Page 29

Chapter 29

Liam

F leur’s tears threaten to undo me. I want nothing more than to shove this hot iron into Darrin’s blue eye. I reach into my pocket, pull out four painkillers, and dump them into her outstretched hand as she stares at her shaking wrist.

I’m glad Darrin agreed to the smaller one. There are three sizes. The brand on my ribs is the largest, and I can’t fathom inflicting that level of pain on her.

I didn’t miss the welts already on her wrist, nor did I buy her story about being a Girl Scout and always being prepared with rubber bands shit. She’s hurting herself, and I wonder who in the world made her feel like she deserved pain.

A woman hands me a bottle of water and I crack the top, then hold it out to her. Her eyes are clouded over, glassy and wet, and she keeps staring at the new mark on her delicate wrist.

She’s so beautiful. Even in pain.

“Fleur,” I demand. Her eyes snap to mine, and I swish the water in the bottle and gesture to the pills in her hand. For a minute, I think she might fight me on taking unknown pills, but she surprises me, popping the four ibuprofen into her mouth and chugging half the water.

I guide her to the clubhouse and push through the back door. One of the tables in the dining area has three sets of gauze and antibiotics as a preventative. A set for each of the three people getting a mark tonight.

Tipping out a chair, I move Fleur by her shoulders and push down until she yields and sits. Each sniffle, each wince or flinch punches me in the heart. I’m barely holding myself together.

I work as quickly as possible to wrap her wrist and soothe the painful burn I know she’s feeling. When I’m done, I glance around, and realizing we’re alone, I bring my thumb up to swipe away a tear plummeting down her cheek.

She smacks my hand away with her uninjured arm and I grab it. The fight still in her makes my chest pound even harder.

“Let go!” she cries. When I don’t, she adds, “Please …”

It’s the crack in her voice that prompts me to release her. This girl is addicting. Blows in out of nowhere and infects my mind from day one. It never mattered Adam was interested in her. She was mine from the start.

I lead Fleur back to the cabin to drop her off, then make my way to the warehouse for a meeting. Darrin said because the party at the clubhouse would likely last well into the early morning, he’d like the peacefulness of the empty warehouse to meet.

When I push through the door, the fluorescent lights blind me. Trip, Goff, Blitz, and Darrin wait there in a circle. Letting the door slam behind me, I stalk toward them, absorbing Darrin’s assessing glare.

“Fleur did well,” he says.

I nod in agreement. He’s right. Many of these men scream and babble like newborn babies when they’re marked. While Fleur screamed in anguish, it was brief and nowhere near as high-pitched as some of these guys.

“I bet she’s crying now, though. Might have to put in some effort for your lay tonight,” Blitz says.

I glare at him, folding my fingers into a fist to knock the ever-living shit out of him, but Darrin beats me to it with a loud smack to the back of his head.

Blitz curses but backs away.

“My meeting with our suppliers was quite lucrative,” Darrin interjects with a simple sentence that garnishes my attention immediately.

I slowly let my gaze drift to him. “The Cartel? What did they say?” I ask.

Darrin studies me briefly, sliding his tongue along his top teeth. “They’re prepared to supply larger shipments of their more potent product. What’s even more appealing is their desire to merge the network further.”

Ice floods my veins along with an uptick in my pulse, causing my heart to audibly pound in my ears. I hang on to every word—considering it’s the single thing helping to distract me from what I inflicted on Fleur mere minutes ago.

Blitz’s crude words wedge themselves between the silence after Darrin’s declaration. “I’m not working with that bastard from Alabama. The Cartel can kiss my?—”

“Unnecessary,” Darrin cuts him off, looking at each of us. When he meets my gaze, I focus past him. Steel steps ascend to upper platforms that traverse the entirety of the warehouse. The long tubular lights that hang from the ceiling swing back and forth slightly, and I keep my eyes plastered there.

Eventually, Darrin moves on.

“This network is what we’ve been working toward for years. You’re all fools if you think we’re privileged enough to run our own operation. The Cartel controls us. We … we do their bidding.”

His voice cracks on the last word, the sting to his pride clear in the way aggravation twists his face into a grimace.

“What’s that mean for us?” Trip asks.

“It means to be on the lookout. We’ve just become bigger fish to fry. Every undercover, rival organization, and random tweaker will be looking to sink their teeth into this larger pie.” He glides a hand through his hair while a flash of panic contours his face.

Amidst the circumstances of my being here, I’ve come to know Darrin. In another life, I’d venture to say we could be close friends rather than him being the harbinger that holds my soul. A twinge of sadness ripples through me and I almost feel bad for him. Almost.

Fleur’s swallowed cries and spilled tears race to the forefront of my mind, and I stomp out anything that whispers compassion for the man.

Darrin seems to catch himself and his current disposition because he laughs, the sound echoing around the metal building. “This is a good thing. More money, more power, more influence, and”—he looks at Goff, the only one of us here actually addicted to Jackpot—“a better high.”

I move toward the cabin by the light of the moon sifting through the trees. Ear-splitting laughter and cackles pulse through the compound as tonight’s festivities are only half over, even at midnight.

Thoughts of whether Fleur will be asleep flit through my mind, and I consider waking her to trade my bed for the couch. She must be tired. Probably scared. Definitely pissed.

I’ve never kept much on the front porch of my cabin. It’s just a small space with a single railing wrapped around it and a few extra feet of room. The only thing out there is a lone rocking chair. Unlike some of my fellow cabin owners, who have folding chairs, grills, and their latest round of empty beer bottles lined up on the handrails, as if they are a prize to be displayed.

That’s why the sight of sneakers by the front door halts me a few steps from the porch, freezing me in place. Confused as to why her shoes would be sitting outside, I tentatively approach the door.

Careful not to wake her, I slow, my hand reaching for the door handle.

Whimpers sift through the door, oscillating between short bursts of sobs and long angry-sounding squalls. As if I’ve been punched in the chest, I struggle to suck in a breath and back away from the door. I can’t do this—listen to her cry.

I turn on my heels and nearly trip down the porch steps as I bound into the woods. I want to run, but I fight the instinct and merge into a jog instead. My heavy boots crunch over twigs and scuffle through pine needles scattered in the dirt as I make my way to a substantial oak tree and press my back against its sturdy trunk.

I’ve lost so much. Given so much . Probably taken from too many innocents as well, Fleur being the most recent victim. I hate who I am and who I’ve had to become to make this happen.

The rough bark bites into my back as I slide down, unconcerned as it scrapes against my leather jacket.

Her face.

Fleur’s face, red and agonized, as I caused her physical pain tonight pummels me one disturbing image after another. It’s nothing new for me, inflicting pain. I’ve done it before, but with her, it’s affecting me differently. I want to burn this place to the ground.

Jerking my phone from my jacket pocket, I quickly check I’m alone and turn it on. Furiously, I type out the message that’s been screaming in my mind since I met Fleur. Since she came into my life at a high rate of speed, plowing into me and jostling me off my own track.

Me: I can’t do this anymore.

W: You must.