Breaking Love (Broken Love #4)

by B. B. Reid

  “We need to tell Keiran.”

  “Keiran and Lake left for California this morning.

  Keenan’s shrug of his shoulders was nonchalant, but his voice was thick with authority. “Then I guess we’re taking a road trip.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DASH

  “FUCK, BABY. WHEN I get you in my bed, I want you naked and on my cock. Don’t make me wait, Lake.”

  I laughed at the thought of all the years that passed and Keiran still felt the need to threaten her.

  “Mhmm… I love you,” she cooed.

  Through the doorway, I could see Lake tugging open Keiran’s belt. The only sound that filled the house they had rented from a middle-aged couple was the sound of their heavy breathing and kissing. When it became painfully apparent that they wouldn’t make it to the bedroom after all, I cleared my throat. Keiran’s head snapped from biting Lake’s neck, and his dark orbs peered through the doorway getting angrier by the second.

  “Dudes. Get out.” Keiran was nothing short of annoyed to see everyone posted in his living room.

  “We need to talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk. I want to fuck. Leave my fucking key on your way out.”

  “Baby, don’t be rude.”

  Lake’s scolding earned her a glare to which she rolled her eyes. She’d come a long way from the cowering girl who feared the very thought of him.

  “Do you think you two can tone down the freakiness for a few minutes?” Keenan blew out exasperated. “We drove for hours in the middle of the night because this is important.”

  The serious tone from the generally playful Keenan had them straightening and cooperating.

  “What’s up?”

  “We have a lead on who took Kennedy and killed John.”

  “Who?”

  “Esmerelda.”

  “The entire organization was eradicated.”

  “Apparently, a few fishes slipped through.”

  “How do you know this?”

  I found myself pushing the answer through clenched teeth before Keenan could have the chance to continue. “Because she is the reason Willow crashed their wedding. She kidnapped her at the bus stop and threatened her into agreeing to kill you.”

  “Not again,” Lake whispered horrified. Keiran took her chin in his hand and whispered to her. It was too soft to hear, but whatever he said calmed her down.

  “We need to deal with this as soon as possible. I knew she was still out there, but I underestimated her. I never thought she’d come for me. “

  “Who exactly is Esmerelda to you?” Willow questioned.

  “She’s Arthur’s wife. She ran the runaway home they used as a front to trap kids on the street and buy the ones that were sold. The babies were kept there until they were old enough to move to the compound.”

  “Why does she want you dead?”

  “She’s a fugitive and her husband is dead for starters.”

  “What happens when Esmerelda is taken care of? How long before the next one comes along with another attempt to see Keiran dead?” Sheldon pointed out.

  “One crazy psycho at a time. First, we need to find Esmerelda.”

  “Willow,” Keiran addressed her with a hard look. “Where did they take you?”

  “I don’t know. I was drugged and they kept a bag over my head when they let me go. What I did see looked like a warehouse.”

  “Were you drugged when they released you?”

  “No.”

  “Can you remember how long the ride was?”

  “I’m not sure… maybe thirty minutes? I had walked for about two hours before you found me.”

  “We’ll need to figure out where she was left and search for any warehouses within a thirty-minute radius.”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone before?” Lake questioned. There was an unmistakable bite in her tone. Willow tensed under everyone’s stare as we all waited for her answer. It was an issue that had played at the back of my mind since she first told us. It had been three days since the wedding and Willow had countless opportunities to say something before now.

  Her chin lifted as she met Lake’s stare. “For the same reason you didn’t tell anyone when Keiran threatened your aunt’s life for shits and giggles.”

  “Careful, Willow.”

  She turned her icy gaze to Keiran. “When Esmerelda threatened my life, I simply left… or at least I tried.” She shot me a glare full of accusation. “The second time she took me, her men cut down Dash’s security effortlessly and then she threatened my family and everyone else I know. If you’re wondering if I thought about killing you, the answer is yes.”

  “So what made you change your mind?”

  “Sheldon told me what happened to Kennedy a few months ago, and it all sounded too familiar to not be connected. I realized there was more at stake than just my family.”

  The room fell silent when everyone retreated into their thoughts. I was mulling over the meaning of Willow’s decisions when Sheldon spoke.

  “Willow, I know it couldn’t have been an easy decision. A decision none of us could have made any easier,” Sheldon directed to the rest of us, warning not to condemn too quickly. “You risked your life and your family by sharing this information for my daughter. I only hope we can help protect you and your family in return.” Sheldon met my gaze issuing a warning and I nodded my head.

  “We will protect them,” Keiran agreed. “Right now, Willow is our only connection to catch them. As long as she’s alive we have a chance.”

  Keiran nodded his agreement. “How long did she give you?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “She just told you to kill me and nothing else?”

  She merely shrugged. I could tell she just wanted it all to be over, but I couldn’t muster sympathy for her. Willow had proven a second time that she couldn’t be trusted. Instead of confiding in me, she kept it to herself and even considered going through with it. It was a struggle to remain silent, but I would get my answers and my retribution for her lies when we were alone.

  If I was supposed to thank her for her mercy, she was wrong. My sister had been forgiving, but nothing in me could bring myself to forgive how she hadn’t trusted me and had intended to betray me.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WILLOW

  REGRET WAS SOMETHING I had become accustomed. Ever since I ran, I’ve lived with it every day. And now it seemed at every turn, I was adding to my list of things to regret. I saw the accusation, the anger, the distrust…

  I’d made the wrong decision and paid the consequences by further damaging my friendship with Lake.

  I excused myself to the bathroom when I couldn’t fake it with my head held high anymore. I splashed water on my face and pretended I wasn’t crying. I told myself I wouldn’t be a bad person and that from now on, I would only make good decisions, but I knew when I reentered reality, none of it would hold any weight.

  A knock on the door jolted me out my self-loathing. I became as stiff as a board and held my breath as if the person on the other side could actually hear.

  “Willow?” The feminine sound of Lake’s voice calling my name made me grip the counter. “I know you’re in there.” The doorknob turned as she knocked again.

  With a deep breath and then another, I unlocked and snatched open the door. “Yes?”

  “What was that down there?”

  “I don’t follow,” I answered slowly.

  She pushed into the bathroom and closed the door shut. “Who are you?” The pain was etched all over voice. “The Willow I know would never have kept such a dangerous secret like that and put lives in jeopardy.”

  “The Willow you knew isn’t standing here. You took what was left of her when you walked away for him.”

  “If you think it hurt watching me move to another school, then be thankful you never had to feel what it was like to find one day that your best friend was gone without a trace. I fucking mourned you, Willow. I didn’t leave because
I preferred him. I left because I needed him. I love him, Willow.”

  “And I needed you.” The volume of my voice increased with the overwhelming emotions raging inside. “He’s abused you since we were kids. You’re such a fucking masochist.”

  “I’m not living in the past like you. I forgave him for me.”

  “Have you? Why? Has he even apologized or did he just make you a bunch of promises that sounded good?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know what he did to you.”

  “No one knows better than me.” Her tone took on a harder edge, and I could tell the pain was still there despite all their happily ever after bullshit.

  “And what about what he did to me?”

  “What Keiran did was despicable, but he didn’t make you fuck Dash and he didn’t make you fall in love. You did it because you wanted to and because your heart craved Dash. The start may have been false, but the journey was real.”

  I searched for a spot on the wall and fixated on it. I couldn’t stand to look in Lake’s unusual eyes and not give in.

  “This great love you speak of tormented you for ten years and did unthinkable things to you for entertainment. In every war, there are casualties and people get hurt. I was one of them. It was one thing to fall in love, but it was unbearable to watch you ride off into the sunset with him. You never even thought to help me learn how to heal as I did for you. Did you forget? I dried every one of your tears and shared your pain so you could find the strength to face the next day only to be knocked down again. And now you’re actually trying to convince me that it was love? Well, I found and lost my only chance at love because of him. I won’t forgive him. Not even for me. The pain serves me much better. It reminds me I’m alive, and it’s love that destroys you.”

  Lake watched me with sad eyes and then shook her head, defeated. She turned to grasp the door handle to leave but turned back at the last minute. “You didn’t lose him,” she shot back forcefully. “You let him go.”

  Once she was gone, I shut the door and slid down the wooden length until I sat on the wooden floor. I never realized how long four years truly was until I saw up close how much Lake had changed. I couldn’t say if it were for better or worse, but womanhood definitely agreed with her. Maybe I was the only one holding on to my emotions from high school, but that didn’t make them any less painful.

  I angrily wiped away the tears streaking down my face and composed myself. In just a few days, I could go home. Now that they knew of the threat, I would be able to leave will a full conscious. I had considered killing Keiran but now knew it wasn’t something I could ever do. Despite my feelings toward him, some people cared for him and would mourn or suffer from the loss of him, including Kennedy. Including my best friend. The first person I loved who didn’t share my blood.

  I finally found the courage to leave the bathroom, and when I opened the door, I found someone waiting.

  “Standing outside the door while someone uses the bathroom is a tad creepy.”

  “You weren’t using the bathroom. I heard you crying.”

  “Yeah, sometimes I do that when I really have to pee.”

  “Willow.”

  Keiran’s warning was simple but held a lot of weight. “I suppose you’re here to tell me what a bad person I am, too. Let me just save you the breath. I agreed to kill you for the sake of my family and so they wouldn’t kill me on the spot and slaughter them anyway. If I would have gone through with it to protect them is something we’ll never know, but I can say I don’t want you dead. I don’t like you, but Lake thinks she’s happy with you, and I haven’t been a model friend since I left so my opinion doesn’t really matter. I thought for someone who’s killed without reason, you’d understand my plight.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “Because you’re a saint?”

  “Because I’ve never killed without reason.” The underlying threat was as clear as if he had shouted it.

  “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t come back here with some vendetta against you.”

  “Then why did you come back?”

  “I wanted to see my mother.”

  “You hate your mother.”

  “What do you know about how I feel about my mother?”

  “Because I know what it looks like.” He pushed off the wall and took away some of the same distance I had kept between us. “It’s written in your eyes when you talk about her.”

  “I never talk about her.”

  “Exactly. It’s why you never learned how to hide the truth.”

  “What do you want?”

  “My gut is telling me to kill you, but I don’t know if it’s instincts or the slave driving me to the conclusion.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “I warn you.”

  “I thought you didn’t kill without reason.”

  “I don’t… so tread carefully, Willow.”

  He left me standing alone, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t shook.

  “He’ll do it.” Dash’s voice pulled me out of my funk. “He’s serious. You know that.”

  “I’m not afraid of him,” I lied.

  “That’s the problem. You should be.”

  “Just because you are—”

  Dash shook his head and looked away. “I’m not afraid of him.”

  “Then why do you follow him?”

  He barked a laugh. “Is that what you think? I’m Keiran’s friend because he needs me. Maybe more than I need him. But what I am afraid of is losing our friendship.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if he hurt you, I’d kill him.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “You wouldn’t do that.” I denied it, but the look in his eyes suggested it was true.

  He shrugged. “He would do the same for Lake.”

  “Would he?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  I rested my head against the bathroom door to ease the spinning. “Then your friendship is no friendship.”

  “I’ve been friends with Keiran for a long time. In the beginning, I tolerated, overlooked and made excuses for everything he’d do until I realized why he needed me and why I felt I had to be friends with someone so troubled. He needed a moral compass. A conscience. Someone to tell him to ease back. I couldn’t stop him, but I figured out he listens… sometimes.”

  “Big help you were. Where were you with your super power when he tormented my friend?”

  “Keeping him from literally killing her.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “I protect you both.”

  * * *

  There was no way we could take the long drive back to Six Forks so we camped out at Keiran and Lake’s for the night. Kennedy had been left with Sheldon’s parents so they stayed as well. There was only one extra bedroom open, the other occupied as Keiran’s office, so Keenan and Sheldon took the bedroom and we took the living room.

  I watched Dash make a pallet on the floor from my perch on the couch. There was enough room on the couch to fit the both of us so it completely took me by surprise when he didn’t insist. The hard look on his face told me it had nothing to do with chivalry.

  He didn’t want to be close to me.

  I should have been grateful or relieved. Instead, I felt slighted.

  When he finished and lay down, he looked completely out of place for someone who wore thousand dollar suits. He’d shed his jacket and shirt and crossed his arms behind his head, making his impressive chest and abs even more prominent.

  “So are you sleeping on the floor because of your fiancé?” I waited, but he didn’t respond. The muscles of his jaw clenched, telling me he was awake. “I have to say it’s pretty pathetic. You weren’t concerned with her feelings before I knew about her.” I waited and got nothing. Not even a twitch this time. I didn’t stop to consider the consequences of baiting him. “I wonder how many times you’ve cheated on her.”

  “Her? Or do you m
ean you?”

  “Why would I mean me? I’m nothing to you.”

  “If you believe that, then why are you upset I’m not up there with you? Is it because you want me to touch you?”

  “Get over yourself.”

  “Or would you rather touch me?”

  “I would rather swallow nails than touch you.”

  “Fine.”

  When he brought his hands down to his pants, I suddenly felt as if I hadn’t had a drop of water to drink for centuries. “What are you doing?”

  “What you’re too afraid to do.” I swallowed hard at the sound of his zipper lowering. It was dark with only the moonlight streaming through the windows.

  “Dash, no.”

  “It’s too late to say no, Angel.” He lifted his ass and slid his pants down to rest on his hips. His cock sprung free and bobbed against this taut stomach when he settled back on the makeshift bed.

  As soon as he did, he brought his hand up to his mouth and spit. He then slowly grasped his cock around the head and squeezed. I found my legs mimicking the action and closing tight.

  Stop watching him!

  I couldn’t find the willpower to tear my eyes away. I knew without taking my eyes away from his cock that he watched me watch me.

  “Fuck,” he grunted and I sat up. I leaned forward and clutched the edge of the couch as his hand worked his thick cock. His lips curled showcasing his pearly whites. His hips rocked subtly. All the while, his heated gaze pinned me to my seat.

  I could feel the sweat between my thighs increase as my body temperature rose. I couldn’t believe he was really pleasuring himself and making me watch.

  I was panting by the time I found my voice. “Dash—” I lost my breath at the sight of pre-cum leaking from the tip of his cock.

  “This feels good, Angel. So. Fucking. Good.”

  The twinkle in his eye as he bit down on his bottom lip told me he enjoyed teasing me. The thought snapped me out of my helpless state though I was still overcome with lust.

  But if he wanted to push, I’d push back.

  “How good?” I didn’t miss the shock in his eyes at my unexpected question. “Does it feel as good as me?” I asked before he could answer.