Page 35 of Quiet Rage (Wicked Falls Elite #5)

Kellen

Out of all the questions that kept me awake throughout the night, one rings out loudest by the time Tamson stirs.

Does she hate me?

The answer is obvious, or should be long before she opens her eyes and immediately inches away from me, putting as much space between us as possible. There is nothing but pure, unfiltered pain shining in her bloodshot eyes. She’s trembling, pale, unwilling to let me touch her.

My chest aches, but I can’t be mad at her. I can’t be hurt, either. It’s my fault, all of it.

“I’m going to fix this. I swear.”

“How?” There’s an empty, silent laugh at the end of it. She swipes a hand under her eyes, sniffling, but her gaze is hard and pointed and staring holes through me. “How are you going to do that? It’s too late.”

“It isn’t.” Does she honestly think she’s lost everything there is to lose? I can’t ask that question. It would be cruel. “I will fix this.”

It’s sort of a relief when she sits up, her back to me. I don’t have to exist under the heat of her stare. “You were supposed to do something about it, weren’t you?” she asks in a tired, weak voice. “You told me you would.”

She’s right. I did. “I know. I’m going to come through this time.”

She’s silent. That’s fine. She doesn’t have to speak.

I hear everything through her body language, flinching when I get up and sit next to her on the edge of the bed.

She’s guarded. Disappointed. Blaming me, too.

We’re back to square one. We lost everything we built together, little as it was.

It’s gone. And I don’t know if there’s any coming back from it.

No, there has to be. I refuse to believe this is over. “Trust me this one more time. Can you do that?”

I know the answer when she lowers her head, sighing deep, shuddering and flinching away when I try to touch her.

“Don’t, okay? I can’t. I feel like I’m falling apart.

” She covers her head with her hands, lacing her fingers together, rocking a little.

Trying to give herself the comfort I want to give her, but then, I’m the reason she needs it.

“I only want to help.”

“Help?” Is it a laugh or a sob I hear? “How can you help me now when every time you touch me, I think of…”

“You don’t have to say it.”

“Just give me some time, would you?” Her arms drop into her lap, but she stares at the floor between her feet. “A few days. Just give me a few days. I need to not see you for a little while. Because all I do is remember…”

That’s all I can give her. My absence. It’s a pretty fucking grim reality to come to terms with, but I don’t have a choice. “Whatever you need.” My arms ache to hold her, but the only thing I can do is leave her alone. My touch is too much like torture.

And for me, the torture comes in not touching her. But unlike her, I deserve it.

Somehow, I manage to lock my boiling, seething rage away until I’m in the truck, slamming my hands again and again on the dashboard. “Stupid fucker! You fucking asshole!”

I could’ve stopped it. I didn’t. I had every reason in the world in the moment, but none of them matter now. Not when compared to her pain.

There has to be a way I can fix this. There is one idea I keep coming back to, but I can’t figure a way to make it work.

Nobody can hurt her if she’s far away from here.

Could I get her out of town? Where would she go?

How long would she have to stay? These are questions she would want to know the answers to, obviously.

I should have something in mind when she asks them.

I guess I have a few days to figure it out. She won’t want to see me for a while, like she said. I have time to put a plan together, but not very much.

In the meantime, there’s nowhere to go but home.

The morning dawned sunny and bright, and I can’t help wondering as I turn down my street how many mornings have dawned like this after horrors like last night took place.

Someone who grew up like I did, who has lived the way I have, shouldn’t only now be asking himself that question.

I know all about horror. I’ve participated in more than my share.

It’s just I never thought about it before.

What a shame I can’t go back to the way things used to be.

I can vaguely remember that version of my life as I get out of the truck and jog up the front steps.

I almost wish I could turn back the clock to when I didn’t give my work much thought beyond how I resented being forced into it.

Otherwise, people made their choices, and I helped dispense justice.

The end. Now it’s like I have a conscience.

But going back would mean missing all of the time I’ve had with Tamson. I don’t know that it would be worth the sacrifice.

Inside, I’m greeted by the sight of my father walking in my direction on his way to his study.

He’s carrying a steaming mug in one hand, a muffin in the other, and he’s in a good mood.

There I was, thinking he’d be pissed. He didn’t get his full amount last night, but I guess he wasn’t really expecting it.

“I wanna talk to you.” He jerks his head, motioning for me to join him as he rounds the doorway into his study, just assuming I’ll come running. Why wouldn’t he? I always do.

I have no choice this time, either. My feet are heavy, though, about as heavy as the lead weight that replaced my heart sometime today.

With every step, all I can do is remember the flat, endless pain in a pair of baby blue eyes.

All of the light drained from them. I wonder if she’ll ever get it back.

He’s already settled in at his desk, leaning back in his chair with his ankles crossed on top. “A little birdie told me you made him unhappy last night.”

I’m so deep in my own shit, it takes a second for me to understand what he’s talking about. I have to go back through the events of last night, trying to pinpoint what he could mean.

It doesn’t take long. My fists tighten when I remember how pissed that piece of shit got when I denied him Tamson. “Oh? He came running to you?” I ask, trembling at the memory. I almost wish he had tried to force me aside. It would’ve given me an excuse to do what I’m imagining now.

“I guess he was looking forward to it,” Dad murmurs, almost sad. For her, or for Dante? Wait, who am I kidding? Why would he consider what Tamson went through?

A ripple of cold disgust races through me before I mutter, “What can I say? I don’t like sharing my toys.”

A laugh bursts out of him like he was trying hard to hold it back all this time.

“Listen, I’m only fucking with you. I know you don’t like to share, and I can’t blame you.

” And now he’s self-indulgent, generous, gulping back his coffee before setting the mug down and waving a hand.

“That’s why I got you a present. Just for you. No sharing.”

I’m too tired and too fucked in the head to make any sense out of this. “A present?”

“Up in your room. All yours, for as long as you want. Go on,” he urges, waving again. “I have work to do. You go enjoy yourself like you did last night,” he adds with another indulgent chuckle that freezes me inside. Like there was anything to enjoy last night.

How have I spent my life living with this man but been so fundamentally different inside? The things he does, he does because he enjoys it. He loves his work. It’s a good day if he can make someone else cry—or bleed.

I’ve only ever done it out of duty. And I still have enough humanity left in me to be capable of regret. I guess that’s the kind of shit you have to learn to turn off if you want to survive in the world he’s built around himself.

I walk through that world now, seeing everything around me but not really seeing it.

Like none of it is real. The guards casually strolling the grounds outside the windows as I walk by.

Staff in the kitchen, fixing food. The housekeeper vacuuming one of the rugs.

It’s happening all around me, but I might as well be on another planet.

The one where there’s any hope of Tamson and me being together, like we’ve imagined.

Somehow, that world feels a hell of a lot more real than anything around me now.

I take the stairs two at a time, hurrying more out of curiosity than anything else. What could Dad have left me? I think I know, because I know the way his mind works, but I need to see for myself.

And what I see once I reach my room makes a certain, sick sort of sense.

At a quick glance, she could be Tamson. Petite, blonde, with big blue eyes that stare at me expectantly. She’s young, too—probably just on the legal side of eighteen. But barely.

He deliberately chose a girl who would remind me of her. This is my reward. And I’m supposed to keep her as long as I want. Jesus Christ.

She bites her lip, and I guess she’s supposed to be seductive, but right now, she’s anything but. “Hi,” she murmurs with a come-hither smile. “I heard the boss’s son was hot, but I didn’t know how hot until just now.”

She’s new. Not just to Dad’s payroll, but to this whole world. She’s clumsy, obvious, leaning back on her palms while sitting on the foot of the bed and spreading her legs in a skirt that barely covers her ass in the first place.

I’m only human. Of course, my attention drifts down to those spread thighs and the smooth, shaved pussy she’s revealed. “I heard you were a very good boy who deserves a reward. Do you like what you see?” she purrs.

I am so fucking tired. Of all of it. The performance, the fakeness of it all.

I didn’t know how fake my world really was until I met someone authentic—someone who opened me up to thoughts and feelings I avoided before.

I wish I could still avoid them. Life wasn’t easy, but it was easier than this.

Feeling like one giant, exposed nerve, sensitive to even a faint breeze.

She’s waiting for an answer, giggling softly. To her, this is a game. She’s teasing me.

“Listen…” This is all so awkward and sad. I should be with Tamson now, but instead, I have this half-assed, low-budget replacement sitting on my bed. “You’re cute, but…”

“What’s wrong?” she murmurs, sticking her bottom lip out in a pout. “You’re going to hurt my feelings, big guy.”

“Seriously, you don’t have to do this.” I look over my shoulder toward the closed door, then back at her. “He doesn’t have to know, okay? You don’t have to do…all of this.”

Now she looks toward the door, biting her lip for real. “But…but he said…”

“I know what he said, and he can think you’re doing what he wants. But you don’t have to. I don’t even want you to.”

“I don’t want to go to the brothel.” Her face goes red and her eyes fill with tears, and I wish it was possible to apologize for what someone else does.

I wish it actually mattered—that it could change something.

“He said that’s where I would go if I didn’t make you happy.

My boyfriend lost a ton of money on football, and your dad took me as payment. I can’t go to the brothel.”

I don’t know who’s worse. Her boyfriend, or the man who accepted a human being as repayment. “So he doesn’t have to know. I won’t tell him.”

It’s incredible, the way she changes. Like she’s turning back into a regular person, dropping the act. Now she’s just a confused girl sitting on my bed, legs closed, nervously picking at her nails. “But you still want me to stay?”

“Yeah, you can stay. What’s your name?” I ask as I kick off my shoes.

“Kinsley.” She sounds so young and scared. Like Tamson. I can help her, at least.

“Kinsley, you can make up a bed on the floor—there’s a bunch of blankets and pillows and shit in the closet.

And if you want some real clothes to wear,” I add, eyeing her tiny skirt and see-through top, “my sweats will be way too big for you, but you can roll them up. Okay? You don’t need to do anything. ”

I know the look on her face. She looks too much like Tamson for me to not recognize exactly what’s going through her head. “I want to believe you.”

This time, she can. “Just get changed if you want. I’m getting in the shower.” I need to wash all of this off me.

At least, I can try. Some things can’t be washed clean.