“I know you don’t, baby, but the sooner, the better.” He lays his hand over his heart, and the white’s of his eyes turn red as he removes his palm from his chest and presses it over mine. Asher leaves enough space, so his skin isn’t touching mine, just air, but the gesture has a microscopic piece of my anger slipping away. “I’ll be here if you need me.”
“Yeah?” I sneer, preparing to shut the door. “Where were you for those six years when I needed you most?” I slam the door shut in his face, spin around, and slide down the smooth wood until my butt hits the floor. Bringing my legs to my chest, I wrap my arms around them and bury my face in my thighs, and cry.
I need to stop blaming the world. Asher, Jolie, Sebastian, the real person who deserves the blame is me.
If I wasn’t visiting Grace, if I was wearing something else, maybe a dress that wasn’t so snug, if I didn’t go alone, maybe none of this would have happened.
What goes around comes around, I suppose.
I did lie under oath, ruined a man’s life, and now I’m here, in his house, after the worst thing imaginable has happened to me.
If that isn’t karma, I don’t know what is.
Did I deserve this all along?
Three
Heaven
Staring at that closed door reminds me of a dream I had last night. Granted, it wasn’t a door I was looking at, but the closed iron bars of a prison cell. I press my forehead against the barrier between us.
Another damn barrier after so many years of being forced to be away from her, I have another one to charge through. I’ll do it. I’ll do it every time. I won’t stop now. I can’t now that she is here. Quitting would be pointless, especially now that she is here, but circumstances…
Fuck!
The circumstances are beyond climbing over.
How can I earn her trust after everything she has been through? It’s why I let her hit me. Hell, I know I shouldn’t, but I’d let her beat the fuck out of me if it made her feel better. I can’t imagine what kind of pain she’s been holding inside, and a lot of that does have to do with me because she testified against an innocent man, and I know in my gut that she knows that.
She’s lost.
I’m going to find her and bring her home.
A place she has belonged since I’ve known her since I was fourteen.
She’s more than a quick glance, a stammering conversation, a movie date; she’s the kind of woman a man spends forever with. I’m going to be that man. I have my work cut out for me, but I don’t care what it takes.
I’ll break.
I’ll bleed.
I’ll kill.
Whatever she wants me to do for her, I’ll do if it means this door is no longer between us.
“You have a lot of explaining to do, Heaven,” Sebastian says from my right, crossing his arms and legs as he leans his shoulder against the wall.
“Do I have to?” I pout, not wanting to leave this area. What if she opens the door and she wants to talk to me? I have to be here.
“Considering you know the woman— more than know— the woman staying in that room, especially with what she has been through, I think it makes sense that you tell us, so we aren’t taken by surprise by anything. I don’t know, like…” Sebastian ponders, tapping his chin as he profoundly thinks about how to save me.
Eye roll.
“Like getting slapped in the middle of the hallway or maybe we will find you two making out next—”
“—Don’t,” I point my finger into his face and crowd his body as the need to protect Heather surges through me. “Don’t talk like that. I don’t expect anything. I do not want that from her, not right now, and if not ever, fine. I came to the conclusion when I was seventeen that I wouldn’t have a chance with Heather Thomas. If I have to make do with living the rest of my life without her, then I’ll do that because that is what she wants. It’s always about what she wants.” I push by him and walk down the hall, passing a new picture on the wall of all of the team. Quinn was super pregnant in this picture. She looked miserable, poor thing. I turn my head over my shoulder, wanting to make sure I add one more thing so Sebastian doesn’t think I’m crazy. “Now, if she wants to kiss me, that’s another story,” I say calmly. “Obviously, I’d kiss her back, but only if that is what she wanted.”
Sebastian chuckles and kicks the wall to push himself off. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
I mock him, and I thought I hid the childish gesture, but I didn’t. He hits me on the back of the head, and I stick out my bottom lip in a tantrum.
“Toughen up. I doubt Jaxon will be as easy on you.”
“Psh, easy is my last name. I guarantee you I get a warning.”
“Fifty bucks,” he bets, sticking out his hand to seal the deal.
“One-hundred and a basket of chocolate muffins.”
He eyes me, debating if I’m serious or worth it.
I’m both.
I’m always worth it.
“Fine.”
Ha. Sucker.
While poking fun is a good time, I know what Sebastian is trying to do. He wants to take my mind off what just happened. I appreciate it. It’s needed. The woman I was in love with when I was a teenager is here, under this roof, and I finally have the ability to show her the kind of man I am.
When I saw Heather’s name on the news earlier as I drank my coffee and ate my muffin, I wondered if the woman here was her. When I saw her college graduate photo posted on the local news, I put two and two together. How many women are named Heather and have been missing for a few months?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say not many.
When the thought hit me, I don’t remember getting up and running to the room I knew our guest was in. My heart dropped to my feet though, and terror, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, paralyzed me. I didn’t want her to be behind that door, but I knew.
People always know; they just choose to listen to something other than their instincts. If everyone listened to the first warning sign their body told them, I’d bet anything they wouldn’t get into half the trouble or experience so much heartbreak. That’s what is so beautiful about being a human, that while we have logic, we are emotionally driven. Every thought, every decision comes from a feeling.
We like to deny that the human race is anything but emotional, but we are cold, violent, and mean, yet we can be loving and kind.
Everything is emotionally fueled, and when I stared at the door, my idea turned into fact. I just knew I had to get in that room, but when she opened the door, dread filled me because I hated my instincts were right.
The way she looked at me…
I want to experience that singular moment forever in my mind. The one where her eyes said she couldn’t believe she was seeing me, the relief, the flickering second of trust, and then she leaned on me for strength because someone drained hers.
I’ll be her strength whenever she wants me to be, wherever she wants me to be, and how she wants me to be. Any way she needs me, I am here. I don’t know what will happen with us. Probably nothing because she’s always been way too damn good for me, and I don’t deserve her, but I want to show her that I want to be.
I’ll be here. A year from now, ten years from now, whenever she is ready, I’ll be here waiting because Heather Thomas has been the only woman that has ever made me wonder what it would be like to fall in love. Not just with anyone.
With her.
When I get to the kitchen, I pause when all eyes turn on me. My foot is in the air, freezing, afraid to move or touch the ground, or my friends will charge at me. Sebastian chuckles as he walks by me.
“Do I have something on my face?” I ask, wiping my cheek. Have I been talking to the woman that I’ve been in love with since day one with fucking blueberry muffin crumbs on me? No one wanted to tell me? No one?
Fucking rude.
“Just being in looooove,” Gabriella singsongs.
“Heaven and Heather sitting in
a tree,” Finley begins to sing, but I run up to her and slam my hand over her mouth, horrified at what she was about to say. She is muttering now, but that’s fine. She can mutter away for all I care because I don’t want anyone thinking just because Heather is here, I’m automatically going to try to be with her.
I’m not.
She has a lot of healing to do, and it’s obvious the last thing she needs is me trying to date her.
No, I’m sorry. I don’t want to date her. That’s teenage shit.
I want to marry her.
It’s always been her. It always will be.
A shadow falls over me, and I know who it is without even looking. It’s Grayson. His big, looming self stands behind Finely and places a hand on her stomach protectively. She’s recently pregnant, too, and Grayson has turned into a caveman. Huffing and puffing, grunting when anyone gets too close to her. He doesn’t let her lift a coffee mug because he is so afraid, she will hurt herself.
“Get your hand off my wife’s mouth right now, Heaven.”
His tone implies that if I don’t, he will remove it for me.
Dropping my hand, Finley goes to sing again, but I shake my head. “Please, don’t. I don’t want to risk Heather hearing it. It isn’t a time to joke or poke fun. This isn’t a cause for celebration. One of my oldest friends just went through the worst thing someone could ever go through. My feelings for her don’t matter.”
“They matter. How can you say that?” Quinn says sleepily. She has dark bags under her eyes, and only half of her hair is up in her ponytail while the other half has fallen out of it. She looks like she just rolled out of bed, but I know she hasn’t been. “Now isn’t the time to act on them, you’re right, but there is a story here, and I can’t believe out of everything we know about you, we don’t know about Heather.”
“She seems very sweet,” Jolie says sadly, stirring the cup of tea with a small, gold spoon. “I hope what’s happened doesn’t change that.”
“It will. It has,” I reply and saunter to the couch to sit down. I’ve been sucking up the pain, so Heather didn’t find me weak. Her pain is worse than mine. At least physical pain someone can witness healing, mental pain? No one can see it but you. I groan, happy as a clam when my sore back hits the cushion of the couch.
“You’re bleeding,” Owen points to the middle of my shirt.
I glance down and scoff. “Well, why don’t you look at it?” It must have happened when Heather sagged against me. I don’t care about blood or pain. As long as it helped her feel better, that’s all I care about.
But since I’m not around her anymore and in front of my friends, I can now act like a wimp. I slump my head onto the back of the couch when the pain has sweat breaking out from every pore of my body.
“My god, Heaven. Why did you push yourself like that?” Owen runs to the kitchen and opens the cabinet to grab the emergency first-aid kit while Jolie gets up from the barstool she is sitting at and snags the plaid blanket off the back of the couch, then throws it over me because while I’m sweating, I’m also cold.
A sign of infection, but I’ve been taking the pills like Owen tells me to, so if I am sick, it isn’t my fault. I followed the instructions.
“Because I needed to know it was her. After I watched the news, I had to know for myself. She needed me, so I had to become what she needed. I’d do it all over again too.” I hiss when Owen lifts my shirt and lifts it over my head. “Listen, I like you Owen, but just as a friend. The way you take off clothes…”
“Shut up, Heaven,” Owen chuckles as he pries the bandage off, tearing out some of my chest hair too with the tape. I hiss again, and Owen deadpans me with an annoyed expression.
“What? It hurts,” I mumble.
“How did you survive glass through the chest when you bitch about hair being tugged—”
“—Not tugged,” I correct him. “Yanked. It yanks, like damn wax.”
Owen inspects the wound and nods when he comes to a conclusion. That’s good. Nodding is always a positive sign. “You’ve torn about five stitches. I’ll numb you up and fix them, okay?”
“You can’t put me out or something?” I dare to ask. “I’m kidding, jeez.” I hold up my hands in surrender when he looks like the way he will put me out is if he punches me in the face.
“So,” Quinn says, holding Holt in her arms as she sits down on the loveseat in front of me. “How do you know Heather?”
“Damn it, Owen!” I clutch the leather when he shoves the needle directly into the exposed wound. “That fucking hurts!”
“No shit.”
I grit my teeth as he pokes it into my skin a few more times until the area is completely numb. “I know Heather from school when we were teenagers. Our families ran in the same circle.”
Jaxon coughs as he takes a swig of coffee because he is the only one who knows about what kind of family I come from. “Sorry, it went down the wrong way. I’m fine.”
I guess I better get on with it. They will find out one way or another. “I come from a very rich family. Well, I came from one,” I right my words. My parents are no longer my family. Not after they wrote me off after I went to prison. They didn’t fight for me because they didn’t care. I’m just someone whose dad spun the story to win him another election. I’m glad my misery could bring him so much damn happiness. “My dad is the Senator of California. Michael Haven.”
The room falls silent, and their eyes bore into me. This is why I didn’t want to say anything.
“You’re related to that asshat?” Owen asks, pausing as he prepares the sutures.
“By flesh and blood,” I mutter, staring up at the ceiling and contemplating just how far down I want to dive into the rabbit hole. “That’s about it though. Blood isn’t what makes family, is it?” I lift my head off the headrest built-in the couch and stare all of my friends in the eye, telling them that they are my family now.
“Aw, we love you too, Heaven,” Quinn chokes up, and I start to worry Jaxon is going to beat the hell out of me when he shakes his head behind her, yet stares at me, telling me it’s okay. “And I know the twins do too. I’m sorry. I’m so emotional.”
Jaxon lays his hand on her shoulder, bends down, and kisses the top of her head. He loves her more than anything in this world. Even money, which says a lot considering we steal a lot of it to live this luxurious life we have.
“So, what happened? I know why you went to prison, but I don’t know what happened,” she says.
A bit of pressure has me looking down to see Owen at work, and then I decide it is best if I focus on something else in the room. I bend my neck back and decide to stare at the ceiling again and think about the night that changed my life. “I was seventeen. I was at the Governor’s ball, which is a fancy event where all the rich people gather, donate, gossip, cheat on their husbands and wives; it was always a good time.”
“I bet you had fun with their daughters,” Finley snickers.
“I sure did,” I wink. “Anyway, I strolled in wearing another tuxedo, and I saw Heather there. I always found her first at the party, but we never talked much. She gave me the cold shoulder because of my…reputation.”
“Cause you were a whore,” Dillon says from out of nowhere. Dillon is Grayson’s son from the woman who accused him of rape. He just beat cancer, and the kid surprisingly does a lot of sleeping. I think it’s because he’s been fighting for so long, and now he can have a goodnight’s rest instead of one that has him struggling to breathe his breath.
“Dillon! Where did you learn that word?” Grayson scolds, and I hold back a laugh.
“Mommy’s boyfriends called her that all the time,” he shrugs, then yawns.
“Oh…” Finley giggles, which has everyone else snorting from holding back their own laughter.
“Go to your room. I’ll be there in a minute to explain why you can’t use that word, even if you were right about Uncle Heaven.”
“Hey,” I pretend offense.
“Meh,
shoe fits, wear it,” Gabriella slaps my knee as she sits on the floor. She leans back on her hands and crosses her ankles. “What happened in the story next?”
“I looked for her sister, Grace. Grace and I never had—” I check to see if Dillon is still there, but the space he was sitting in is empty. I bet anything he is hiding in the hallway, eavesdropping. All kids do it. “We never had sex,” I finish my statement since I don’t see him. “She was my friend. One of the people I trusted. I could talk to her, you know? Which for a seventeen-year-old kid is a big deal because I wasn’t expected to make friends. I had to be perfect because our image was everything. My parents hated one another. They slept in different rooms, had affairs, but once we stepped out of the car and into the public light, we were the perfect family. It gets tiring pretending to be something you aren’t. My go-to friend was Grace. She…uh…” My eyes burn suddenly when a flash of her beaten body enters my mind. I press my palms against them to lighten the burn. I hate thinking about that night. “She wasn’t downstairs with her sister, Heather, so I walked around and looked for her. I climbed up the steps, and one of her friends said they saw her go to the bathroom but hadn’t been back out in a few minutes. I got worried, so I checked on her, only to find the restroom empty.” I exhale a long deep breath and slap my hands on my thigh. “I heard a door close behind me, and when it turned around, I saw a guy, my height, brown hair, but that’s all I saw. I didn’t recognize anything else. I was curious, of course, and headed toward the door he came out of when I saw blood on it. Just…” I swipe my fingers through the air to try and give a visual of what the red smear looked like. “I opened the door and followed moaning sounds, and that’s when I saw Grace. She was on the side of the bed and had been beaten. There was so much blood. I…panicked. I had no idea what to do. Pieces of her…” I swallow when bile works its way up my throat. “Pieces of her scalp laid on the floor because he took her shoe and bashed her head in. She was black and blue all over, and she recognized me, somehow, through the pain. She called out for me right before she stopped breathing, so I did CPR. I brought her back, and I thought it was all over.”
Cruel Captivation: A Dark Romance (Underground Kings Book 5) Page 4
