Chapter 16 #2
‘Dead?’ I choke out, my ears tuning into some noise behind me but I’m too stunned, too focused on Sadie and what she’s saying to think about Ax in this second.
Unless… No. Axel wouldn’t have done something to Danny. Not in prison.
‘There was a fight, an accident, and—’
She breaks off, head shaking, and I pull her into my arms.
‘Wait,’ she presses away, ‘your clothes!’
‘Like I care about them right now.’
I hush her and wrap her in close, my head spinning out with a thousand scenarios and they all involve the man trying to escape behind me.
Axel
And I thought Theo staging an intervention was bad.
Turns out crouching behind Taylor’s kitchen island, listening to this conversation, makes that look like child’s play.
My phone lights up again: another call I kill mid-buzz.
Alerts roll in on top of a whole stack. Missed calls, voicemails, texts piling up:
Theo.
My officer at the prison.
My contact in the Met.
My man on the inside.
I don’t need the details to know what went down.
Fuck.
I should’ve been ahead of this. Not cock-deep in Taylor, losing my damn mind.
But that’s been the story of my life for the past two months. Off my game, distracted, counting down the hours… hell, the minutes until I’m back in her orbit. And people are noticing. Theo included.
Now this…
‘Come on,’ Tay tells Sadie gently. ‘Let’s get you into something dry. Then we’ll talk, yeah?’
I power the phone off and wait. The click of Taylor’s bedroom door lands a second later and I move. Clean myself up. And make a break for the elevator.
I’m halfway across the living room when the bedroom door opens and I’ve nowhere to go.
My eyes flare wide as Tay steps out. Alone, thank God.
But her eyes are spitting sparks.
She shuts the door quietly and comes at me hard.
‘What did you do?’ she whisper-shouts.
I glance towards the bedroom. Does she really want to do this now?
‘Sadie’s showering,’ she says, leaning into my line of sight. ‘So talk.’
I don’t like the way she’s looking at me.
Worse, I don’t like the way I feel. Something cold, thick, wrong, is slithering through my gut, and I can’t make sense of it.
Danny’s dead. Be happy about it. Move on.
‘There’s nothing to say.’
Nothing she wants to hear anyway.
‘Was it you?’
‘Was what me?’
‘Don’t play dumb, Ax! Danny!’ She crosses her arms and I see it: the judgement, the horror, every good thing we’ve shared being swallowed up in her gaze. ‘You heard Sadie. He’s dead. So I’m asking again: what did you do?’
‘Why are you assuming it was me?’
And why the hell does that hurt so much?
Because she does know you. She just wanted to pretend you were better; you were good enough…
Now she can’t pretend any more, because you slapped it in her face.
Which means this… the baby… us…
It’s over.
‘Because it was you, wasn’t it?’
Her quiet accusation spears through the pain trying to consume me from the inside.
‘Whatever happened,’ I say carefully, desperately, ‘he did it to himself.’
The words taste like ash. Because I know how much pressure it takes to make a man like Danny crack. A man who only preys on those smaller than him, weaker than him. Like Sadie. Like Lottie.
Put him in front of someone who fights back and suddenly, he’s not so big. Not so brave. Until he has to fight back – and accidents happen.
Whether I meant him dead or not doesn’t change a damn thing.
It was me.
‘With a nudge?’ she presses. Not angry now. Afraid. Afraid of me. Fuck, no. My chest roars with it as I close the distance and clutch her face in my hands. Her hazel eyes flare up at me, choking up my airways, icing up my blood.
‘What did you expect, Tay?’ I shake my head, furious at her, at me, at this. ‘That I’d let him get away with it? Let him waltz off to prison for a few years and be done with it?’
Her eyes shimmer but she says nothing and my desperation builds.
‘He crushed Sadie. He hated Lottie. And he got to you – you!’
My eyes rake over her as the pain consumes me all over again: of Danny hurting her then, of her hurting me now. My fingers tremble against her face. Soft warm skin, still as stone.
‘Did you really think I’d let that slide?’ It scrapes out of me, raw and unfiltered.
She sucks in a shuddering breath, fingers curling around my wrists. Not pulling me away, but she ain’t pulling me in either.
‘You didn’t let it slide. You handed him to the police.’
‘And do you know what that cost me?’ My voice cracks. ‘Bad enough for Theo to have to stand back, but me? I fight. It’s what I do.’
‘No,’ she says. ‘You protect. There’s a difference.’
‘Not when it comes to the people I love.’
The second the word leaves my mouth, everything stops.
Her breath. Mine. The air between us.
It’s not the word itself. She knows I love them.
It’s the way it came out.
The part meant for her alone.
‘Taylor, I—’
‘Ax?’ Sadie’s soft voice cuts through the air like a knife.
My eyes dart to the bedroom door.
She’s standing there wrapped in Tay’s robe, hair dripping, towel clutched to her chest. Her eyes flick between us, and I’ve no idea how much she heard, but she’s seeing plenty. Fuck. We break apart and I step forward, hand running through my hair like it wasn’t just locked in her sister’s grip.
‘Hey, Theo told me the news… I thought I’d stop by, check you’re okay.’
‘Oh…’ She gives me a small, shaky smile. ‘That’s sweet. Yeah, I couldn’t talk with Lottie there. He offered to watch her so I could come see Tay… Sometimes, all you need is your big sis, right?’
Her smile trembles like she’s about to break again.
‘Which means I’m in the way, right? I’ll get off and—’
‘Of course you’re not.’
She moves fast and hauls me into a hug that knocks the air out of my lungs. I don’t think I’ve been touched this much in my life. Not with this kind of affection. First Tay. Then Lottie. Then Sadie. Not even on her wedding day did she hold me this tight.
When it’s clear she ain’t letting go, I set my arms around her, skin stretched thin. Because hot off the back of what just went down – what is going down – between me and Taylor, affection is the last thing I deserve.
‘It’s thanks to you he got put away in the first place,’ she mumbles into my chest. ‘You’re never in the way. You’re like the big brother we never had, isn’t he, Tay? You’re family, Ax.’
Family. That thing I never had. The thing that Tay and Theo gave me. The thing that someone sweet like Sadie is now giving me. It’s suffocating me from the inside.
I look over her shoulder at Taylor.
She’s stock-still, arms folded, jaw set, eyes too bright and fixed on her sister.
What is she thinking?
I want to know.
I don’t want to know.
I want…
Fuck, who knows what I want, other than to get the hell out of here.
‘That’s good,’ I say, prising Sadie off me and she blushes as she spies the damp patch on my tee.
‘God, I’m sorry.’ It comes out all shaky as she stares at it in horror. ‘I’ve soaked you.’
‘It’s fine, I can take a bit of water,’ I assure her, gruff as fuck, giving her arm a pathetic squeeze. ‘And if you’re sure you’re okay, I’ll get off and leave you both to it, yeah?’
She nods. ‘I’m okay. Honestly. I mean, why wouldn’t I be?
’ She gives a choked laugh. ‘It’s not like I’m going to miss him.
He wasn’t a good guy. He wasn’t even nice.
He was cruel. And mean. He hated Lottie.
He hurt me.’ Her hands start flapping, words tumbling out faster than her breath can keep up and I know it’s the shock, the adrenaline taking over.
‘But now he’s gone. Like dead. Proper dead. Poof! Gone!’
She grips her throat, voice cracking as she loses all colour from her cheeks, and Taylor steps in, wrapping an arm around her.
‘Let’s get the kettle on,’ she murmurs, guiding Sadie towards the kitchen. ‘A sweet cuppa will work wonders.’
Sadie nods, leaning into her, and Tay glances back at me: I’ve got her, but we’re not done.
Only we are. I can feel it in my bones. Because if anything was gonna wake her up to the lies she’s been feeding herself about me, it was this.
And now she sees me – really sees me – for what I am.
Damaged goods. A mistake.
Just like the old man always said…