55. Ozzy
FIFTY-FIVE
ozzy
My body and brain won’t stop the sprinting motion of what I think is worry.
I know Torin can’t get to her faster than I can. But it still doesn’t stop the frantic beats in my chest and the sweat forming at the back of my neck like glue.
He tried to kill her.
I run through the last few weeks, trying to land on the time frame when he would’ve done it. Why I didn’t notice that something was possibly off with her. How I didn’t sense it or see it.
Where was I?
Why wasn’t I there?
I failed her.
I’m past upset that she never mentioned anything—not that she ever would, I know this. She’s not like anyone I’ve ever met before. Easy to rat someone out, expressing her emotions like Vivian always seems to do.
She’s strong.
Too strong.
Too infuriatingly independent and I like that about her.
But not with this.
When I arrive at her house, only the light in the living room is on. I use my key to get inside, attempting to be as quiet as I can as I trek through the stillness of the house and notice everyone is in bed.
It’s well after midnight and it’s normally what people do. I prefer the night and working when the sun doesn’t work against me.
There are more places to hide.
I find her bedroom door closed and, as steadily as I can, twist it open. The luminosity that keeps me in full view fills her room, and I find Bay sitting up in her bed as if she’s waiting on me.
With her shotgun lined up on my chest.
“You need to stop doing that.”
Her voice is soft and velvety, and I like it.
Not like the first night we met where she was ready to blow me away and would’ve had zero qualms about it.
I wasn’t scared then.
I’m not scared now.
If Bay would’ve shot me, I would’ve happily died by her hand.
Still would.
Her blue eyes—a shade lighter than mine—stare at me, and I’m sure, she’s waiting for a comeback, but as always, I have nothing.
She’s safe.
She’s alive.
She’s everything.
She has a soul that hasn’t been so tainted and battered that she still argues which reveals she has fight in her.
Even after Torin.
I steadily close the door behind me, careful not to wake her sisters, and I’m plan to stay here.
And I’m never allowing her to leave my sight again.
“Who’s blood is that?”
Torin’s.
I hadn’t realized I had any on me, but that was the least of my concerns at the time. I drove over here like a maniac to see her.
I had to see her.
Her phone buzzes along her mattress, and she lowers the gun to pick it up and glance down at the screen.
“Levi said to stop driving around like a psychopath.”
Whatever.
But speaking of him, he doesn’t know.
He couldn’t.
If he had, Torin would have a target at the back of his head or be dead already.
“What happened?”
My eyebrows knit, even though I know. Even though I caused Torin’s pain, I want him to endure more.
She kicks her legs over the side of the mattress, causing me to take a step back. If she notices, she doesn’t say anything.
But she lowers herself to the floor and discards the shotgun to her side.
I want to ask the questions about the incident and how Torin lured her, but I’m slightly disturbed by what the answers may be.
Trust, while it’s a hard thing to come by, is the most complex and vulnerable thing in the world.
And he destroyed it.
“Ozzy,” she mutters ever-so-softly, coaxing me to do one or the other. I either sit or tell her whose blood is soaked into my shirt.
Bay raises her arm then, pointing at the wall with her index finger. She wants to touch me again, and I don’t understand why.
I don’t enjoy it.
I don’t appreciate the way my body warms and flinches away nor the mindset my brain goes in.
What if I were normal? Would I be like Torin and Reeve with her?
“Trust,” she deadpans, not dropping her arm and keeping that bullheadedness about her.
She’s just like Torin.
But prettier and she smells good.
Hesitantly, I’m aware that if I don’t follow what she wants me to do, she’ll continue to speak more on it, and I won’t win, so I move forward.
I study her expression and find nothing.
No hidden agenda.
No gun to punish me for what I did to my cousin.
Nothing.
Slowly, and with a few feet between us, I take a seat on her floor and patiently wait.
For her to stop.
Bay doesn’t drop her arm. She doesn’t say another word.
She openly gives me the option—sorta—of touching or not touching her.
Inhaling, I lift my finger, and it barely grazes hers, hoping it’s enough to get her to leave this alone and stop making me do this.
It’s not.
Her long finger with the hot yellow nail polish at the end is still pointed and aggravating me to no fucking end.
Nostrils flared, I push the tip of my finger into hers and hold it there. My body buzzing with so many things that I can’t fully describe them all.
It’s not all anger but a need to see what it feels like to touch her whole hand and how I feel like I’m fourteen again with Vivian.
Physical touch makes my skin crawl. No one has put their skin on mine since Vivian, and it did things. It made me do unspeakable shit by society’s standards. I was looked at like a freak and a nut job because I mutilated that kid who allegedly raped Vivian; I didn’t just shoot him.
Her touch and attention ruled over my rational decision-making. The attention I was given by her and her alone, screwed things up. Instead of going to Cairo to handle and talk about it, I picked Vivian over my brothers.
Never again.
Meanwhile, Bay doesn’t give up, and her finger is starting to piss me off. My immediate thought is to snap and break it, but my brain computes that it knows who lies on the other end of it and who would suffer.
I abruptly drop my arm, expecting a peeved Bay at the other end, but she doesn’t waiver nor does she complain.
Instead, she rises and steps around me in a wide circle. “I’m going to go get a dishcloth. Stay put.”
I glance to where she was previously sitting, pondering if she’s aware of what occurred and if Cairo has already reached out about it.
He probably already has .
I’m the ticking time bomb, and my brothers idly stand by and wait for me to lose my shit. For me to release all the pent-up aggression that I must have accumulated over the years.
It’s handled.
Or, I thought it was.
However, now Bay is in danger, and Levi has been on me about taking and talking to my wife. That the position shouldn’t be taken lightly, and if I make her unhappy, he’s going to make me very unhappy.
I’m not sure what he had in mind.
I didn’t ponder too much about it nor was there anything he could conjure up in his head that could make me afraid.
I never get frightened.
I think.
I’m not sure.
Because now all I can deliberate about is how I don’t trust Torin and his grief. I’m not sure if Cairo forced him to tell me, or if Torin is suicidal. I don’t know the first thing about being a husband. I don’t remember my parents, only my mother’s soft touch and smile, but that’s it. I was eight when they were murdered in a bad break-in.
And I don’t think about them much because what’s the point?
But my own cousin hasn’t displayed what he always said he was going to do.
He was going to keep her safe.
Now, he’s thrown his responsibility away and loathes her.
Which leads me to step up and try to handle things.
And obviously, I suck at it.
“Here.” I loathe that I didn’t hear her come back into her room. Too deep in my thoughts to focus on the here and now and what I have to do. “Let me see if you have any cuts.”
Bay tosses the purple cloth at me, but I don’t remove any clothing or tell her I don’t have any.
Just Torin.
“What did you do?” I rock my head back and forth at her question because I don’t want her to get upset with me. “Ozzy…”
“No.”
It seems to be the only thing I have to say to get her to leave me alone.
I appreciate that she doesn’t push me as much as she does my brothers, and I’m not sure if it’s because she’s scared of me, doesn’t know how to handle me, or she shuts down with too much already on her plate.
But she stops.
Bay pivots back toward the bed, and when she turns her back on me, a shard of guilt courses through my veins.
She’s trying to help, and it’s not something I’m used to receiving.
I watch as she tucks herself underneath her covers and keeps her spine toward me. She’s done, not wishing to push any more of the subject, or she’s just given up on me.
I don’t like that answer either.
I’m not sure entirely what I need from Bay, but now that she’s seen me, I want to continue to be seen by her.
I study her breathing, the way her body slowly heaves and descends in a steady movement that alludes she’s not waiting for me to budge but she’s trying to fall asleep. The movement soothes me, like watching her always has done for me.
It’s not until I see her bedroom door begin to sway open that I’m immediately on edge. Right back on my guard to make sure she’s protected.
My Glock is easily in my hands within seconds, and I notice that Bay doesn’t budge nor move from her place.
She’s sleeping.
She trusts me to keep her safe in her room with her family.
The figure of an outline comes around the edge of the door as my thumb presses into the hammer but not enough to lock it in place.
And he’s lucky because I recognize Cairo, and he’s all too aware of me because he casually glances over his shoulder.
“Thought I’d find you here,” he mutters quietly, closing the door shut.
My brother isn’t stupid. He knows Bay is a safe haven in my head.
I holster my gun and return to watching her sleep.
“You comin’ home?”
“No.”
“You and Torin—” I cut my gaze to him, silencing his next peaceful protest about what I should and shouldn’t be doing.
I trust Cairo, I do.
However, Torin crossed a line, and until he proves himself worthy again, I’m not apologizing.
Shit, I’ll never apologize for that.
“Did you tell her?” I shake my head and slice my attention back to her, amazed she hasn’t awoken yet. Not that Cairo is being loud, but, I don’t know, I thought she’d sense something. Like another man in her room who could hurt her. “Don’t.”
I quirk a brow because I wasn’t expecting that answer.
Normally, Cairo wants to be all truthful and out in the open, but maybe he’s starting to learn that said veracities can cause more harm than good.
“She has enough on her plate. We’re not going to get that video. De Leon isn’t a fucking fool.”
I’ll get it.
I plan on sneaking into his little studio apartment and ripping it out of his throat if I have to.
“We’ll see,” I deadpan before Cairo stands in front of me, blocking my view and demanding my attention.
“Any ideas you have in that brain of yours about headin’ out alone, get rid of ’em.” He glowers down at me, but it’s ineffective at this point because I’m used to rolling on my own and answering only to myself. “This comment requires an answer.”
“We have to try.”
“Together.” I cock my head to the side because that word isn’t going to include my cousin. “I said together.”
I roll my eyes and inhale a deep breath. I’m not going to deal with him right now and argue while Bay is trying to sleep.
I never argue to begin with anyway.
“What are you doing here?”
Cairo’s shoulders relax. “I came here to make sure you both were okay. I’ll text you in the morning.”
He doesn’t wait for me to respond, leaving Bay’s room and allowing me back my solace.
Bay is too deep into this whole mess, and I hate it.