Chapter 4
Josephine
Intense onyx black. Cool cerulean blue. Warm, comforting hazel. Heated espresso brown.
Their gazes bore into me with simmering intensity. Barely blinking, they form a semi-circle around my hospital bed, all crossed arms and surly expressions.
It would be funny if the room wasn’t stifling with tension.
Hunter and Greedy are here, too. Just like they have been all afternoon.
I’ve never experienced such a profound sense of relief as I did when Hunter walked through the door a few hours ago.
It was only slightly more comforting than when Greedy pulled me out of the truck bed the asshole South Chapel players had kept me in.
Thankfully, I remember very few details of what occurred after I stepped off the yacht on Sunday night or the events of Monday morning. Though Greedy has filled in many of the blanks and has helped me piece together the timeline.
He showed me an immense amount of care and kindness, even before he knew who I was. That’s the hallmark of a good human in my eyes. Treating a person with compassion, regardless of who they are or where they’re from.
That instinct is in stark contrast to how I first came to know the guys from Lake Chapel.
My guys.
The four scowling men surrounding my hospital bed.
I’m happy to see them. Relieved. Calmed, even. At least on the surface. But there’s a rampant uneasiness still humming through my veins. It’s leftover adrenaline. It's the aftershocks of being taken and held captive. First by them, and then by their enemies.
What’s transpired between me and Locke, and Kylian, and even Decker—physical connections, intimate moments, and maybe even something deeper—doesn’t change how I came to live at the Crusade Mansion. Or why I’m lying in a hospital bed now.
I focus on Decker first, drawn in by the frazzled energy radiating from him. It’s so uncharacteristic for him.
My eyes find Kylian’s next.
“You look awful,” he declares, his bottom lip wobbling.
I’m not offended by his bluntness—I never am—but I’m struck by the blistering concern in his expression.
So much so that I’m suddenly compelled to comfort him.
I’ve been wrapped up in keeping my own head above water since they started weaning me off the sedative early this morning.
Until now, I haven’t even considered how each of the guys may have been affected by my disappearance on Sunday night, Kylian most of all.
“Can I—”
He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. I’m already nodding and shifting to the side of the bed to make room.
His movements are frenzied, a desperation humming between us as he climbs into the bed and awkwardly wraps me in a hug.
He engulfs my shoulders as I bury my face in his chest. A silent sob rips through me. Though no noise comes out, the sorrow connected to it spans from my throat all the way to the pit of my stomach.
Kylian says nothing as he holds me, but he doesn’t have to.
The scent of him—citrus and eucalyptus—and the familiarity of his touch are all the calm I need.
They’re enough to immediately slow my breathing and to soothe the frayed nerves that have been shooting off rapid-fire intrusive thoughts for hours.
For the first time in days, those notions have settled like silt on the bottom of the lake.
I didn’t know how much I needed him until this moment.
A throat clears somewhere in the room, and it’s then that I remember we have an audience. An audience waiting for answers.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, first into Kylian’s chest, then again to Decker, who’s gripping the frame at the foot of the bed. “I’m sorry for how I reacted when you first came in.”
Decker shakes his head, dismissing my apology. Ever the protector trying to shield me from any additional pain.
Even if he doesn’t need an explanation, Kylian does. “Every time I wake up, I’m back there…” I trail off and leave it at that. Warily scanning the room, I find all eyes on me.
Kylian nuzzles into my neck, his lips warm when they find the soft skin below my ear. “You’re okay,” he murmurs. He kisses me, brushing his mouth against my skin with a timidness I’m not used to with him. “You’re okay,” he repeats, his assurances as much for himself as they are for me, I realize.
“I’m not,” I object, pulling back until I can catch his gaze. “Not yet. Every time I wake up, I’m in a daze. Then the panic sets in. When you came in here earlier, that’s what happened. I saw you, but I wasn’t really seeing you. I was… I was back there. I was seeing them.”
He nods and drops one hand from my shoulder, fisting it and averting his focus from my face.
“God dammit. This can’t stand.”
My heart lurches, and I’m pretty sure my jaw drops at the outburst that comes from the last person I’d expect to have my back.
“They fucked with the wrong girl,” Kendrick announces, crossing his massive arms over his chest as he homes in on me. He’s studying me in a way he never has before. The look is intense and totally disarming.
My shoulders sag, and my posture loosens as I shrink under his assessment. Like my body doesn’t know how to handle the scrutiny. It’s a completely foreign experience.
“We need to regroup, then we strike back. This can’t stand,” Kendrick repeats, turning to Decker, then glaring at Greedy.
“I don’t disagree,” the captain of the South Chapel Sharks asserts from the corner of the room. Greedy’s propped up against the wall closest to Hunter. “But they’re detained for now. Let’s tackle this one issue at a time,” he suggests, nodding at Kendrick before turning back to Decker.
They share a silent, heated exchange. The tension in the room is on the precipice of detonating when Decker finally sighs.
“Josephine,” he hedges. “When you get out of here…” He pauses and takes in the entire room.
If I didn’t know better, I would guess he’s nervous.
Clearing his throat, he starts again. “When you get out of here, we’d like to take you home.”
Home.
A sense of place. A physical shelter.
The mansion has felt more like a home over the last week than just about anywhere I’ve lived as an adult. And yet it was my very presence in that home that landed me here.
My mouth goes dry at the prospect of putting myself back in such a vulnerable position.
I’m not purposely being obstinate, though I’m sure Decker will assume otherwise, given our typical dynamic.
But he’s completely unaware of how hard this hit for me.
I’m not the person I was three days ago.
The woman who stepped onto the emerald yacht on Sunday.
And I can’t imagine going back to the way things were.
Even from across the room, Locke exudes so much empathy it hits me in waves. Kylian’s feelings are abundantly clear by the way he hasn’t let me go. It’s the other two I’m concerned with.
Maybe to them this was all part of their stupid rivalry. Par for the course. Collateral damage. But the implications are far weightier for me.
Curling into Kylian’s side, I tilt my head to meet Decker’s gaze.
“They told me you sent for me,” I whisper, cheeks heating with the confession. “That’s how they got me to go with them. They asked if my name was Joey, and they said you wanted me to come to you. It was stupid,” I mumble. “So fucking stupid…”
“Hey. No,” Decker insists, his face turned down in a heavy frown. The shadows in the dim room only amplify the distress painted there. “You can’t blame yourself for any of this, Josephine.”
Hunter hums in agreement from her perch in the corner.
I shake my head and swallow back the tears, determined to go on.
“As soon as I realized what was happening, that I was a pawn to them, I panicked. The last thing I remember is being grabbed…”
I gulp past the fear but can’t bring myself to go on.
“Baby, you’re shaking,” Kylian murmurs, his voice soft and just for me. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell us—”
“Yes,” I grit out, wiggling out of his suffocatingly tight hold and sitting up taller. “I do have to tell you. You all need to hear it. You need to understand.”
Kylian tenses. Locke is stationed against the wall opposite the bed, his face screwed up in anguish. Kendrick hovers by the door, one arm propped on the jamb, his focus locked on me.
Taking my time, I look at each of them, determined to convey the severity of the situation.
“Tell us who hurt you, Josephine.”
Through unshed tears, I lock eyes with Decker.
“You did. You hurt me. All of you. This happened because of you. Taking me from my uncle’s.
Forcing me to go where you went. To be seen with you in public.
They took it too far, but you set me up and made it all possible.
Your rivalry and your stubbornness. What could have…
” I trail off again, the words trapped in my throat.
To illustrate what I can’t say, I hold up my bare wrists. The skin is raw where they bound me. Bruises pepper a lot of my body: down my arms and all along my hips and torso.
“They did that?” Kylian snarls. The fury in his voice is in juxtaposition with the way he gingerly lifts my arm to inspect the underside of my bicep.
Before he can even focus, Decker snatches it out of his grasp and examines my battered arm.
“They gave you these bruises? They put their hands on you?”
His words are thick and cutting. Barely restrained. Despite how hard he’s trying to keep it together, the anguish in his eyes proves how miserably he’s failing.
“This goes beyond the rivalry,” Decker growls, dragging his glare over to where Kendrick’s still braced against the doorjamb. “We need to call your pops.”
“No!” I rip my arm out of his grasp, wincing at the sting of the motion. “They didn’t… I mean, there’s nothing to report…”
Fumbling through the shame of the truth inspires new tears to well in my eyes.
“Greedy?” I murmur, resigned to let him explain it. Otherwise, I don’t think I can keep the tears at bay.