29. Bay
TWENTY-NINE
bay
It feels so good to be near him right now, but it’s a jagged sword stabbing me over and over again. Because Reeve is looking at me like I’m his next fuck and not the girl he used to be obsessed with.
I never thought of myself as cocky or entitled, but I knew that. I liked that. After time went on, Reeve quickly grew on me. I became enamored and slightly giddy with his easy smiles and all the sweet-dirty things he used to utter to me.
There was no second-guessing with Reeve. He was safe.
And I slaughtered that relationship when I told him to go take a long walk off a short pier in so many words.
“You don’t understand,” I mutter as I inch closer to Reeve. “He’s on a timer. Matteo?—”
“Shut up, McQueen,” he orders, sending me an exasperated look. “Your boy wants to see what you can do.”
He doesn’t understand what he’s asking of me. I have two men currently standing behind me who have, in some capacity, fucked me over emotionally and physically.
Matteo, with his multiple years of abuse and disrespect.
And Torin, with his pettiness and revenge.
This is the last place I want to be. And we’re surrounded by the Pistol Posse while these morons want to stroke their ego with who has the bigger cock right now.
But there’s something more urgent that this idiot isn’t getting.
“I’m not fucking you,” I leer through clenched teeth. “Especially since that’s all you seem to have been doing. And?—”
Reeve has the fucking nerve to pop a damn brow at me. “And what concern of that is yours?”
“The one where I don’t want to catch an STD from your dirty ass.”
He laughs, but it’s not brimming with surfer-boy vibes that fill out the melody, but blatant disregard for what I’ve seen. “I still wrap up, McQueen. I’m not that dumb—well, I didn’t wrap up with you, so maybe I am.”
See, I’d love to counter that comment with a clapback but, again, no time.
You see, the thing is, Matteo always has one of his goons coming in to check on him. My ex was so paranoid that someone would waltz in and try to murder him he was always on constant watch.
I’m not sure if he still does this, but I’m not looking to have two dead Forsaken assholes on the floor and Matteo still breathing at the end of this.
“She doesn’t want you,” Matteo imparts calmly. It’s the calm before the storm. This is him challenging his power and what the boys will and won’t do.
But he doesn’t know them like I do.
Especially Torin.
“Is that true, McQueen? Do you not want me?” Reeve’s hazel eyes peer up at me with empty hope, but I can’t fall into them now.
We need to get the fuck out of here.
“I’m married, dude.”
Reeve smirks at that, but it’s the only thing I could think of to get him back to reality. “And I remember tellin’ you that I didn’t care if you had a man.”
I have no loyalty to Ozzy. But he’s done shit for me he didn’t need to do. He brought my family back together, and that means something.
That means everything.
“Tell you what,” Reeve drawls evenly. “It’s either you or her.” He jerks a thumb at my look-alike. “Either way, I’m getting fucked tonight by a dark-haired girl with blue eyes.”
My nostrils flare with jealousy. “You’re not.”
“Watch me.” He continues to stare, wordlessly challenging my ass when De Leon decides to step in the fuck.
“She’s never gonna do this. Bay has always known who she belongs to.”
Reeve’s brows knit in irritation as he leans to the side and glances around me. “Would you shut him the fuck up?”
Torin chuckles before Matteo starts issuing out a bunch of curse words in Spanish. A chair scraping against the hardwood floor and Matteo’s timeless threats of revenge and the aftermath of what’s going to happen with Pretty Boy’s actions.
I can only imagine murder in Matteo’s dark eyes, and I’m already chickening out with Torin. I always knew Matteo was a moron, but Torin…he’s about to board the suicide train with Reeve.
Reeve lightly taps his thigh, hazel eyes taunting and coaxing me to come back to him.
But what portion of him?
Right now, he’s angry and hurt. He’s high and highly moronic. But, deep down, my surfer boy is in there. There’s nothing more I’d love than to see him again. After Dad…everything Torin did, I need something familiar.
Something that made me happy.
“The offer expires in less than a minute,” Reeve announces before his palm lands on the brunette’s knee and slowly draws it up to the apex of her cunt. “What’s it gonna be?”
What’s it gonna be?
Levi enters my head. Our plan. His loyal countenance to every silly, stupid thing I’ve ever done. His being with me, through thick and thin, and all the things we plan on doing together.
“When we do this…everything needs to be done methodically. We can’t fuck it up. Nothing changes, for now. You still have to pretend you’re giving Emilio a chance. We can’t let on to a thing.”
Lifting my chin, I draw in my bottom lip and trace it with the tip of my tongue as I hold Reeve’s obstinate stare. “Do it and we all die.”
He doesn’t take the latter of my comment seriously.
Reeve’s lips contort into a victorious and smug smile before his arm wraps around the new chick and tugs her to straddle his lap.
“You know what’s best for you, mi reina ,” Matteo cuts in, as if I need coaching at this moment, but really, it’s a threat. “These boys mean nothing to you with how easily they threw you away.”
They do.
They did.
The only person in this room who I don’t give a fuck about is him—Matteo.
Even after what Torin did, I still can’t bear the thought of his death. I want my fair shot at him—don’t get me wrong—but not now.
Not by someone else’s hand.
Even though I can’t stand being within his tawny browns and see the look of satisfaction in his gaze after what happened, it’s not the moment to deal with it mentally. I still wake up sweating from a dead sleep just dreaming about it.
The water filling my lungs. The severe and painful cold sinking and stabbing into my skin.
The partaking knowledge that I was going to die. Alone and without being able to say goodbye.
“You’re not gonna let him boss you around, are you, McQueen? You’re not scared of him anymore.”
I’d love to confidently tell Reeve that I’m not.
But I am.
Matteo isn’t petty, he gets even.
He waits.
Then he slaughters and makes me watch.
“She knows what’s good for her,” I hear my ex proclaim, and my inner teenager quivers in apprehension of what he has planned in his head. “Someone strong enough to take the reins and navigate her in the right direction.”
“You call sexually abusing her, navigating her in the right direction?” Torin upbraids evenly. “I outta give her this gun and let her use you as target practice, you silly, stupid, son of a bitch.”
My ex laughs. Assuredness laced through the sound because he’s so sure of what I’m going to do.
Reeve and Torin are not going to allow me to walk out of here without showing Matteo that they own me. They’re both too fucked up from this ordeal to think clearly.
Fucking Cairo.
“Stay with me, McQueen,” Reeve’s voice coaxes along the back of my reality as he kneads the girl’s ass in his lap.
I love him.
And I fucked it up.
I can’t comprehend fully how I’m ever going to let him go. It’s selfish to want to keep him after what I did and how I made him feel. If I had told him everything, explained and broken it down, maybe we wouldn’t be here.
Maybe I would’ve murdered the only boy who ever truly just wanted to be with me.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
No hidden agendas.
Just us.
“Go sit on the pool table like a good girl,” Reeve mutters gently. “And I’ll make sure to take good care of you, baby.”
Mindlessly, I move—to where I’m not entirely sure yet—when I see Matteo’s body lurch toward me out of my peripheral.
He’s caught by the back of the shirt, before the barrel of Torin’s Glock shoves into the back of Matteo’s head, forcing it forward a bit.
“Ah, see here is where it gets fun,” Torin snarls as he glowers at the side of his face. “I finally get to show you who she belonged to this whole time.”
“You’re gonna be dead in a few minutes, boy,” Matteo spits out, glowering at me like I’m the one holding the gun. “I guarantee it.”
Fifteen minutes.
The allotted time that Matteo has his dudes come in to check on him.
I know we’re close to that.
Moving forward, I rip the girl by her hair off Reeve’s lap and allow her to topple to the hardwood floor before I use all my strength to pull my surfer boy off the couch.
“Reeve.” At the sound of my voice, the small yank around his wrist gets him to faithfully come to me without any resistance. Peering up at him, I only can think of one way to get him out of here alive. “Do you want to fuck me?”
His hazel eyes glimmer and deepen into a darker shade of hazel. “Why do you ask that?”
“Not here,” I whisper. “Not with him. I know you want me all to yourself.”
“ Mi reina ?—”
I whip around so quickly I almost rip Reeve’s arm out of its socket when I scream. “ Stop calling me that !”
I’m a heaving mess, and hot tears burn the backs of my eyes.
I hate all this.
I hate where I am.
I hate this place.
Fuck, I am fully conscious of how I sound—like a whiny baby with all this shit, but goddamn it. Can I catch a damn break? I lost Torin and Reeve within days, and I can’t bear to be in the same place with them and not be with them.
Nothing is the same. Everything’s changed.
“You better watch your fuckin’ mouth, Bay,” Matteo warns me, his face reddening with anger as Torin stands behind him with his gun still at the back of his head. “You don’t want to be on the wrong side of this in the end.”
Hint number two.
“Pretty Boy,” I croak out. “We’ve got to go.”
His face lifts, and I try my best to hold his stare, but I begin to fidget. “Excuse me?”
“Now.”
He stares at me for a moment, but must read the urgency on my face because he shoves Matteo forward, almost sending him buckling to his knees. “Looks like my girl wants us all to herself.”
Whatever.
Dragging Reeve by his hand, I’m thankful he doesn’t yank it away and begin bickering about it. There’s no exit at the end of the hall for an easy getaway, I noticed that walking in. We have to go back through the front because I have no clue where any other exit is and no time to scout one out.
Matteo will be on our asses faster than a politician changing their mind.
Window.
Stopping on a dime, Reeve abruptly bumps into my spine, and I spin while taking him with me again.
“Break the window.”
Torin laughs, but Reeve starts to drag his feet. “What the fuck are you doing, McQueen?”
I point at one of the guys by the pool table. “Break the fucking window.”
“ Mi reina ,” I hear Matteo call out to me in this mollifying tone that sounds like a father chiding his child. “Don’t you dare pull that shit.”
Ripping the pool stick out of the dude’s hand, I stupidly shove it against the glass.
Nothing happens.
Duh.
Pool balls.
“Bay.”
All I can hear is Matteo’s foreboding omen of what’s going to happen if he catches me again. I’m disobeying direct orders, but I’m not going to be here to serve the outcome of what would happen.
We’re leaving.
I’m not going to be in this godforsaken shithole anymore.
The glass breaks after I throw the first ball but only the size of the object as I chuck another one.
And another one.
Until I can begin pushing glass out and we can begin to climb through.
“Don’t get antsy,” I hear Torin warn. “We’ll be out of your hair in no time.”
“You’re dead!” Matteo barks out. “And I’m going to kill you in front of my girl while she watches you bleed the fuck out.”
You’ve only got minutes, maybe seconds.
“Reeve, climb through,” I command when enough glass has been removed. “Watch your feet.”
He comes up to my side. “I’ve been through windows before, McQueen, while trying to sneak out—” I shove him forward because I don’t have time, nor do I want to hear of how many bedrooms he’s escaped from.
Playtime is over and we’re about to get fucked up if Matteo’s men discover—the wave of loud music comes through mid-thought, and I know the door to the room just opened, which could only mean one thing.
I was right.
“ Go !” I push Torin by his shoulder, his back to the window as he eyeballs Matteo and the room and goes with the movement.
“Come on, Wildfire?—”
“Shoot that motherfucker!” I hear Matteo roar at the same time Torin raises his gun and pops off two shots.
I start for the window, but not before looping my arm with Torin’s. The warmth of his skin sends warning chills up my spine, and I’m surprised my brain registers it with all the chaos surrounding me.
My shirt is suddenly fisted, as well as the back of Torin’s, as we’re Superman-yanked over the windowsill. But not before I feel a slight pinch at my bicep before all three of us are toppling to the cement gravel below.
I’m immediately heaved up to my feet in seconds before coming face-to-face with Cairo.
Through the darkness, I can barely make out his outline, but it’s him. The smell of patchouli wafts around me before he cups my face and drops it as quickly as he does it.
“You did good, Little T.” Then he gives me a small yank, and we’re sprinting along the back of the bar. My breathing is shot as we round the building toward the parking lot where I frantically try to remember where the hell I put my car.
“Drive with Reeve,” Cairo orders. “I’ll follow.”
My lips part to convey that I don’t need an escort, when Reeve grabs my forearm and somehow finds my Nova.
“Keys,” he orders as we sprint-walk toward it.
I scoff. “You’re not driving my shit.”
Especially high, the fuck?
I’d send Reeve packing with Torin, but with my luck, he’d roam around the parking lot and eventually get found.
So, I’m stuck with him.
Rounding the back of my car, I just get the door open when “Ain’t Gonna Lie” by NLE Chopper and Lil Wayne blares through the night air, alluding that the door to the bar is open, and people are leaving.
Or searching.
Keys shoved in the ignition, the benefit of driving an old car is that the headlights don’t automatically turn on, but my dual exhaust is a dead giveaway of where we’re at.
Stretching my arm along the back of the bench seat, I glimpse over my shoulder to quickly back out when I hear a male shout something angrily.
I don’t bother searching for who it is or what for, throwing the car in drive and darting out of the bar’s lot.
When my wheels hit the road, I hit the accelerator harder, kicking gravel to throw some distance between us and Matteo. I don’t know who he has out here patrolling the streets, even though this isn’t Shoreline Peaks, but I’m not looking for my car to become someone’s target practice.
“I’m dropping you off,” I’m finally able to get out after taking a left turn and feeling more confident that we’re in the clear. “And you’re gonna sleep that shit off that you took.”
“Oh, McQueen,” Reeve drawls mockingly. “There’s no point, baby.”
“And stop acting like a?—”
“You’re bleeding.”
“What?” I automatically look at Reeve, who’s staring at my bicep before flicking those hazels at me.
I follow where his eyes once were and notice the wetness along my crop top.
That motherfucker had me shot!
Flexing my fingers along the wheel, I drop my right arm and tuck my hand between my thighs.
“Looks like a flesh wound.” Yeah, explain that to Levi, why don’t you? “We’ll get it cleaned up.”
“I’ll get it cleaned up,” I retort evenly, clenching my teeth. “You’re going stay in your own area and not venture out to where I need to come find you again.” I know he’s about to counter that with a shitty response, so I beat him to it. “Actually, fuck that. This is the last time.”
“It was the first time,” he retorts. “And you’d save yourself a lot of grief if you’d stay in your own lane, McQueen.”
Oh, wouldn’t I?
“I wish you would’ve told yourself that weeks ago when I told you to leave me alone,” I grind out. “Now we’re linked.”
“We’re not,” he replies as I take a right turn toward The Landings. “You’re linked to my brother, though. Legally, actually. Married and shit.” I see him shift his body out of my peripheral. “Tell me, how is that going?”
“I’m still fucking around with you, aren’t I?”
He chuckles at that as if this is hilarious, but you can’t speak to someone who’s fucked up in the same capacity as someone who’s not, obviously. I’m the devil, and he’s my victim.
I just don’t remember the devil saving anyone but themselves.
Which is why you’re leaving this all behind.
The idea of abandoning Reeve, particularly, has my stomach in knots, but I continue driving like it’s my job.
Which it currently is.
However, when we get to a light, Reeve opens the car door and moves to step out.
“Where the fuck are you going?”
“Out.”
Throwing the car in park, Reeve might be fucked up, but he’s quick as hell.
I don’t know how the asshole did it, but he currently has my best friend’s Glock in his palm, directly pointed at my thigh instead of my face—I guess that’s kind—and he just darkly smiles at me.
Anger.
That’s the emotion I stick to.
It’s better than tears.
It’s better than grief.
And it’s way better than fucking guilt.
“Don’t come to me again,” he bites out through a sneer. His face twisted in disgust that he’s in the same vehicle as me. “Don’t save me. Don’t look my way, and if someone else calls you and tells you that I’m dying, for the love of fucking God, do not visit me.” My lips part to agree, but not before he lands his next comment. “And the next time you tease me, I’m shooting you. Got me, McQueen?”
There’s no point in arguing with him. No point in trying—to do what, I don’t know. He’s done with me. It’s time for me to accept that shit.
I bow my head in acknowledgment, and Reeve stupidly tosses the gun in my lap before exiting the car.
Slamming the door, I don’t wait for another surprise or words of confirmation that we’re over.
This is it.
We’re done.
My head firmly states that.
But my heart pleads that we’re still out in the middle of nowhere. And I’m not letting him out of my sight until he’s home.
Safely.