Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CALLAN
After driving like a maniac through Redwood to Sakura’s house, I parked my car two houses down, near some tall hedges, and gripped my steering wheel. It had been hours since she’d left Escape, and she still wasn’t home yet.
I waited and waited and waited.
Until a car pulled onto the road from behind me, the headlights glaring into my rearview mirror. When she passed me, I pulled off the side of the road. Sakura paused for a moment, slowing down by her house and then continuing down to the next street. She parked on the side of the road.
Once I parked behind her, I stormed out of my car toward hers.
She yanked the key out of the ignition and stepped out of the driver’s seat, brow furrowed in an angry stare. “What are you doing here, Callan?”
“What the hell were you doing at Escape?” I growled at Sakura.
She shouldn’t have been there, shouldn’t have put herself in that kind of danger. She might not have known that the bar was run by the mob, but she would by the end of the night, and she’d learn never to set foot inside again.
She crossed her arms and poked me in the chest. “Why are you at my house?”
I gritted my teeth and stepped closer to her. “I’m not playing right now, Sakura.”
“Neither am I.”
“Are you fucking serious?” I asked in a breath, stepping closer to her.
When she pursed her lips and glared at me, I remembered the way Georgina used to stare at me like that years ago during our arguments. That was way before she didn’t give a fuck anymore and just started arguments with me anyway out of the blue for fucking nothing.
At the mere sight of that look, I tore my gaze away and sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m here because you showed up at Escape tonight, at a bar owned by the Redwood mob. I don’t know who brought you there, but you can’t show your face there again.”
“What were you doing there, Mr. Avery?” she asked.
Gritting my teeth, I dropped my glare to the sidewalk between us. I wanted to ask her again, wanted to explode at her, run in that same toxic circle Georgina had trapped me in, but I … I didn’t like the way she was looking at me. I didn’t care so much if I hurt Georgina anymore, but Sakura …
But I didn’t care about her like that, right?
“Sakura, listen to me,” I said, finally raising my gaze.
I must’ve stepped toward her too harshly because she widened her eyes, sucked in a sharp breath, and stepped back. I stopped completely in my tracks and stared down at her, heart pounding and throat drying.
Do I … do I scare her?
After crossing her arms even tighter across her chest, she pressed her lips together and stared at the ground between us. “You were out with your wife’s father,” she whispered. “And I’ve been so stupid.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Sakura? You’re not stupid.”
“For believing in you?” she scoffed, though it wasn’t angry, like Georgina’s, but full of sadness. “I … I thought that we …” She shook her head and turned her head so she stared down the street. She lowered her voice. “Forget it.”
I took another step closer to her, not wanting her to make a run for it and head back home. After spending hours with Jett, I just fucking wanted to be with her tonight. I couldn’t spend another second thinking about him or Georgina. The mob would handle it soon.
“You thought that we were what?” I asked, breath catching in my throat.
“Forget it,” she said, turning her entire body away from me now.
“Please, tell me,” I whispered, stomach light.
Somehow, I knew the words that were about to come out of her mouth. Maybe it was because those were the same words that I had been aching to allow myself to think. She couldn’t … we couldn’t …
After growling under my breath, I shook my head.
Fuck Jett. Fuck Georgina. Fuck the life I have lived for the past decade and a half.
I didn’t want that shit anymore—hadn’t for a long time. But Sakura? I needed her to tell me that she really wanted this, too, that I wasn’t just a monster for giving her detention, that she really, truly wanted me.
“Sakura,” I whispered, desperate for her to tell me how much I meant to her. Because, hell, she means more to me than anyone else ever has. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d felt like this, felt this lightness inside me, this happiness. “Please.”
“I just …” Sakura looked over her shoulder at me, eyes filled with tears. “You were out with your wife’s father. I thought that you … that you didn’t want to be with her anymore. I just feel like”—she turned toward me, brow furrowing in anger—“the other fucking woman!”
“You’re not the other woman.”
She paced around the sidewalk in front of me and wiped an angry tear off her cheek.
“Don’t lie. I know that I fucking am because I have no control around you.
I know that all these little things you tell me …
every guy like you does it. You’ve probably told me the same words you have with every girl you’ve cheated on your wife with.
I’m so upset that I … that I fell for it! ”
“You didn’t fall for anything. I haven’t been with another woman like I have with you,” I whispered, desperate for her to believe me.
Sure, I might’ve slept with different women a handful of times in the past decade just to get off, but I hadn’t slept with anyone more than once, hadn’t …
Felt like this.
“Don’t lie to me,” she said again, suddenly stopping and holding herself. “I’m so weak. I can’t even walk away from you right now. I don’t want to walk away. All this time … I just wanted someone to care about me.”
“I care about you, Sakura,” I admitted. “More than physically.”
“How? How can you care about me?” she whispered. “When you were just out with your wife’s father, drinking and laughing together?”
“It was an act, Sakura,” I said.
If I told her the truth—that I had planned to get Jett on the mob’s shitlist—what would she think of me? She already feared me because of the gun I had in my glove box, because I had done business with Jo?o, the leader of Poison.
“Well, you’re a great fucking actor,” she said, pointing between us. “Is this an act?”
“Fuck no,” I growled. “This isn’t an act.”
“Then, tell me what it is. Tell me why you … why you were out with him.”
“Sakura …”
She gritted her teeth and shook her head, tears building in her eyes again. “Why can’t you tell me? What is so wrong about it? If you have nothing to hide, if you really hate your wife the way you say you do, if you really want to be with me … you would tell me.”
“It’s not that simple,” I admitted, knowing that I sounded like a complete ass. “You have to trust me. It’s not all a lie. You’re not some girl that I sleep with anymore. You … you mean something to me, Sakura.”
She stayed quiet for a long time. “Prove it.”
“Come home with me tonight,” I said, holding out my hand.
It was a selfish ask, especially after our conversation, but I didn’t want to be alone tonight. Not after tasting what freedom from that bitch felt like. Not after tasting what life could be with Sakura.
When she didn’t place her hand in mine, I pulled my arm back. “I’m sorry. That was self—”
Sakura pushed past me and opened my passenger door. “Just one night.”