Chapter 27
Wyatt doesn’t getthe chance to ask what the hell is going on with me and Kai because Kai hasn’t left my side since the minute he picked me up this morning. I’m kind of grateful for that because I wouldn’t know what to say to Wyatt. I’m just as confused as he is. Not just by Kai’s actions but by my own too. Despite the fact that he’s refusing to leave me alone, I could get away from him if I wanted to. He wouldn’t really force me to stay. But I don’t try to get away for real. I should, but I don’t.
He followed me around at school all day like he usually does, minus the loud, filthy comments made to embarrass me—he still made them, but they were whispered in my ear this time, only for me—and then he drove me to work and stayed until closing. Now he’s driving me home despite me telling him not to, his eyes on the road as he strokes my daisy tattoo with his thumb.
“What’s wrong?” he asks when he catches me looking at our hands on my lap. “Are y?—”
“Why are you being so nice?”
He blinks at me. “I can be nice,” he says defensively, his mouth curling up in amusement when he catches the suspicion on my face. “You like me better when I’m mean?”
“No.”
My too quick answer seems to amuse him even more as he pulls into the parking lot outside my apartment building. When I see Derek’s Aston Martin parked across from us, a mixture of relief and anxiety rolls through me. I blow my cheeks out and open the car door. Kai snatches my wrist, pulling me into him. “Let me come with you.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I hesitate, dropping my eyes to his mouth. “I don’t trust you with him.”
“I don’t trust him with you,” he grits out, his fingers still wrapped around my wrist, his other hand reaching up to cup my face. “If he touches you…”
“What?” I ask when he doesn’t finish. “What will you do?”
His eyes darken, and I can tell he’s thinking of a few different possibilities, all of them bloody. “Baby, I don’t think you wanna hear the answer to that.”
He’s probably right.
Cupping the back of his neck, I press my mouth to his, kissing him despite knowing Derek could be watching us through the window. “He wouldn’t dare lay a hand on me, but if he does…” I take his bottom lip between my teeth, hoping this’ll be enough to get him to leave. “I’ll deal with him myself. I can handle my brother, Kai.”
A groan slips from his throat, and he deepens the kiss, sliding his hand into my hair to angle my head back. “You’re manipulating me.”
“Is it working?”
“Yeah. Fuck.”
I breathe a laugh and climb out of the car.
“Will you call me later?” he calls.
“No.”
“If you don’t call me in an hour, I’m coming back.”
I roll my eyes, struggling to hide my stupid smile as James steps out of his SUV. He raises a brow and opens his mouth to say something, changing his mind at the threatening look I throw his way. “Don’t say a damn word,” I warn.
He chuckles and opens the main door to the building for me. I step inside with my bodyguard following closely behind me, only hearing Kai’s car pull away once I’m safely inside with the door locked behind us. As I lead the way upstairs, I’m nervous, attempting to prepare myself for Derek to lose his shit as soon as I walk into the apartment.
When we get to my floor, I hesitate, chewing the inside of my cheek. James dips his head, trying to catch my eyes. “I can stay if you want me t—” He stops suddenly, and I tense, my hackles raising when I hear it too.
It sounds like someone’s yelling, but it’s muffled, the voice cut off by a distant thumping sound that turns my blood to ice. My nostrils flare.
Fumbling with my keys, I quickly unlock the door and kick it open. It hits the wall with a crash. James curses me under his breath and pulls me behind him, his gun in his outstretched hands as he moves his eyes around my apartment. When I look around him, the first thing I see is my brother, bleeding and tied up on the couch. The second thing is the two dark figures walking toward James, their own guns pointed at him.
“Put it down,” the one on the right demands.
James hesitates, curses, and slowly lowers his weapon to the floor.
I press my back into the wall, itching to run but unwilling to leave my brother and James.
Now that James is unarmed, the guy on the left walks toward him with a smug look on his face. James moves so fast, I barely have time to register what’s happening before the guy is thrown down on his back, grunting and rolling while cupping his bloody nose.
With two guns in his hands now, James straightens to his full height and aims one of them at the second guy. “Put it down,” he mocks him.
The guys face falls as he does as he’s told. On his knees, he looks over at me, and James hits him in the face, knocking him down on his back next to his companion.
“Derek, are there any more of them?” James asks.
Derek slowly shakes his head, gagged and unable to speak.
“Go,” James says to me as he lifts his phone to his ear, and I run across the room to my brother, taking the bloody gag from between his lips and pulling it down beneath his chin.
Fury rolls through me, making my hands tremble as I cup his face as gently as I can, trying to make him look at me. “Der, you okay?”
He tries to nod, the motion causing his eyes to roll back in his head. His wrists are tied behind his back, and his face is covered in blood, leaking from the deep gash on the side of his temple. I reach around him to untie his wrists before carefully laying him down on the couch. Grabbing a clean towel from the kitchen to stop the bleeding, I hold it to the wound while I lift his bloody shirt, checking for any more injuries on his body.
“I was yelling for you to run,” he mumbles between shallow breaths. “And you go and kick the fuckin’ door in. Stupid girl.”
“Fuck you,” I choke out, dropping his shirt when I see he’s not hurt anywhere else. All the blood is coming from his head. “You really thought I’d leave you?”
Rolling his head to the side, he glances at the men on the floor, then up at James, who’s talking furiously into his phone. When Derek looks back up at me, he peers deep into my eyes, his silent tears mixing with the blood on his face. “I’m sorry, Hailey.”
I swallow, my lips trembling. “I know,” I tell him. “I know.”