stairs, his mind trying to come up with just one other reason Scarlet would refer to Bella Vista as her home. Any other reason but the obvious.
Could it be? Could this really be?
Hunter pushed his hands through his hair, bending over like he was in physical pain. “Fuck!” Flashes of blue eyes and heart-shaped lips infested his mind, cracking his chest wide open. The clear blue eyes of the woman he lost…and the intense blue eyes of the woman he had found. It was impossible. Scarlet and Blue?
“What is this?”
Hunter looked up. Scarlet was standing a few feet from him, holding his silver chain with the Celtic symbol in her hand, dressed like she was ready to leave.
“Scar—” He stood up straight, not knowing if he wanted to scream or cry. Whether he wanted to wrap her in his arms or run as far away from her as possible. Right then it seemed like the latter.
“Tell me where you got this, Ace.”
Hunter sat down on the couch and let out a long sigh of defeat. “You know where I got it, don’t you, Scar?”
She lightly shook her head, the raw look of denial plastered on her face. “No.”
“Yes.” He dropped his gaze to the floor, unable to look at her any longer.
“How did Blue die, Ace?”
“Oh God. You know how she died, Scarlet,” he muttered.
“Answer me!” she shouted, her face as white as a ghost.
Hunter jumped up from the couch, a toxic mix of anger and confusion poisoning him from the inside. “A car accident, Scarlet. Blue died in a car accident.”
Scarlet remained unmoved. “What was her name?”
“Blue,” he answered almost inaudibly. “Her name was Blue.”
“Her real name, Hunter.”
She knew, goddammit. He could see it on her face. But she was going to make him say it. She was going to make him spell it all out for her even if it meant tearing him the fuck apart.
He stared at her, hating the fact that she was forcing him to say it, but he did anyway. “Willow.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Her name was Willow.”
The chain dropped from Scarlet’s hand like white hot coals, the sound of the metal hitting the floor echoing around them as if it was a ten-ton anchor that slammed in the ground. She gasped, holding her chest like all the wind had been knocked right out of her.
“Willow, was she your sister, Scar?” he asked softly, a part of him hoping like hell he was wrong about it all.
All she did was nod, more tears moving down her cheeks, and Hunter’s entire world got pulled from under him.
“Oh my God.” He pulled at his hair, staring up, thinking this was just another one of the universe’s sick, twisted games. But when he looked down, staring at Scarlet, he saw it. He saw all the similarities between Scar and Blue, the things he was too blind to see before. Now he knew why he had felt so drawn to Scarlet all this time—why he felt that familiar pull toward her. It was because of her. It was his connection to Blue that had been pulling him to Scarlet all this time.
What if these feelings he had toward Scarlet weren’t real at all? Was it because deep down inside he had known this all along? Was that why he had this unexplainable urge to protect Scarlet from the start?
And then his entire world came crashing down around him for a second time in his life.
It was all a lie. Everything he had shared with the woman in front of him was never fucking real.
He walked over to where she stood, crouched down, and picked up his chain laying on the floor. Somehow the silver trinket felt like it burned the skin of his hand, like he didn’t have the right to hold it anymore. It no longer represented his love for Blue, but rather had become the symbol of his fate…a cruel, hard, punishing fate of living a life alone. Of never being able to love again.
Scarlet’s soft whimpers filled his ears, and it sent a grueling ache smashing right in the center of his chest.
“Scar—”
The front door burst open at the same time the alarm started to go ape-shit.
Hunter didn’t think. He just reacted.
He grabbed Scarlet and pushed her to the side as two men came rushing through the door. Scarlet fell to the floor, and Hunter rushed over to the drawer where he stashed his gun. The second he turned around and aimed, he stared straight down the barrel of a gun pointed at his forehead. The guy in front of him staring down the barrel of Hunter’s gun.
The man cocked his head to the side. “There’s no need for that, son.”
“I think there kinda is when someone bursts through my door and aims a gun at my head,” Hunter replied dryly, his finger firmly on the trigger.
“There’s no time. We need to get her out of here.” He glanced at Scarlet, who slowly got up from the floor.
“Like hell we do.”
“They are on their way here right now looking for her. We don’t have time.”
Hunter glared at the guy with the shaven head and goatee, probably in his mid-forties. “Who the hell are you?”
The man looked fr
om Hunter to Scarlet, who stood silently watching them.
“I’m her father.”
THE END (To be continued)
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About the Author
All the way from Cape Town, South Africa, Bella J lives for the days when she’s able to retreat to her writer’s cave where she can get lost in her little pretend world of romance, love, and insanely hot heroes.
She has a taste for dark, romantic suspense novels with mysterious, brooding bad boys and strong, sassy women who bring them to their knees. Add a little humor and a lot of sexy, and she’s in writer’s Heaven.
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