Page 57

Calli

Two Days Later

“You sure you don’t want to come?” Shay tried again as she stood in the doorway to our Airbnb. “Bishop promised he wouldn’t grill you about Mason until we get home. So, you’ll be safe to just hang out with me, Missy, Darcy, and Kadey and just have a girls’ afternoon.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “I’ll be fine. Honestly, it’s not having to front up to Dad that I’m afraid of.”

Her smile dropped from encouraging to empathetic really quickly. “It’s him, right? He’s the reason you stopped coming. He’s like the one who got away.”

My heart began to pound.

He didn’t get away.

I pushed him away.

And I did it in the worst way imaginable because I was just a teenage girl, and I was too scared to ask for help.

“It’s really fucking complicated,” was all I managed to say. “I’ll try to brave the wild later.”

She offered me a sad smile but backed out the front door, pulling it closed behind her.

This was what it had been like for the past two days. I avoided my father like the plague so I didn’t have to admit the truth about Mason and what I’d done ten years ago. One day soon, I would have to.

I’d have to tell him how I betrayed his trust.

I’d have to tell him how I’d fallen for the enemy.

And then, I’d have to tell my father how I’d witnessed something horrendous, something that could possibly still get me killed if anyone found out, and instead of going to him about it, and letting him handle it, I faced it on my own.

And I fucked it up.

I. Fucked. It. Up.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I’d barely made it a few steps from the front door.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“I swear to God, Shay,” I cursed as I flicked the lock open and reached for the door handle, yanking the old villa door open with force. “Did you forget to take the ke—” I stop midsentence before saying, “Adrian?”

He stood on the other side of the threshold, a small suitcase at his feet, and his arms stretched wide as though he expected me to jump into them. “Surprise.” He laughed, rushing forward and sweeping me off my feet.

I choked on a laugh, holding on tight as he spun me around a couple of times before finally placing my feet back on the steady ground. “Um, oh my goodness,” I spluttered, not really sure what to say. “What are you doing here?” The question, I think, was a little harsher than I intended it to be.

He took my cheeks in his hands and grinned. “When your dad mentioned this Scorch thing, I sent Shay a message and asked if I could have the address to send flowers because it seemed like you weren’t all that happy about coming,” he explained, his face lit up like it was Christmas. “But then I figured, why not just fly down here, be with you while you’re struggling through it?”

My eyes widened. “Wow. I can’t… I’m just—”

He suddenly drew my mouth to his, smashing our lips together in a messy, erratic kiss. I tried to go along with it as he pressed my back to the hallway wall. His fingers lightly brushed a few strands of hair away from my face, and my shoulders slumped as his eyes met mine. “Sorry. I’m fucking this up. I just wanted it to be exciting and crazy.” The apology was sincere, and I instantly felt guilty for not being more enthusiastic about him coming all these miles to see me.

Isn’t that something I should appreciate?

Shaking the thought away, I swiped at a little smear of lipstick at the edge of his upper lip. “No, I’m sorry, you just caught me off-guard.”

His smile lit up again, and he dropped his mouth to my neck, his lips pecking and nibbling at the sensitive skin.

We stumbled together down the hallway until we reached the bedrooms. “This is my room,” I murmured, leaning back against the door frame and lifting my chin, giving him room to explore while I tugged at his collared shirt, eager to get it out of where it was tucked into his pants like a good little professional businessman.

My eyes blinked open for just a second.

A shadow.

The shape of a man standing at the end of the hall.

Watching silently.

I gasped, my entire body jumped off the floor, but all it did was spur Adrian on. I shook my head, trying to bring things back into focus again, but there was no one there. No man. No shadow. No smirk on his face as he watched my boyfriend maul my neck.

I was losing my goddamn mind.

I had to be.

“Come on,” Adrian urged, jerking me from that tormenting daydream. He took my hips and shifted me to the side and backward into the bedroom I’d claimed as mine for the week. My heart pounded, the thumping creeping its way up into my throat and moving into my head.

My knees hit the bed, and I fell back, my body not even hitting the soft comforter before he was climbing over me.

He wasn’t the most graceful guy I’d had in my bed.

He never had been.

But I hadn’t really minded before—the clumsiness I’d found quite charming.

Before now.

I reached for his shirt, my mind on automatic, my body trying to catch up with what was happening. Trying to find excitement that should have been burning inside me at that point.

But it wasn’t.

And I should have taken that as a sign.

When his hand slipped up between my legs, collecting my short dress on its way and scrunching it at my waist, it was the first time I felt a small tingle.

His fingers brushing over the front of my lace panties drew another leap from my heart, my hips beginning to wiggle with anticipation, pushing up, eager to be pleased. “You want me, baby?” Adrian purred in my ear, his thumb swiping over my clit.

I arched my back and lifted my hips toward his hand—I was greedy, I wanted more.

More than he could ever give.

His fingers slipped inside me roughly, and my lips pursed at the bungling movement. I tried to move my hips with him, help him find the right pace to keep that rush of heat in me building as I tossed my head back and forth uncomfortably.

Then another movement caught my eye, my head snapping to the side.

I gasped, my stomach sinking.

“Yeah,” Adrian growled in my ear, slamming his fingers painfully inside me. I wasn’t wet enough. He hadn’t worked me up yet. “You like that.”

But it wasn’t that which made my heart feel like at any moment it could explode. It was the tall, beautiful, menacing-looking man standing in the doorway. Watching us. The smirk on his face was one I knew so well, but it used to be much more boyish and playful. Now, it was cocky and a little too smug. “Oh my God,” I cursed, pressing my hands against Adrian’s chest to try to dislodge his body from mine. “Stop!”

He quickly jumped back, stumbling a little as his feet hit the floor, his hands in the air like I was holding a gun. “Woah, um… you okay?”

I scrambled to pull my dress down, turning back toward the doorway to find it once again—empty.

The air, though.

It was already different.

He was here.

I could feel the chill settling deep in my skin.

“Condoms,” I blurted out suddenly, my hands shaking as I turned frantically toward a very confused-looking Adrian. “We need condoms.” I knew he didn’t carry any, he never did, and I was on birth control.

“What about your pill?” he asked, his brow knotting between his eyes.

I swallowed the hard lump in my throat as I rushed out toward the kitchen. “I’ve drunk a lot of grapefruit juice. They warn that it can mess with the pill. Can you please go out and get some?” My rambling was weird and unconvincing, but I knew he would be too nice to argue.

That was his thing.

“Uh… are you sure? Do we really nee—”

“Please!” I pleaded, grabbing the car keys and hurrying him toward the door. “Pretty please.”

He paused for a second, his eyes meeting mine and seeing obvious desperation in them. He took the keys from my hand and nodded. “Okay, baby. I’ll go get them. I’ll only be twenty minutes.” Leaning in, he pressed a peck to my cheek before backing away, his grin wide.

I didn’t move until he reached the end of the path. The second he was out of eyesight, I knew I only had a second. Flicking the lock, I made my way to the sofa, my brain counting the steps like I’d done the day we unpacked.

The energy in the room was shifting.

It was moving.

Swirling.

Like it was preparing for a hurricane.

I crouched down, my hand grasping the short metal handle, my finger curling around the trigger. As I spun, the barrel of my gun found the center of his chest as he stood over me.

“Get out,” I growled, fighting the tremor in my muscles.

Anxiety.

Fear.

Excitement, maybe.

Mason didn’t flinch.

Not even a fucking twitch.

“No.”

My finger flicked the safety off, my hand shaking only slightly. He was less intimidating when I closed those extra few inches, but the hulking giant of a man still had a good couple of feet on me. “The hell are you doing here?”

“Thought I’d stop by and help you get off since your little boyfriend there is obviously incapable of making a woman com—”

“Mason!” I snapped, trying not to give in to that instant wave of heat that rushed over me from just hearing him talk about his hands on my body. “You need to leave,” I growled through clenched teeth.

His eyes locked onto mine, unfazed by the gun pressed to his heart.

There was something dark there, a storm brewing. It was as if the years had carved out a barrier of protection, a shadow so thick it hid every shred of emotion, every weakness so nothing could break through.

But I could see it, just barely.

The pain, the betrayal.

“Go on. Pull the trigger,” he taunted, holding my gaze. “There’s no fucking heart in there anyway. You should know that. You’re the one who ripped it the fuck out.”

There was no fighting the wave of emotions that hit me, or the couple of tears that dripped down onto my cheeks. I wiped them away with the back of my hand, refusing to let Mason see the impact he had on me. “Get out,” I spat, the stern tone surprising even me. He just stood there, leaning back against the wall, eyes locked on mine, his silence more deafening than any words he could have spoken.

“Who’s the bastard trying to feel you up like a horny teenage boy?”

I clenched my teeth, slowly lowering my gun to my side. “None of your business.”

“I beg to differ,” he countered.

“What do you want, Mason?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t catch the slight tremor in my voice. I stood a little taller, trying to force the fear and the regret into the corner of my mind. “Is this what you’ve been searching for? A way to come in and scare me, make me feel like shit, torment me because I hurt you? Go ahead. Do it already.”

Mason’s expression shifted, his features sharpening like a blade, his tone a low rasp that cut through the silence like the rumble of distant thunder. “Because you hurt me?” The sound was almost a growl, but it wasn’t anger—it was something deeper and darker.

Something that made the hair on my arms stand on end, that made my heart feel like it had been tied in knots.

I felt the weight of it, like the air before a lightning strike.

With every second that passed, it became more charged.

More dangerous.

And when it struck, it wasn’t going to spare anyone.

“You didn’t hurt me,” Mason snarled, each word punctuated like a punch. “You betrayed me. You turned your fucking back. You let me rot!”

His anger hit me hard, knocking the wind out of me and forcing me to step back as if I’d been physically shoved. I thought the night I left and the choice I made—one I had believed would protect us both—was all I could do at the time to keep him and me alive and in one piece.

But instead, I’d fractured our relationship.

Shattering it into pieces.

“You don’t understand,” I whispered, the tough facade I’d been trying to maintain falling apart. “It was the only option I had.”

Mason’s eyes darkened, the storm finally breaking through the clouds. He took a step forward, the space between us shrinking. “How was planting drugs in my truck and having me sent to jail the only option you had?”

The weight of his words pressed into me, and for the first time since I left, I felt like I was standing on the edge of something I couldn’t control.

There was no running now.

No hiding from the truth.

If we were going to get through this, we’d have to face the storm, and it was already here.

“Because I saw the man who killed your father.”