My heart was jerking in the most excruciating way as I felt it rip right down the middle and my head filled with a murderous, deafening drone of noise that swallowed everything up.
Suddenly I was moving, my lips curled in a snarl as I grabbed hold of JJ’s throat and slammed him down on the table he’d just fucked my girl on. My fists buried in his gut over and over as I hit him before throwing him to the floor and kicking him with every ounce of strength in my body. He didn’t even fight back, because he knew, he fucking knew what he’d done.
Rogue screamed, pulling at my arms, trying to stop me, but I just ignored her as I beat the fuck out of my apparent best friend who’d taken the one thing from me I’d ever wanted for myself.
“Get away from me!” I roared at Rogue, knocking her back, but she came at me again, clinging to my arm, her nails tearing into my flesh just like they’d been doing to JJ’s back two fucking minutes ago but for an entirely different reason.
I leaned down, snatching JJ’s shirt in my fist as I slammed my knuckles into his face.
“Why!?” I bellowed at him, agony slicing my insides to ribbons. “Why her?!”
“She was never yours to claim,” he coughed out and I punched him again, making his head hit the floor hard.
“Fox!” Rogue screamed as my knuckles bashed against his chest and suddenly she was fighting her way in front of me, lying across him with her hands raised and trembling and I managed to stop my fist from hitting her at the last second.
“I love him!” she shouted as tears splashed down her cheeks, fear twisting up her expression and burning out of her eyes. “I’m in love with him and I have been for a long time. You can kill me too if you’re gonna kill him, because there’s no life for me without him in it.”
My throat closed up and no air could get into my lungs at all. I stood upright, my shoulders trembling as I stared down at the girl I’d been in love with my whole life, her words like an axe carving into my head. She loved JJ?
“Move, pretty girl.” JJ tried to push her off, but she wouldn’t budge, shielding him from my wrath.
“It’s over,” I said in disbelief as I told myself more than them. Every hope and dream I’d had for claiming Rogue turned to ash before my eyes. There was no us. It looked like there’d never been any us.
“How long?” I rasped. “How long have you been together? And I swear to God, if you lie to me Rogue, I’ll kill him. I won’t stop. I won’t fucking be able to.”
“Since not long after I came back to town,” she said, her voice quavering as more tears washed down her cheeks.
I nodded, rage coiling in me like a viper thirsting to strike its prey. All this time? All this fucking time? In my house. With my boy, a person I trusted beyond anyone else. The only one of my brothers who hadn’t betrayed me. And now he had. And had been for a long fucking time.
“Let’s just go home and talk about it. We were going to tell you tonight anyway, I swear.” Rogue reached for me, gripping my hand. “We can find a way to make this work. You, me, JJ, Chase-”
“Chase is gone,” I spat coldly. “I drove him out of town this morning, sweetheart. Have you been fucking him too?”
“You did what?” she gasped, her eyes widening in horror and for a moment I relished that pain in her expression. That she was hurting over something, because she clearly hadn’t given a fuck about hurting me all this time. She’d played me like a goddamn fool. She’d kissed me with the same lying mouth she’d been kissing JJ with this whole time.
“You heard me,” I snapped, my gaze moving to JJ’s bloody face as he looked up at me from beneath her.
“Fox, let’s just talk about this,” he tried.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I snarled, looking between the two of them in my shadow. “Because your faces say everything I need to know. I’m the villain in your love story, right? This whole time you’ve been sneaking around my house and fucking each other beneath my nose, fearing what I’d do if I ever found out. Or were you planning on killing me off one of these days so that I wasn’t a problem anymore?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Rogue cried. “How could we have told you? You think I’m yours, but I never was, Fox. And you had no fucking right to tell JJ he couldn’t have me.”
I tried to swallow the unyielding lump in my throat, but it wouldn’t budge. “Well you never said never to me, Rogue. And I guess you forgot to mention you don’t want me while your tongue was in my mouth or when you were moaning my name, huh?” I snapped. “But don’t worry, I’ve got the memo loud and fucking clear now, sweetheart. I was the idiot who fooled myself into thinking it would always end up being us. So I guess I’ll get the fuck out of your way so you can enjoy your happily ever after.”
I turned, stalking out of the tent as Rogue called out to me again, but I didn’t stop walking. I shoved my way through the crowd as I made my way to the parking lot, a deathly kind of rage spilling through my blood as I moved.
When I made it to my truck, I bombed it down the road off of Carnival Hill, tearing into the town and towards Harlequin House.
When I arrived, I picked up a bag of weapons and continued on my way to the jetty out back. I jumped down onto the speedboat, starting it up and checking the tracker location on my phone for where the boat was that Shawn had coming in and raced out onto the water.
Anger clawed and bit and chewed on every organ inside me, devouring anything good that existed in me and tarring it black.
I travelled out a few miles until the coast was a distant mass of land and the ocean stretched out everywhere around me.
All I could see in my mind was Rogue fucking my best friend, the way she’d looked when he’d finished inside her, the way they’d clung to each other like they were the centre of each other’s world. This pain was akin to losing Rogue ten years ago, the soul destroying agony of heartbreak tearing me open so all my old wounds bled and fucking bled.
I spotted the catamaran coming this way and aimed my speedboat right for her, flipping on the cruise control as I prepared to become the worst kind of savage I could be.
I unzipped the bag of weapons, strapping a Kevlar vest over my chest along with every gun and knife I could fit onto my body followed by a belt full of grenades.
The bloodlust was rising in me like it never had before and I knew I might just die on this mission without any backup, but I didn’t give a fuck what happened anymore. All I knew was that I needed death to appease this monster in me. I needed blood and screams and the pain of my enemies to sate some of its fury. And if it wasn’t these assholes right now, it’d be Johnny James.
A shout went up from the catamaran as I sped toward it and I fired my rifle, taking down the man who’d alerted the others. I only had a moment to pull my speedboat up alongside the catamaran and I quickly tied it to a ladder on the side with some rope before climbing up and jumping onto the deck. A gunshot slammed into the Kevlar on my chest and I jerked backwards with a growl of pain as I fired my own gun, taking down the asshole in a rain of blood.
I stalked forward, stepping over him as I shoved the door open to the cockpit and gunned down the captain before he could even try and defend himself. I shoved through the door on the other side, striding back along the deck and a deafening bang rang out as another bullet slammed into my back and hit the bulletproof vest. I stumbled from the impact, but relished the pain of the bruise as I twisted around and fired once more, taking the motherfucker out so hard that he fell over the railing into the water.
I hurried to the nearest cabin, kicking it open and finding three men scrambling to load their weapons. I drew a knife, slashing the closest guy’s throat before firing several shots that left the room bloody and silenced their screams for good. Then I turned and marched down to the next cabin with a sneer on my lips, my heart beating to a dark and forbidding rhythm. I tasted blood on my tongue and the weight of heartbreak pressing down on my soul as I shoved the door open to the main cabin, finding a stairway full of men run
ning up towards me. Two bullets slammed into my chest and I cursed, doing the only thing I could and snatching a grenade from my hip, pulling the pin out with my teeth and throwing it down into the stairwell. The explosion ripped through the catamaran, followed by another, then another and suddenly I was thrown into the water by an enormous blast, a blaze of fire twisting up towards the sky all I could see before I hit the ocean.
The weight of all my weapons and the vest dragged me deep under the waves and I had to let go of the rifle as I powered back towards the surface with my ears ringing. The moment I made it to the fresh air again, the scent of smoke and the blinding heat of fire washed over me.
My heart hammered fiercely as I stared at what I’d done, my grenade clearly having set off whatever other explosives had been stashed on that boat. What remained of the catamaran was already sinking, some of the fire going out with a hiss as the hull filled with water.
I started swimming as fast as I could around the wreckage, hunting for my dad’s speedboat, but knowing deep down that it was already lost. I spotted the remains of it just before it went under, sinking away into the abyss of the deep blue sea.
My breaths came heavier as I fought to keep afloat with all of my weapons weighing me down and growled as I starting pulling them off of me and letting them drop away into the ocean.
I fought to get the Kevlar vest off too and as soon as it was over my head, I managed to tread water a little easier.
I turned my gaze back towards the distant shore, knowing it was one helluva a fucking swim. And as warmth spread over my shoulder, I raised a hand and felt a lump of shrapnel sticking out of my goddamn flesh as the pain started to find me in the wake of all the adrenaline. Which meant I was now not only in danger of bleeding out, but I might just make a shark’s day if he found me before I made it to shore. And as I stared at the faraway mass of Sunset Cove, I knew with a certainty that should have frightened me that it was too far to make it.
The last of the fire on the boat sizzled out behind me as it went under and I was left alone in the dark sea with a thousand hungry predators living beneath me. And I realised I didn’t much care what happened to me now, because there was no life waiting for me back on the shore anyway. Maverick was gone, Chase was gone, and Rogue and JJ had all they wanted in each other. So maybe this was how Fox Harlequin died. And maybe I didn’t really give a fuck.
J J was tearing through everything he could find in Fox's office back at Harlequin House while I paced the floors with Mutt at my heels whimpering sympathetically.
"There's nothing here," JJ cursed, scoring a hand through his inky hair as he looked up at me in desperation.
"There has to be something," I pleaded, the tears on my cheeks dry now and a cold, hard fury knotting my gut.
I was angrier at Fox than I'd ever been in my entire life. And yet I was filled with guilt and pain over how much I'd hurt him today too. And every time I looked at the myriad of bruises covering JJ's face from the beating Fox had inflicted upon him, that guilt in me only festered.
This was all my fault. All of it.
Chase never would have left me on that ferry if I hadn't come back here and started messing with their lives in the first place. JJ never would have touched a girl who Fox had set his eyes on if that girl hadn't been me. Maverick wouldn't have even gone to prison if there hadn't been a crime to go down for. And Fox wouldn't have had his heart ripped up by a fantasy version of me who I was never going to be good enough to live up to.
"I should have let Axel kill me all those years ago," I muttered, not even really meaning to voice my thoughts, but JJ froze at those words, dropping the pile of paperwork he'd been rifling through.
"What did you just say?" he demanded but I just bit my lip and looked away from him out of the window towards the sea. The Cove. The only home I'd ever wanted and the one place I never should have come back to.
JJ's hand landed on my shoulder and he forced me around, grasping my chin in his hand and making me look up at him.
"Never say anything like that ever again," he growled at me. "You scrub those toxic thoughts from your mind right fucking now."
JJ's eyes bounced between mine as my bottom lip quivered and tears blurred my view of him.
"It's true though, isn't it? There's a reason I'm the girl who everyone always casts aside. I am toxic. I'm a curse. All I ever bring is bad luck and Chase was the only one of you who ever saw that truth in me. And look what he got for it. Shawn tortured him because of me, he'll never see out of that eye again, he'll probably walk with a limp for the rest of his life and now the only family he ever had have thrown him away! He's all alone because of me. He's out there somewhere thinking none of us want him, his whole world narrowing down to this helpless, hopeless, lonely place where his mere existence will be the only reason he even wakes up in the mornings. I know - I lived it. And I wish I hadn't. I wish I hadn't survived that night because I just went on to be a curse on all of you and I-"
JJ kissed me so hard he stole the breath from my lungs. My tears coated our lips and his fingers dug into my face in a savage demand which had me bowing to him. There were so many unspoken words in that kiss. So many years of loneliness and longing and hurt but so much heat too. There were days in the sun and laughter on our lips, the taste of salt water from the sea and too many missed moments like this. My racing heart slowed and my fingers knotted in his shirt as I dragged him to me, not wanting a single inch to divide us as I devoured the taste of him.
"Did you mean what you said to him?" JJ growled against my lips and I didn't need to ask what he was referring to, my chest inflating with that feeling as I nodded, looking up into his honey brown eyes which held so much pain. So much longing.
"I love you, Johnny James," I breathed. "I love you so much it terrifies me. It makes my skin burn and my heart race. But it makes my gut knot and my palms clammy too because loving you means risking my heart on you all over again. But this time I know it's not the same. This time I'm all in, which means that if you throw me away again there won't be anything left of me to keep on going."
"I'm never letting you go, pretty girl," JJ swore fiercely, his grip on my face so tight I felt like a life raft keeping him afloat in a stormy sea. "Never. This - you and me. This is it. Some people say that love is easy, you just open your heart and let someone in. But our love has never been easy. It's been won through battles we fought without armour and earned through wounds that leave scars which forever change us. It's messy and brutal and it hurts so fucking good. I don't want some easy version of love, Rogue. I want to burn in the fire of our family. I want you and me for fucking ever. And I need the others in this with us too."
"It's so fucked, JJ," I said, my voice hitching as the weight of his words wrapped their way around my heart and settled in tight like a whole new wall which I was building for myself. But this one wasn't designed to keep him out, it was there to lock him in. "Chase could be anywhere. How are we supposed to find him now?"
"We'll find him," JJ snarled ferociously but I couldn't help the clawing doubt inside me.
"You never found me," I breathed.
Something cracked in JJ's gaze as he recognised the truth in my words, but he just shook his head vehemently. "This won't be like that. There's a clue here somewhere. There has to be. Besides, when Fox gets home we can force the answer from him if we have to. I don't care if I have to fucking waterboard him - I've done it before and I know how. He'll cool off, he'll realise he did the wrong thing, he'll help us get him back.”
I nodded because I knew JJ needed me to agree with that assessment. But I'd seen the monster in Fox's eyes and the determination too. He wasn't going to go back on this decision. Especially not after discovering me and JJ together. There was something broken in him now and I could just chalk that all up to yet another thing which I was to blame for.
"Let's go. We can check out all of our old haunts. If Chase hung around maybe he'd try to use one of them for a bit. Then we can start scouring
the towns beyond the edge of the Harlequins' control. We'll find him. I promise you we'll find him."
"Okay," I agreed because there wasn't anything else we could do anyway.
JJ took my hand and led me down to the garage, the two of us climbing into his orange GT with Mutt hopping onto my lap before we booked it out of there.
I'd already dialled the hospital searching for him and they'd confirmed he'd been in to have his cast off this morning as well as telling me they had no follow up appointments confirmed with him as they'd been told he was moving away. Fucking Fox. I wanted to kill him and throw myself at his feet begging for his forgiveness all at once.
This was so fucked up. We were so fucked up.
I gripped my phone in my hand and blew out a breath as my finger scrolled though my small list of contacts and I stared down at Maverick's name for a long moment.
He still claimed to hate the rest of my boys, but I knew there was a whole lot more to their relationship than that. He'd searched through the rubble at The Dollhouse for days in the hunt for him. He'd shared me with Johnny James and had even saved Fox's life. He may well have hated all of them, but deep down I was pretty sure he still loved them too. Because I always had no matter how much hatred I'd felt towards all of them over the years.
That was the thing about hate. It kept close company with love. You had to really feel something for someone to hold onto anger and hurt like that otherwise the emotions would fade. Because if you don't give a shit about someone then the energy it takes to hate them becomes too much and you end up indifferent to them at best. I should know. I had enough exes to look back on with hatred if I could be bothered, but I'd let all of that go when I'd left them in my dust. They weren't worth the space they'd taken up in my baggage anyway so why waste a single moment of my energy on hating them? But the Harlequin boys and me, that was something so much more powerful. I hadn't even been able to speak their names. I hadn't been able to think of them at all without it burning me from the inside out. I'd hated them so hard and for so long that I knew the only real reason for it was my love for them.
Carnival Hill (The Harlequin Crew Book 3) Page 45
