Chapter Seven #2
“Because what, Karina?”
“You're my friend. I give everyone nicknames. Gwen is G, Haley is Hals, Kevin is Kev,” I explained.
He leaned in closer to me, tilting his head as his eyes bounced back and forth between mine. “And I’m Col?”
I nodded as my eyes dropped to his full lips. This man was beautiful. Surely, he was aware of that, right?
Two years of knowing him, and he never brought another girl around us. He was always pining after Gwen, as fruitless as that pursuit would be.
Those lips broke into a smile.
He never smiled like that.
“I like that, Karina,” he noted, his voice soft. I shuddered at the warmth of his breath caressing my cheek, my heart pounding in my chest. I wanted to kiss him, to tell him everything.
“Stevens!”
I jerked back from him, startled as I looked to the left to see Kevin coming through the front door. He was dressed like Collin; they must've just come from practice. A low rumble resonated from my man—
My man?
Jesus, Kay, get it together. I looked up to Collin to find a scowl on his face as our friend approached us.
“Kay, my girl!” Kevin beamed before throwing me over his shoulder and darting around my empty section.
“Kev! Put me down before I get fired! I can’t afford to lose this job,” I giggled.
“Alright, alright,” he laughed as he set me back on my feet next to Collin.
“What are you doing here?” Collin snapped.
I watched as Kevin’s playfulness practically melted off his face as he turned to look at his teammate. “Team meeting.”
Something flashed across those ice blue eyes that I adored so much as his sharp jawline tightened, his body tensing as he squared his shoulders.
“I’ll meet you at the car,” he said just before he turned to walk away.
Didn't they just get through with practice?
Why are they having another team meeting?
“Col,” I called.
He turned his head to the side.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t ever thank me, Karina.”
I shook my head, rejecting her secret. There was no way. “No. It can’t—”
“I've seen the DNA results, Kay. Collin is his son.”
Tears threatened to form in my eyes, but I held them back. No. This wasn’t worth my tears because it wasn’t true. There had to be a mistake. The man who stood up for me, who was always gentle with me…my Col couldn’t share blood with him.
“I-it’s wrong!” I stammered.
She began to tell me about where Collin was born and all the information Casey Gomez, a hacker for the FBI, dug up.
She told me about the hospital. She told me about his mother and how he was left to die in a Chicago winter at the bottom of trash can.
She told me about the foster homes he was in and out of until about the age of eight.
By the end of it all, I was crying. That was a horrible story. No one deserved that kind of treatment. Babies needed to be loved. Children needed to be protected and cherished. Collin wasn’t. I could only begin to imagine the horrors he had to face.
A dark-haired, blue-eyed baby boy left in the cold, dead of night.
In a trash can.
“We think—Dean and I—think that Romano knows who he is, but now, the question is, does Collin know?”
“Does Collin know what?”
I jumped at the sound of his voice, and Haley’s green eyes bounced up to the doorway. I twisted my neck to see him standing in a black suit, hands in his pockets. He took in the scene before him for a moment before his ice eyes landed on me.
I looked out the window to find it was near dusk. Haley and I had been here for hours.
“Karina, back to your room,” he ordered.
Haley squeezed my hand. Something about the tone of his voice must’ve struck a nerve, because I was on my feet within the next second. “You don’t get to talk to me that way.”
He smiled and, you guessed it, it wasn’t kind. Far from it. “Feisty today, aren’t we?”
“Fuck you,” I spat.
He remained silent, watching me like I was the only thing in the room he wanted. After thirty seconds, he said, “Haley needs to rest and heal. I let you catch up, but now, she needs to be checked out by the doctor.”
“I’m alright, Collin,” my best friend said softly.
“You were beaten by two men, Haley. I wouldn’t define that as alright,” he snapped, looking at her.
I folded my arms over my chest, despite the warm feeling in my chest rising at the sight of him giving a damn. “I’m staying with her,” I declared once he looked back at me.
“No, you aren’t. Go to your room.”
“No.”
His jaw ticked, but he remained in his spot by the door. “Karina.”
“Go, Kay. I’ll be alright,” Haley whispered. I turned back to face her.
“Are you sure?”
“I've been fine for the last few weeks. If he wanted me dead, he would have killed me already,” she sighed as her head fell back onto the mountain of pillows.
This wasn’t the time to argue.
I bent and kissed her forehead, whispering that I loved her into her skin before walking out of the room.
He followed, shutting her bedroom door behind him. I pressed on, not having the strength to look at him—Ray Romano’s son—in the eye.
I was almost to the end of the hallway, the home stretch and then…
“Karina.”
I halted.
He was behind me in an instant, his body so damn close to mine that he made all my hair stand up at attention. Despite my best efforts, as his breath fell onto the skin of my neck, my nipples hardened. It didn’t matter whose bloodline he came from; he was the only man my body reacted to.
“Stop defying me,” he growled, and my knees nearly buckled from the sound.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
“I just wanted to spend more time with her,” I argued.
“She needs her rest,” he snapped.
I turned, pointing a finger at his handsome face. “She needs to go home! We both do! How long are you going to keep us here, huh?” I shot back.
“You have two seconds to get your finger out of my face,” he warned.
“What are you going to do? Bite it off?” I hissed.
He chuckled darkly. “Cannibalism isn’t really my style, angel.”
I slowly dropped my hand from his face.
When he called me angel—
“I need you to come with me,” he ordered, brushing past me as he cleared his throat.
“No,” I snapped, turning to face him as my arms found their place across my chest.
“God-dammit, Karina! I do not have time for this,” he snapped, causing me to flinch.
Something in his voice was…he was anxious. I thought about the two Romano brothers who cornered me in the kitchen a few weeks ago. “Am I in danger?”
He just stared. I’ll take that as a yes.
I began walking down the hallway, and he followed behind. The walk to my room was silent, but that wasn't what concerned me. Collin and I never really shared many conversations, so that didn’t bother me.
What bothered me was that the halls were empty.
My blue-eyed demon didn’t have much staff to begin with, but the house was deathly quiet tonight. Come to think of it, Bella hadn’t checked in on Hals and me.
“Where is everyone?” I asked as we came up to my bedroom door.
Wordlessly, he opened it and gestured for me to come inside. He was closing the door behind me, but I stopped him, grabbing the door. He looked at me, and I knew his patience was wearing thin. “Col.”
“Everyone is downstairs,” he answered.
“Why are you locking me in my room?”
“To protect you.”
My hand slipped at his response, and the door closed. I stared at the dark wood of the door as my brain fired off questions, but one stuck out against the rest.
Who was he protecting me from?
The answer: Ray Romano.
The Dark King had entered the building.