Only for him, p.29
Only For Him, page 29
The doors that line it are still shut and I don’t know what’s behind them. I don’t dare look. I don’t dare do anything other than walk to the far end that leads to the foyer. There’s no curiosity anymore. There is only waiting and the silence that’s filled with unwanted thoughts.
I’ll make coffee and maybe that will give me energy. I’ll eat something and then wait in the kitchen. There’s a large window there and the light will do me good. And maybe Aria will come. If she sees me, maybe she’ll have some sympathy for me.
Maybe I won’t be alone with my thoughts and memories that won’t be quiet. My bare feet pad against the cold marble floor. As the beep, beep, beep gets louder, the irony of it all hits me.
In this place of luxury, I’m a pawn and a prisoner. All because I fell in love with a boy who I thought needed help. Who I wanted to help but didn’t know how.
Maybe in some fucked-up way, I did this to myself. Light filters in through the massive front doors. They’re gorgeous and intricate and I haven’t attempted to open them even though Declan said he’d leave them unlocked. He even gave me the code: 71017.
Vaguely I wonder if he did. I think about waiting here for Aria and asking her to open them. Just to see. I only want to know if he lied to me. If that’s the test.
I take a few steps closer, but not close enough to touch, only to look out just a bit. Only to see what I can see while I’m far enough away for him to know I won’t run. There are cameras. They are always watching when I’m outside of the room. I know that much.
It could be over if only I asked her to open them. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t dare.
As I stand there, wondering if it could really all be done with if only someone opened the doors, a man’s voice that chills me to my core is heard from the other side of the doors.
Paralyzed, I stand there and his shadow is cast along the carved glass.
“So it’s true, then? That bitch sent it?”
I can’t breathe. Nate’s voice brings me back to the freezing cold bath. Over the memory of my screams I hear him say, “Declan’s going to lose his fucking mind. I don’t want to be the one to tell him.”
I try to inhale but my head is light and nothing inside is working right. My body trembles as I remember the bath.
“You’re sure it was Braelynn?”
I nearly collapse right there at the mention of my name and the venom he holds behind his statements. I don’t see another shadow and it takes me too long to realize he’s on the phone and he’s getting closer.
What did I do?
“All I know is, I don’t want to be the one to do it this time.”
My head spins as his heavy footstep approaches. He’s coming for me.
I run, as quickly and silently as I can, throwing open the door and I don’t stop. I nearly fall as I come up to the bedroom door and inside, panic ensues.
Every word he said plays back to me: So it’s true, then? That bitch sent it?
“I didn’t send anything,” I murmur to myself as I pace at the end of the bed, staring at the bedroom door.
Sickness churns as I worry that Declan won’t believe me.
I didn’t do anything. I didn’t, did I? If I did, I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know.
Heaving in air, I try to calm myself but I can’t. Instead all I can hear is the cage dropping into the water and my screams.
I’m blinded by it all and I act without thinking.
Rushing to put clothes on top of the money in the bag, I’ve never acted so fast in my life. All the while tears stream down my face and the vision in front of me is Declan, as I’m lowered into the water and left there.
They’ll never believe me. Even if he loves me, they’ll never trust me. They’ll never let me leave. I scribble a note I don’t know is even legible. I’m sorry.
I’m out of breath and can barely see straight when I get to the foyer. It’s silent when I open the door to Declan’s wing. My heart races as I listen for Nate’s voice.
No one’s there and in a rush of adrenaline, I rush to the front doors and input the code. I hold my breath until they unlock and pull open so very easily. With the heavy door ajar, I’m met with a biting cold and a reminder I need to hurry.
DECLAN
The Club once felt like my hunting ground. Safe, controlled and secured. I could do whatever I’d like and rule over every soul who entered this place.
But now as I rewind the footage once again, with my tired eyes focused on the screen filled with the image of Braelynn, it feels like a prison.
One of my own making.
There has to be something I missed. I only have an hour, maybe two before the feds will be here. Or so the tip said. I wanted it done here. Not with Braelynn watching.
They’ll raid. I’ll be present and be picked up for questioning. Shortly after, I’ll be hit with a subpoena for a deposition. It’s all been done before and I couldn’t care less. All I care about is what’s on these fucking tapes. Whispers in the back of my mind warn me that it’s all there.
There’s a knock on the door a second after I hit play, and I call out for them to go away. “I’m not here. Leave.”
I’m left with the sound of retreating footsteps and in the corner of my eye, the security cameras capture the bar nearly packed, the stage curtains closed but ready to open as the night descends. It’s all patrons. There’s no one I’m concerned about in this whole damn place right now.
There’s no break in this life. No moment of reprieve. Even as I beg the footage to show me something, anything at all, I’m not given a moment for it all to just stop.
There were only so many hours she was left alone with the computer. I know from history she didn’t email anything or save information to portable storage.
There were only a handful of details given to the feds. A few lines that she must’ve memorized. No one else touched that computer. In the security footage, she doesn’t save data onto a USB. But she also doesn’t take any notes. A note that someone else could find or a note she was paid to make.
There’s no way around it. There was incriminating evidence in drug sales on the spreadsheets and she remembered them because they didn’t make sense, fed the information to someone and that’s the only possible explanation.
The numbers don’t exist in reality. They’re fake. Planted there just for her.
She taps away on the screen in the video, occasionally looking across the office to my empty chair. I swear she smiles in fondness and I have to rewind the footage.
I swear she loves me even here. It makes no sense.
How could she want me like she does here, while planning on turning over evidence? Frustration gets the best of me and I throw the fucking remote across the room, smashing it into the drywall. The damage is minimal and I couldn’t care less.
I don’t fucking know what happened, but I believe her.
There has to be a reason other than Braelynn handing over the information. She would have had to memorize it since she didn’t leave the office with it. Exact numbers. It’s not difficult, but it doesn’t seem like Braelynn.
The video plays and I watch as the door opens and my Braelynn straightens her posture, peering up at me and waiting for an order. I watch as I grasp her chin, lower my hand to her throat and kiss her. No, I fucking devour her and she leans into my touch. Eager and wanting. The laptop falls to the floor and she doesn’t stop it. She doesn’t care about it.
My chest tightens with an uncomfortable ache.
I really fucking love her. I should marry her, just in case they pick her up. Then she can leave. She can go anywhere and the feds can’t legally question her about me. No one would dare touch her if she had my ring on her finger. None of this would fucking matter.
I think she’d do it. If she could leave without worry, she’d agree to it in a heartbeat.
My brothers would leave us alone. They would learn to trust her when all of this blows over. And it will. I won’t allow it to linger and taint her reputation or mine. They’ll all see that she’s good and good for me.
I watch as the screen plays nothing but an empty room after I lead her away. The laptop closed and the room quiet. Every minute of footage is like this. She’s the only one who touched it and there’s no explanation that makes sense. But I don’t give a fuck about logic or reason anymore.
They’ll learn to love her and she’ll learn to love them and the ways of this life. Just as the thought hits me, my phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out to see Carter calling.
He’ll give his blessing. I know he will. Even still, I’m anxious to answer the phone. I can’t shake this feeling.
“Carter,” I answer and clear my throat. I lean back in my seat but stiffen when I hear the tone in his voice.
“Declan, where are you?” He already knows what’s happening today.
Chills prick down my arm. “At the bar waiting for the—” I answer.
“She left. Half the money and left you a note.”
“No.” The word leaves me even though even I can hear the denial that’s wrapped around the single syllable.
“I’m sorry,” he tells me, his tone full of remorse. Clicking over to the tabs for my room, I flick through them, each and every one.
My gaze flicks to the empty screen, willing her to be there, but she’s not.
“Do you want me to read the note?” he asks and the blood drains from my face.
“What does it say?”
“I’m sorry. I love you. I can’t stay here anymore. I swear, I didn’t mean to.”
“I wonder what they gave her. What the feds could have offered her that would make her want to work with them,” I say.
“She was friends with Scarlet … you know how those things go. It’s possible Scarlet dragged her in … maybe she didn’t realize until it was too late.” Carter offers an explanation but it doesn’t do shit to keep me upright as the reality hits me.
“She could have told me. At any point, she could have—”
“She was scared, Declan. We all saw it.”
“Well no shit, she sold us out.” The anger is dull. There’s nothing but fucking heartache that overwhelms me.
“She didn’t call them. She called her mother and that’s it.”
“Her phone is still bugged?”
“Yeah.”
“What did she tell her?”
“That she misses her but she’s scared,” he answers and the back of my throat dries and I have to clear it once again. I fucking hate this. With my hands going numb I run them down my face.
How the hell did this happen? I don’t understand. I loved her. She loved me.
“You there?” my brother questions.
“What else?”
“That she’s going away for a while and that she loves her.”
“Do you have the recording?”
“Yeah. It sounded like she wasn’t coming back, Declan. She tossed the phone and left the car … took a taxi or hitched after that.”
“We know where she is?”
“Yeah … all that cash and she went to a shitty motel down the interstate.”
BRAELYNN
I can’t stop stop crying. My chest heaves as I try to calm the sobs.
What have I done?
I’ve never been so terrified in my life. My entire being is heavy with guilt. I’ve never felt so reckless and like I can’t go back, I can’t make it better. I thought once that I’d been at the lowest low possible, but I knew nothing.
I betrayed a man I loved. A man who if I ever see again will certainly have me killed.
I don’t even know who I am anymore or how any of this happened. I want to take it all back. Burying my hot face into the pillow does nothing but mute the sobs from creeping through the paper-thin walls of this shitty motel.
The mattress is cheap, the sheets stiff from too much starch and the comforter a holdover from the eighties. There’s enough money in that bag to stay at hotels I’ve never imagined myself in, but I couldn’t bring myself to face more people than needed. There’s no lobby here, just a teller at a window where cash is slipped under the plexiglass divider and a key is given in return.
There’s a chair that looks to be decades old, a laminate desk, a single bed and the kind of old-fashioned bulky TV I haven’t seen in ages and didn’t know existed anymore. From the single window beside the bed, the traffic from the highway blows into the room with a gust of wind. My face is hot and more than once I’ve looked outside, at the five-story distance to the asphalt below.
I’ve thought about leaving the money for my mother. But they’d find it and then her, I’m certain of it. Fresh tears prick hot and unrelenting. I hate them and I hate myself.
I wish I could call her and tell her everything, but I can’t drag her into this. It would only be selfish. The old landline phone stares back at me, willing me to call her, but I won’t.
I could go to the hospital, but he’d find me there. My mother might even find me there and then I wouldn’t be able to protect her. I have to be alone or go back to Declan.
I picture myself begging him, on my knees and pleading with him rather than running.
Half of the time I imagine it, he tells me it’s okay. The other half he looks at me as he did in the basement of The Club, telling me I should be terrified.
With my hands clasped to prevent them from shaking, I do everything I can to just calm down. I brush my teeth and change into a nightgown as though I’m going to bed. I wish I had the meds Declan’s been giving me to stop it all. To put me to sleep where I can’t think about anything at all. I would do anything and take anything not to think right now, to just go to sleep and make it stop.
It’s like even though I’ve left, I’m still trapped.
I’ll never feel safe. I don’t know what to do.
I wish I could erase all of this. But all of the wishes don’t mean shit, do they? I fucked up … again. Every thought I have is that there’s only one way to end it. The horns and screech of tires from down below drift into the room. A drizzle of rain starts and it’s almost comforting. It would at least be over, then.
No more terrifying memories of Scarlet’s eyes wide with fear before Nate snapped her neck.
No more of the cage being lowered into the tub.
No more of second-guessing my every move for fear of disappointing Declan.
I don’t know what happens once you die, but it can’t be worse than this. Than every regret stealing your breath and every fear paralyzing you.
I don’t think there was ever a real chance for us. I was never going to be good enough and he warned me. To his credit, he warned me. I wish he never wanted me and I could have just loved him from afar.
The memory of our first kiss plays back in my head. When he gripped my wrists and pinned me there. When kissed me like I was his and had always been his. The warmth, the way everything else faded.
At least I know what it was like to kiss Declan Cross.
And I swear I did feel loved by him. Even if it was just for a moment. Even if love wasn’t enough.
Just as I open my eyes, letting the memory go, there’s a gentle click at the flat wood door. I’m still as the knob turns and the door creaks in an eerie way.
I don’t bother to move. I only watch as if it’s a movie. I’m numb to it all until he stands there in the open threshold.
“Declan.” I whisper his name as the sight of him registers.
Sniffling, I sit up straighter, pulling the sheet closer. Is this real?
“There you are … you thought I’d let you go?”
It’s crazy, the smile that wants to pull at my lips as I sniffle. The warmth from knowing at least he wouldn’t let me run. He wouldn’t let this torture last too long. It’s absolutely fucking insane that I’m grateful I won’t have to end it myself.
Tears leak from the corner of my eyes and I wipe them away as I manage to say, “I thought you might find me.”
“You didn’t run far,” he says lowly, closing the door behind him and looking back only to lock it.
My movements are rigid and slow as I pull my knees into my chest. I can’t look away from him, from the look of betrayal in his sharp steely gaze, or the anger that radiates from his broad shoulders as he stalks toward the bed. The floor groans with every step and all I can do is wait for him.
I wasn’t prepared for this life—I had no idea what loving a man like Declan would be like. The intensity and how hard and fast I would fall, but how I would step on every land mine not realizing I needed to just stay still. I wish I could go back. In another life, we are meant for each other, but in this one, I’m not good enough. I wasn’t prepared and in his world, one mistake could end your life. I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes.
As he sits on the edge of the bed, I can picture his hand wrapping around my throat and I have to at least apologize first. I don’t think he’ll believe him if I were to tell him I love him, but he has to know I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so pathetic it’s obvious that I’m sorry.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper and the words are choked, barely audible.
Roughly, I wipe the pathetic tears away. My hands tremble as I do and to my surprise, Declan holds me.
He doesn’t shush me, but he brings me into his chest and the moment he shows me that bit of compassion, I break beneath him, clinging to him and holding onto him when I know I have no right.
With my head buried into his chest, I close my eyes and fall apart.
His hand runs up and down my back as he lays us down, silently but gently.
He allows me the moment to grieve and I wish I could stop it. I wish I wasn’t the pathetic regretful mess I am, but I can’t stop it. By the time I’m done, both my body and eyes are heavy. It’s like everything has given up. Sleep could pull me in now and take me forever.
My eyes open and I stare at the button on his collar. Inhaling his masculine scent and enveloped by his warmth, I dare to whisper into his chest, “Can you do it in my sleep?” My heart beats once, a dull thud. He’s still, unresponsive, and I know I’m every bit the coward when I beg him, “I know I don’t deserve it, but if you could,” I pause to take in a shuddered breath before continuing, “if I could be asleep, I think it could be peaceful.”
