Chapter Seven
Kay
I stared at my best friend because there wasn’t much else I could do at the moment.
Officially, as of two minutes ago, I was caught up. On everything. She held my hands in her lap, giving them a gentle squeeze as I tried to process the information. I inhaled a shaky breath.
“Gwen stabbed Ray Romano.”
“Yup.”
“Aiden met Dean and found out the truth by himself?” I asked, still in shock.
Damn, that kid was smart.
“Aiden is smart. Smarter than most adults.”
I nodded in agreement.
“Jer is losing his mind, but you already told me that...” I winced at the thought of my brother going back into his old ways. For a few years, he wasn’t himself. He was lost in his own darkness, and we struggled to get him out. People said that prison changed him, but I knew that truth.
He didn’t change in prison.
He changed three months before he was arrested.
“Yeah, it’s not pretty. He went off on me when I found your letter,” she explained, her voice soft. There was no anger or resentment in her voice, and I loved her all the more for it.
“You and James…are…?” I didn’t want to get into their business, but I had been rooting for them since the beginning. James was a good man. Haley deserved a good, passionate love in her life.
“He probably hates me, Kay,” she whispered, her green eyes filling with tears. I shook my head.
“I don’t think that man could ever hate you, Hals. He loves you so fucking much.”
My best friend’s tears fell down her face as her green eyes avoided mine, looking past me to the door.
At least the man you love loved you back.
The man I loved was the most wanted criminal in the Western hemisphere, a cold, heartless blue-eyed demon with blood red hands. .
“What did he say to you before he let me in here?” I whispered, wondering why he had a sudden change of heart.
Her eyes met mine. She knew I was asking about Collin. “Nothing. He wouldn’t even believe the information about the sex trafficking operation his boss is running in the underground. When I started telling him that they were going to put me in it—”
“Stop,” I said, holding my hand up to her as I took a few deep breaths.
My stomach twisted up in knots at the thought of her being used against her will by dirty, soulless men.
“I need just a second,” I breathed as the images of her turned into me, except the images weren’t just from my imagination.
They were memories.
Rein it in, Kay.
You survived.
I cleared my throat as I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to regain some composure. One, two, three…one, two, three. My body calmed down, and my mind refocused on the present. When I opened my eyes, Haley was staring at me with a concerned look. “Sorry. Weak stomach,” I lied.
She offered me a small smile of sympathy before continuing. “Anyways, when I told him all that he got pissed and stormed out.”
“He believed you; he just didn’t want to,” I said almost to myself, but she heard the words.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I know Collin. When he can’t handle his emotions, he builds walls,” I explained, knowing he has built a fortress against me.
“There’s something else…” she trailed off.
“There’s more?” My eyebrows rose.
This was the information dump of the century.
She looked at me and grabbed my hands again. “Kay, I need you to promise me you won’t say anything to him. I want to know if he already knows, and the more time we spend here, we can find out.”
“Hals, what are you talking about?”
“You know that Collin is an orphan, right?”
My heart dropped a little. Yes, I knew that.
He was an orphan like me. My biological parents were dead, I didn’t remember them.
Sheila Jones adopted me when I was young.
She was friends with my parents, and she took me in, raising me as her own.
She was the only mother I ever knew. I nodded. “That’s what Kevin told us.”
She took a deep breath, wincing slightly at the end. “Hey, take it easy,” I cooed.
“I need to tell you this. James found this out, and he let me see the file, which had the proof inside.”
Shock tapped me on the shoulder at her sentence. James Garner, the uptight FBI agent, let his woman look at a case file? Had the world tilted on its axis?
“What was in the file?”
“Promise me you won’t tell him,” she pressed.
I tilted my head, shooting her a no-shit glare. She shook her head. “Not good enough.” She held out her pinky to me.
I eyed it.
“It’s that bad, huh?” I asked, looking back at her eyes.
“Kay, there is no part of this situation that is good, aside from us being alive. However, this changes everything. Promise me you will keep it quiet.”
“Fine,” I sighed and hooked my pinky in hers.
It may have seemed childish to some, but between the three of us, Gwen, Hals, and me, a pinky promise was some serious shit.
Every time we made one, we kept it. Still, the next words out of Haley’s mouth had me questioning everything, my stomach dipping, another crack added to my heart.
“Collin is Ray’s bastard son.”
Seven Years Ago
“Come on, Kay. Come party with us.”
I flashed the boys a fake smile. “I can’t. I have lots of homework tonight,” I lied as I picked up their empty plates from their table.
I was in the middle of the lunch shift at the burger joint.
Gwen was here too, working on the other side of the restaurant.
However, three frat guys from our school decided to sit in my section today.
I wanted to strangle my friend for dragging me to campus last week to study with her in Lovejoy Library.
I was an online student, and I had no desire to be on campus.
But when your best friend begged you, what were you supposed to do?
These guys sat at the table next to us during our study date and decided to fixate on me. They found out where I worked and showed up today. When they walked in, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, my body warning me of the danger.
These boys were dangerous, and I wanted no part of it.
As a survivor, you could spot the signs before anyone else.
The sly smirks.
The hand gestures under the table.
The predatory gaze.
After returning the dirty plates to the kitchen, I checked on my other tables, made some drinks behind the bar, and ran out some food.
Before I knew it, two hours flew by, and the frat boys were still there, nursing their drinks.
The one sitting on the right was staring me down like I was his next meal.
He had blonde hair and pale green eyes, and those eyes watched my every move as I made my way to the booth.
You are just their server, Kay.
You are at work.
They can’t hurt you here.
Making a mental note to ask one of the cooks to walk me to my car, I plastered on a fake smile.
“Is there anything else I can get you boys?”
The blonde pursed his lips. “Come to our party tonight, baby.”
I snapped my head to him, my ponytail coming over my shoulder. “Don’t call me that.”
He smirked. Rolling my eyes, I shoved my notepad back into my apron. “I’ll go get your check,” I said as I turned away. A hand gripped my wrist. Hard. My body went on high alert as my breath hitched and fear had me in its grasp.
“Come to the party, baby. I’ll show you a good time.”
My skin crawled as I looked down at his hand. “Let go of me,” I hissed, tugging my arm, but his fingers only dug into me more.
He chuckled.
I looked up for help, but none of my coworkers were nearby and my section had emptied out.
Suddenly, a hand came down on the frat boy’s wrist.
All of us looked up to find Collin Stevens standing beside me, wearing a dirty white T-shirt and baseball pants. His dark hair was wet, making his ice blue eyes even more piercing. But the scariest part was that he had his metal baseball bat leaning on his shoulder.
“Release her,” he growled.
“Stevens,” he chuckled, releasing me with a slight push that caused me to stumble.
Collin’s other hand landed on the small of my back, steadying me, the base of the bat now touching the bottom of my spine as the tip bounced against my ankles. “Sorry, man, I didn’t know you had claimed this one,” the asshole said, his eyes raking over my body.
“Keep your eyes on me, Rogers,” Collin said calmly as his hand lingered on my back.
It was all my brain could focus on, the fact that my body was on fire, that this was the first time he'd ever touched me. It felt intimate. It felt good to be protected. I looked up at him, his side profile tense as his jaw jumped, his eyes glaring down at the guy.
“Easy there, Stevens,” he chuckled. “We were just having some fun.”
Collin’s face broke into a smile—one that sent chills across my body.
He slipped his hand from behind me and braced both on the table as he got into the asshole’s face, the bat hanging down, nearly touching the floor.
“You touch her again, I’ll show you the meaning of fun,” he threatened, his voice low.
“Col,” I said, reaching for his shirt as my boss came around the corner. My fingers pulled on the end of his shirt, and even though they wanted to touch his skin, I didn’t push it. He rose up and pointed to the door.
“Fuck outta here.”
I guess his threat worked, because the three men scrambled and headed for the door. “They didn’t pay,” I said to his back.
“What did you call me?” he demanded, ignoring my statement. His voice was somewhat normal now, but it still had an edge.
“I said they didn’t—”
He whirled, those eyes meeting mine, robbing me of any air I had in my lungs. He was so beautiful. Painfully so.
“What did you call me, Karina?” he demanded, his eyes remained on my face.
Always just my face.
“Col,” I whispered. His brow furrowed in confusion, and in the moment, the cocky, tough baseball player was vulnerable.
“Why?” he pressed, his voice thick with confusion.
“Because I…”
I am helplessly in love with you, but I can’t tell you that because you are in love with Gwen Davenport. Not me. Never me.
He stepped closer to me, causing me to step back, my ass hitting the table.