Chapter 37
It’s almost closingtime when Callie’s phone rings. The sound of it has Damon turning away from the window and stepping over to Callie.
“Who is it?” he demands. “Is it Kai?”
Unfazed by his tone, she holds her palm up to him and says, “Hey,” into the phone at her ear.
Damon fumes beside her while she listens to whoever it is on the other end.
Behind the counter with Wren and Wyatt, I continue working and try not to worry myself sick over Kai and Derek. I can’t help it though. I can barely focus on what I’m doing. I don’t know where they ran off to or why, but wherever they are, they’d better be okay. If they’re not, I’m going to kill them myself.
After passing a customer her cappuccino to go, I lean my hip against the counter and look at Callie as her eyes move to me, and then to the wall opposite me. “Okay,” she says. “Bye.”
“What did he say?” Damon asks. “Where are they?”
“On their way back.” She puts her phone down on the coffee table and stands up to stretch, rolling her eyes at the look in his. “Relax, big brother. They just went out to grab us some pizzas.”
Damon and I both narrow our eyes at her.
“I’m so bored,” she complains. “We should buy a TV and put it on the wall up here—” As she lifts her hand, the small plant on the shelf tumbles off and smashes on the floor. “Shit. Sorry, Hailey.”
I frown at how strange she’s acting. “It’s fine.”
I grab the broom and walk over to her. She takes it from me and begins sweeping up the mess before I can protest. When I walk back behind the counter, I notice Wyatt looks nervous, his eyes shifting to Callie as he watches her clear up the broken glass. When she’s done, she walks out the back door to get rid of it instead of putting it in the trash inside.
I follow her. “Callie, what are y?—”
She presses a finger to her lips, and I huff, throwing my hands up and walking back inside. When she returns to find me wiping tables, she checks that the customers have all cleared out before she locks the main door and turns the sign around to closed ten minutes early. I prop my hands on my hips and glare at her. She’s really starting to piss me off.
“Callie.”
“Where did you get that plant?” she asks as she pulls the blinds down over the windows.
My browns pull in. “What? Why?”
“There was a camera in it.”
My face falls as I look at the shelf it was on, then at the counter it was facing, my hand coming up to my mouth as a wave of nausea hits me.
“Where did you get it, Hailey?” she asks again, but something tells me she already suspects.
Closing my eyes briefly, I glance at Wyatt. “Wyatt bought it for me after Valerie died.”
Working her jaw, Callie takes her gun out of her jeans, cocks it, and points it at Wyatt’s face. “Get the fuck away from her.”
Horrified, Wyatt’s eyes pop wide as he takes two big steps back, almost falling over his own feet, his throat bobbing with a swallow as he stares at the gun.
Damon stands behind his wife with his vicious eyes on the guy who betrayed me. Levi and Wren come to stand at my back, gently guiding me back toward them and away from Wyatt and the gun.
Without taking her eyes off her target, Callie says, “Damon.”
“Hailey, do you have cable ties?” Damon asks.
“In—in the storage closet,” I croak out, my hand trembling as I point. “Bottom shelf on the left.”
He has to step around Wyatt to get behind the counter, and when Wyatt’s eyes flick to Damon, Callie takes a threatening step closer. “If you move one fucking fingertip, I’ll put a bullet in your stomach and watch you bleed out.”
Wyatt looks terrified to even breathe too heavily as he remains deadly still, his hands up by his head.
“Go on, baby,” Callie says, and Damon walks around him to head to the kitchen.
Wren handsme a mug of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and marshmallows, and I give him a small smile, holding it between my hands and lifting it to my lips to take a sip. “Thanks, Wren.”
He sits down next to me with his own hot chocolate, his arm resting on the back of the couch behind my head. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
He lets out a small laugh. “Liar.”
Locking my jaw, I take another sip in an attempt to calm my nerves.
“You’re worried about him.”
“Wren,” I say quietly, staring at the main door across from us, waiting for it to open.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
He laughs at me again.
I can feel Wyatt’s eyes on me from where he’s sitting on the floor with his hands cable tied behind his back, but I don’t look his way. I refuse to let him see how shaken I am.
Every time I think about the fact that Maverick’s been watching me for weeks, it makes me feel like I’m going to throw up. He’s seen everything. He saw me crying my heart out in here for hours after Valerie’s funeral, screaming for her into the darkness, for the woman he took away from me. He’s seen all the conversations I’ve had and the time I’ve spent with the Kingstons. He saw us last night, when Kai and I had sex on the counter…
My stomach rolls, and I kick out at the table in front of me, making it screech across the wooden floor. Four heads turn my way, but nobody says a word. I allow Wren to take my hot chocolate before dropping my head into my hands, my body coiled tight with rage. I want to scream. Hit something.
I want Kai.
When he and Derek finally get back, they come in through the back entrance. Kai jogs right past Wyatt and over to the couch where I’m sitting, dropping to his knees in front of me and taking my face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Please forgive me. I’m so fucking sorry, Hailey.”
Closing my eyes, I grab two fistfuls of his hair and pull him into me, burying my face into the crook of his neck. The familiar scent and feel of him against me has my body sagging in relief, but I’m still so mad I could punch him. I’m mad that he left me when he promised he’d stay. Mad that I was so terrified he’d get hurt. Mad that I care so much. The fact that he knows how much I care about him makes me even madder, which is why I say, “You left me here with him.”
“Fuck, baby,” he groans like he’s in pain. “I know. I know, and I hate myself for it. I’m sorry.”
He repeats those two words again and again, and although I feel bad for making him feel even worse, I don’t stop him, allowing the sound of his voice and his arms around me to calm me.
“I’m sorry I said that,” I whisper. “I just…”
“I know,” he says softly, digging his fingers into my back and squeezing me tight. “It’s okay.”
Of course he knows.
He always knows.
“You suck.”
He laughs in my ear. “I fucking love you.”
I freeze against him. When I pull back to glare at him, he looks genuinely afraid of me.
“Baby…”
Gritting my teeth, I grab his jaw and hold him away from me. “That’s not funny.”
He swallows. “I’m not joking.”
Furious, I shove him away from me and push to my feet, turning my back on him to pace. As I’m raking my fingers through my hair, trying to calm myself down all over again, I find my brother standing with Freya Thorne in the middle of my shop, holding her arms behind her back as she struggles to get free. Everyone is glaring at her, but no one has said or done anything yet. They’re waiting on me, it seems.
Stopping to face her, I run my eyes over her pretty face, taking her in for the first time. I’ve heard a lot about her—so much that I’m sick of hearing her name—but I’ve never met her in person before.
“What happened?”
“She texted Derek to meet him,” Kai says behind me, his voice a little raspy and unsure. “I’m pretty sure she was trying to take him to Maverick.”
I keep my eyes on Freya. “Is that true?”
The question seems to trip her up. I don’t think she knows what to say, whether the truth or a lie is going to get her out of the mess she’s in.
“Is that true?” I ask again.
Looking back at Derek, then at the other Kingstons in the room, she says. “No.”
“She’s lying,” Wren drawls, leaning back on the couch with his wrist resting on the arm.
“How do you know?”
He smiles at me. “Lucky guess.”
Trusting his intuition, I turn back to Freya. “Let go of her, Der.”
His lips tilt up in amusement as he obliges, letting go of her wrists behind her back.
“Wait a minute,” Freya says, scrunching her nose at me. “Der? Are you fucking him too or someth?—”
I swing my fist into the middle of her face, putting all the pent up rage I feel for this girl into it.
She falls back into Derek’s chest, crying out as she brings her hands up to her face. When I see the blood coating her fingers, I almost feel better.
“Fucking bitch,” she spits.
I smile at her.
Derek chuckles darkly as he sets her upright on her feet. “Freya, meet my little sister, Hailey.”
“Your what?” She gapes at me and Kai in disgust as she tries to fit the pieces together. “Ew.”
I don’t tell her I’m not related to Kai because I’m not Maverick’s. She can think what she wants.
When Kai’s arms wrap around me from behind, I hold on to his forearms and lean back on his chest, not missing the way Callie and the boys are all looking at me with a mix of shock and amusement.
I can’t tell what Kai’s thinking when he puts his mouth next to my ear. “Feel better?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
He laughs and tightens his arms around me.
“What’s going on?” Freya asks, but none of us bother to enlighten her.
Levi grabs me some ice for my hand, and I smile gratefully at him.
Damon tosses the pack of cable ties at Derek’s face, and Derek catches them, securing Freya’s wrists behind her back and sitting her down next to Wyatt. When she whispers something to him, Derek shakes his head and wipes a tear from her face. I’ve never seen them together before. The sight makes me nervous, and I know Kai notices.
“She’s playing him, Hails,” he whispers.
“Derek,” I say, and he walks away from her and over to me and Kai. I bounce my gaze between his, searching. “Are you in love with her?” I ask quietly.
He hesitates, his eyes full of regret as he rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t want to be.”
Nodding my head softly, I relax back into Kai, enjoying the strength and the warmth of him around me, the way he feels like home.
I don’t want to be.
Yeah, I know the feeling.
When Elijah shows up after being called by his guards, he takes us all in, followed by the two people tied up on the floor. He sighs.