15. Mine
Chapter 15
Mine
Griff
I planted my fist right into VD’s smug fucking face. The unapologetic man-whore’s head flew backwards. A satisfying crunching sound shattered through the air.
“No wonder you live in a barn, it’s where you belong,” I shouted. “With the fucking animals, you piece of shit!”
I shoved Taz away, ready to take VD to the ground, but she held onto me, pulling me back.
It was too reminiscent of when he told me he’d fucked my wife. Taz had to pull me off him back then too. I regretted not knocking the teeth from his head. Now? I wanted to go a step further and kill the bastard.
He had kissed her. He put his mouth on her. On what was mine!
The whole time I was coming up here, I thought I’d find her at Mack’s breakfast table, with a mug of tea. But no, she was here with Veder, in his barn, alone, with the fucking door closed. The two of them fighting over a bottle just like we had.
Did Veder need to steal that memory from me too? Did he have to sully that perfect moment?
Now he had the fucking gall to act like a martyr, with his hands at his sides, ready to let me beat the fuck out of him. Fine, I’d oblige him.
I lunged for Veder again, but a small, immovable object - a fist - ran into my sternum, and I was practically clotheslined backwards.
“What did you think was happening, huh?” The slap across my cheek was hard, and angry, and I savored the sting of it. “That I came over here to hop into bed with Veder? Really?”
I straightened, turning to her as the rage simmered inside me. I was either going to fight him or fuck her, and I wasn’t sure which.
Maybe both.
But then I saw the hurt in her eyes. The true, genuine pain.
She was offended.
“You already made it clear that if I keep talking to Riley, even as a friend, that things could be bad for him. That you might hurt him.” Her fists clenched at her side, and she was shaking with fury. “Now I can't talk to my old teammate? What’s next? I can’t hang out with Goose or Top either? No talking to men in general, right? I can’t be trusted, can I? I’m just going to slip into bed with the nearest guy, because I’m just that kind of woman?”
Where was this coming from?
“I would never think that of you,” I said, trying to calm myself, and keep my voice low. “But this piece of shit slept with my wife, and I don’t fucking trust him–”
“You don’t trust me!” She put her hands on my pecs and shoved me away. “You don’t trust me !”
She slammed a fist against her chest.
“ I’m the one you don’t trust. Not him. Me!” She shook her head, her eyes suddenly glassy with unshed tears.
“Firefly… baby…” I reached out to her, and she flinched away, stumbling to get out of my reach.
She stomped away, only to turn around when she caught her second wind. But there were tears in her beautiful eyes, and my heart cracked in my ribs.
“Baby…” I said, trying to reach her again, but she almost fell over a rake trying to stay away. So I stopped, because I couldn’t cause her more pain.
“Newsflash, Griff, you can’t just show up out of nowhere and start treating me like I’m property. Like I’m some unreliable slut that’s just going to start sleeping around.” She turned, her hand over her heart as if she was massaging it back to life. “How dare you? How dare you, when that was the exact reason I left five years ago. The exact reason why I couldn’t be with you. So people wouldn’t think like that about me.”
Her hands went up to her hair, tugging at her scalp. I could hear the shakiness in her voice, and the deep wound I had inflicted.
“Baby…” I reached out again, and she slapped my hand away.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” She shook her head, taking two steps away from me. Two steps closer to VD. “I could take those comments from Kristin. I could take it from strangers, if I had to. But I never in my wildest dreams thought you would be the one to treat me like that.”
She walked over, and I finally saw that she had a bottle of iced tea still in her hand. It was made of glass. She could have struck me with it at any time but didn’t. Even at her angriest, she still spared me.
God love her for it… because I loved her too.
Even putting those words to thought sent my heart into my throat.
I hadn’t said it to her, or even to myself until this moment. But her passion and fire was the thing I had always adored about Trinity Guerro.
“I always knew you’d be the one to hurt me the most,” she said, quietly, to herself more than me.
But I heard it loud and clear. I heard it down to my fucking gut.
“Firefly—”
She shook her head, cutting me off again.
She put the bottle down on the top of the fridge, then turned to Veder and said, “Thanks, Veder. I’ll cash app you.”
She walked towards the open doors, the light silhouetting her perfect body.
I looked at Veder, and then at the bottle. How much would it cost? I fished for a few bills in my pocket and threw it at a chuckling Veder.
“Fuck off, and leave her alone,” I said, before following after a storming out Taz.
“No, you fuck off.” She whirled around and pushed me away again. “You come here and tell me not to talk to Riley, Veder, to some guy at the bar. Who’s next? Huh? Where does it go from there? Then I can’t talk to anyone unless you’re present? I won’t be allowed to keep the small number of people I have in my life, until I’m all alone, with only you to make me feel like complete shit all the time!”
“Where is this coming from?” I tried to put my hands on her shoulders, but she shrugged me off.
She was barely even looking at me now. She was just screaming, her eyes wild as she shook with an anger I had never seen before.
“I’m. Not. Yours!” She flailed her arms wildly, trying to keep me away from her, but I wasn’t above taking a few hits to the face if it meant her not creating distance between us. “I’m not going through that again. I won’t!”
“Go through what again?” Things began to click into place. Terrible things. Awful things.
Surely, she wouldn’t keep something like that from me. She’d tell me. She and I were more than lovers. We were friends. Close friends. In my mind, the best of friends. I had taken a bullet for her! And I knew, down to my bones, that she’d do the same for me.
Surely, I knew everything about her, right?
Right?
There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that there was something about Taz Guerro I didn’t know. Something deep, that she kept hidden beneath her layers of former bravado.
But she didn’t have any of that bravado anymore, did she? Was she like this… because of me? Did I do this to her?
“Taz, talk to me,” I begged, going after her again. “Tell me who hurt you.”
The way her eyes melted gave me the devastating confirmation I needed.
“Give me a name,” I growled, as the primal urge to defend my woman turned me into a person I didn’t recognize. And if it was too late to defend her, then I would do the next best thing - punish the culprit with extreme, deadly, prejudice. “Who. Hurt. You?”
“No,” she said, giving me the five-finger point. The Drill Sergeant’s point, gesturing with a flattened hand in a disapproving, accusatory gesture. It was practically a middle finger. “I told you this wouldn’t work. And it’s not working now.”
“Baby…”
“Don’t ‘ baby’ me, Asshole!”
Her voice, the sheer anger of it ripped through me.
“Firefly, you need to stop–”
“Don’t tell me what to do!”
I shut my mouth. I wasn’t helping.
“I don’t even know why you’re here!” She grabbed the hair at her temples and tugged on them, pulling the skin from her skull, making me wince with my need to stop her. Then she asked, more quietly, “Why are you here?”
“I’m here to protect you.” The truth slipped out before I could keep it in my mouth.
I was here because some assholes threatened her. I was here because my job put her in danger.
“Protect me from what?” her scoff was one of complete disbelief. “From Veder?”
She gestured to the guy who was hanging back by the fridge, iced tea in his hand, quietly sipping away.
I had forgotten he was even there.
“Protect me from who? I mean, Jesus, I thought I was the one rounding up bad guys on bail, but nope. I guess I needed a big strong man like Griff to come to my rescue. Is that right?” Her eyes went from pained to defiant in an instant. “Useless fucking female needs the big man to save her form her own stupidity.”
She was so full of fire, my skin heated under her scrutiny. I liked the burn of it because it meant she was here. Not through a phone, but in my space. We were breathing the same air.
“We’re going to circle back on that bail bondsman thing, but you know what? I am here to protect you.”
“From what?”
“I… can’t tell you!” I had never been more frustrated in my life about having to handle classified information. But the fucking CIA said keep my mouth shut, so I had to, but God damnit…
“Or what? You’d have to kill me?”
She knew that was a low blow.
I stood, stunned. Of all the women in all the world, she was the one who I thought would understand that aspect of my job.
“That’s not fair, Guerro,” I turned my head to the unexpected sound of Veder defending me. What the fuck? “Griff’s not some civilian playing James Bond. If he says he can’t tell you, he probably can’t.”
That deflated her far more than my attempts to calm her down.
She looked at Veder, then at the ground. Then at the wall, the ceiling. Everywhere but me.
“I’m not his to protect,” she finally said to VD.
She put her hand at the nape of her neck, and walked away, out the barn doors, shutting it behind her. I stood, stunned, unsure where the fuck I had gone wrong. How badly I had fucked this all up.
I heard the sound of her Ducati firing up, and almost stumbled to follow her when a big hand landed on my shoulder.
“Give her space,” Veder said, quietly. “She’ll come back.”
She sped away, and I didn’t know where, my heart sinking to my feet as I felt the urge to move. I had to get to her. I needed to be near her. I had to protect her.
I pulled my shoulder from his grasp, and bared my teeth, like we were animals circling in the fucking wild.
“This isn’t over,” I warned.
“I’m sure it isn’t,” he said, as he went below the loft, and started stacking up bits of wood and placing it on his shoulder. “You can’t cure her cold feet by smothering her.”
“I’ll buy her some socks, then!” I purposely missed his point because I was that much of a petty bitch.
I stormed out, got into my car, and sat in a rage; my hands fisted on the steering wheel.
I looked at where the tracker was going - down to Middlebrook. She was either going to the bar, or she was going to Goose’s house. I fired up the Maybach, and set out on the road, looking up to see Top and Charlotte on the front porch, looking at me with quizzical expressions.
I raised my hand in greeting, and apology, for an abrupt exit, but I knew they’d understand.
I reframed my mind from one of confrontation, to surveillance. Instead of thrusting myself on her, I’d just watch, and observe. And while I was at it, I’d look into the local bail bondsman, and figure out what the fuck was going on with that.
The good thing about just observing was I’d be able to multitask.