Chapter 9 Cressida
Nine
Cressida
Six Years Ago
“You ready to go?” Kash asked, leaning down close to my ear.
I turned my head so that I could look up at him. “If you are.”
These were his friends and their place. I was just happy to be with him, although having him alone was my favorite.
Older girls, college-aged, were hanging on the other guys around our table, and the way they looked at Kash made me uncomfortable.
I didn’t like it, but he kept his arm around my shoulders and me tucked close to his side, never once acknowledging any other female.
Well, except Saylor. She was with Crosby though and didn’t feel like a threat.
“If I get to keep you another hour, I’d rather have you all to myself,” he replied.
I hated my curfew. It was a Saturday night, and I wanted to stay out later, but my parents had insisted I be home by ten.
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m ready to go.”
He winked at me, then stood up, holding out his hand for me to take. I slipped mine in his and followed him by standing.
“Y’all leavin’?” Crosby asked.
“Yeah,” Kash replied.
“You comin’ back after you take her home,” Than said it more like a statement than a question.
“No,” Kash told him, draping his arm over my shoulders. “Night,” he said to all of them with a nod.
“I’m about to head out too,” Forge said.
“Not going with us,” Kash told his older brother as we began to walk away.
Several of the girls called out, “Bye,” to Kash, and one told him to call her, but he didn’t respond or even glance their way.
It was still difficult to listen to. Although Kash never made me feel as if I had any cause to worry that he might prefer someone else, I still felt as if this fairy tale I was living in, where the handsome prince had chosen me, would be snatched away at any time.
When we stepped outside, I wanted to sigh in relief. Kash stopped walking and turned his head to look down at me. He placed a finger under my chin and tilted my head back slightly. When our eyes locked, his brows drew together with concern.
“You know I’d never call another girl. I’ve got no fucking interest in any of them. I just see you.”
This wasn’t the first time he’d said this to me when we left somewhere that other females had openly hit on him. But it was good to hear. It made all the fear fade away, and I became warm and tingly.
“Yes,” I replied. Because I did know that.
Even if I got insecure at times, I trusted Kash.
“Good,” he said in a husky whisper as he began to lower his head for a kiss.
“You got some cash?”
The deep slur stopped him.
We both turned to see a man walking up to us from the parking lot.
Although he sounded as if he might be drunk, he wasn’t staggering as he approached.
When he stepped into the light, I moved back slightly.
His eyes looked weird with large pupils, and his long hair was pulled back in an oily ponytail.
When they went from Kash to me, a creepy smile spread across his face.
“Well, ain’t she a pretty thing you got there?”
I wanted to go back inside now.
Kash moved in front of me, and I started to reach out and grab his hand to tug him away. I didn’t want that man hurting him. But before I could even touch him, he took two long strides toward the man and pulled a gun from beneath his leather jacket.
What the heck?!
“Whoa!” the man said, staggering back as Kash pressed the gun to the man’s forehead. “I just needed some money, man.”
“You looked at what’s mine.”
Kash’s tone made me shiver, and I crossed my arms over my chest as I watched the scene, no longer recognizing the boy I loved.
“Kash”—Forge’s voice came from behind me—“what’s the problem?”
“This fucker looked at her,” he snarled, keeping the gun to the man’s head.
The man held up both his arms. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
I swung my gaze from Kash to Forge. He appeared relaxed and not at all shocked by Kash having a gun and pointing it at someone’s head.
Forge sighed heavily, as if annoyed. “Let the man go,” he told Kash. “We don’t want a cleanup job over some shit like that.”
Kash tilted his head slightly, as if he was studying the man in front of him. “You’re gonna turn around and get the fuck out of here. Don’t come back. I don’t want to see your face again.”
The man nodded. “I will. I mean, I’ll go, and I won’t come back.”
For a moment, no one moved, and I was beginning to think Kash had changed his mind.
But then he lowered the gun and used it to point at the darkness. “Go.”
The man stumbled backward, not taking his eyes off Kash before spinning around and running. He tripped almost immediately but kept from face-planting by catching himself with his hands. Clumsily, he stood back up and started running again.
Kash slid his gun back beneath his jacket, where he had pulled it from, and waited until the man was out of sight before turning around.
“Did he touch her?” Forge asked.
“No,” Kash clipped out while glaring at his brother.
“What the fuck, man? You can’t put a gun to a man’s head over looking at her.”
Kash’s jaw ticced, and his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t ask you, did I?”
Forge shook his head, as if exasperated. Still, he didn’t seem at all concerned that his younger brother had a gun.
“Jesus,” he muttered, then started off into the parking lot.
Kash’s gaze cut to me and immediately softened. “You okay?” he asked.
“No, you scared the shit out of her,” Forge called out as he continued walking away.
The concern in his gaze was nothing like the coldness that had been there when he turned around. “Fuck,” he muttered and quickly closed the space between us. “I’m sorry,” he told me as he cupped my face with his hand. “I didn’t think about how that would upset you. I should have.”
I blinked up into his beautiful face. I’d always known there was a darkness in his eyes at times.
But I hadn’t thought … well, I hadn’t thought that it meant he was dangerous.
Was he? Pirate had warned me that I should keep my distance from Kash, but I’d ignored him. Did he know something that I didn’t?
He brushed my lower lip with the pad of his thumb. “I don’t like anyone looking at you. I know what they see and what they’re thinking. I don’t like it. You’re mine.”
When I shivered this time, it wasn’t from fear but the deep timber in his voice when he said I was his. I had never wanted anything more.
“You … you have a gun,” I said before he made me forget everything I’d just witnessed.
He sighed. “Yeah, little Songbird, I do. There’re some things about me you don’t know. It’s probably time I tell you. But I need you to promise me that it won’t change the way you feel about me.”
Nothing could change that, I realized. Even after what I witnessed, I wasn’t scared of him.
I wanted to get in his truck and go down to the lake he always took me to so we could be alone.
It was where he’d first touched me. Taken off my clothes.
It was where he’d taken my virginity. Where he’d told me he loved me.
“I love you,” I said honestly. “That will never change.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “That’s good, baby.”
Present Day
My eyes flew open, as if someone had said my name. The room was dark still. It wasn’t morning yet. I glanced at the clock on the bedside table to see it said three fifteen. I felt it then. The presence in the room.
Turning over, I sat up quickly, and my eyes began to scan the darkness. When they landed on the figure sitting in the chair to the right of the bed, I covered my mouth to muffle my scream. Because I knew that face. I’d been dreaming about him.
Was I still asleep? I had to be. He couldn’t be in my bedroom in the middle of the night.
“You still talk in your sleep.” That familiar voice soothed me, although I knew it shouldn’t.
I slowly removed my hand from my mouth as I stared at him. This felt real. Like I was awake. But how could I be?
“Kash.” I whispered his name.
“You know any other fucker who could sneak into your bedroom at night so successfully?”
No. Only him.
“Wh-what are you doing here?”
He smirked. “Hell if I know. I’m a stupid motherfucker. I’ll blame it on the whiskey.”
“How did you find me?”
A low chuckle filled the silence. “Come on now, Songbird. You know that answer. Did you think you could hide from me? Right under my nose at that.”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t—I mean—I …” I stammered, not sure what I was trying to say.
His words confused me. Had he meant my living in Madison again?
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Why don’t you start with telling me why you’re living at Aunt Glenda’s?”
Aunt? I frowned.
“What?”
“You heard my question.”
“Aunt … Glenda?” I repeated hesitantly.
He nodded his head. “Not my aunt exactly. She’s Bane and”—he paused for a moment—“Crosby’s great-aunt.”
Cash. Bane and Crosby Cash. Oh my God.
“Grissele …” I said her name slowly.
“Yeah. What about Grissele?” he asked.
He knew her.
That meant, “She’s Bane and Crosby’s mother,” I said, guessing the truth.
He nodded. “Yep. Now, why’re you living at her aunt’s house?”
I stared at him in shock. “I … I don’t know,” I whispered, trying to put everything together in my head.
Had Grissele known who I was that day in the diner? Was this a coincidence? Or not?
“Let me ask this another way,” he drawled. “How do you know Glenda?”
“I … I work for her. I’m her sitter. I take her places. When you saw me Tuesday, I was getting her dry cleaning.”
His scowl deepened. “Why are you in Madison, working as a sitter for an old lady? You were in college, getting your music degree. Why aren’t you doing something with it?”
Because my life had fallen apart, along with my family, when he killed Pirate. But he didn’t get to know all that.
“Things changed,” I said simply.
“Why are you working here?” His tone was demanding.
I wasn’t afraid of him, but I was afraid of the family.
“Grissele hired me. She had come to the diner I was working at and offered me the job. I didn’t know who she was.” Or I’d never have taken this job.
“When?”
“The Saturday after Thanksgiving.”
He let out a humorless laugh and shook his head. “Bastards,” he muttered. “The day before I got here. They didn’t trust me.”
He wasn’t talking to me—at least, it didn’t seem like it.
“So, she knew who I was when she came to the diner?”
He nodded. “Yeah, she knew. Grissele wouldn’t have offered this job to some stranger in a diner.
This is her only living relative other than her immediate family.
Her parents are dead, and Glenda is all she has left of that side of her family.
You were placed here so that the family could watch you while I was in town.
” He shook his head again and leaned back.
“Why are you back in Madison?” he asked me then.
I wasn’t telling him that.
“Because I needed a new start. I …” Pausing, I thought about what I was comfortable telling him because I had to give him some reason or he’d keep asking me. “It was time I moved out of my father’s house. My stepmother didn’t want me there, and I didn’t want to be there.”
“Your parents divorced?”
I stiffened. “My mother is dead.”
For a moment, there was a flicker of pain in his eyes. “I’m sorry. What happened? Was she sick?”
Yes, but not the way he meant.
“She drowned,” I told him, not wanting to give him the details.
We sat in silence for a few moments. The text from earlier today came back to me, and panic tightened my throat.
“You need to leave,” I told him. “I got a text earlier, warning me to stay away from you. I didn’t know how they had my number since it’s a phone that I only use for contact with Glenda when she needs me. But I guess that’s cleared up.”
He stood. “Where’s the phone?” he asked.
I pointed to the dresser across the room.
He immediately went over to it. “What’s the password?”
“I don’t lock it.”
He opened it up and began tapping at things and going through it. “Fuckers,” he muttered. “They’re tracking you.”
I didn’t ask who. I knew.
“It doesn’t matter. All I do is go places for Glenda.”
“Where’s your other cell phone?”
“I don’t have one.”
He lifted his gaze to look at me. “You don’t have a personal phone?”
I shook my head.
“What happened to your phone before you took this job?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and straightened my back. “I didn’t have one,” I replied tightly.
“Why?”
“I don’t see how that is any of your business.”
He narrowed those damn eyes of his at me again, and I mimicked his expression.
“How do you contact friends, your dad? There are no texts on here other than Glenda, Grissele, and the one you deleted that was sent from Bane’s cell. I’ll deal with him later.”
Telling him why I didn’t talk to my father or have friends wasn’t happening either.
“I don’t.”
“Why?”
“Again, not your business.”
His nostrils flared as he looked at me, and I could tell I was pissing him off, but I didn’t care. He set the phone down, then grabbed the chair and moved it under the air vent.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, afraid his moving furniture would wake up Glenda.
“Looking for cameras,” he replied standing in the chair. He took the vent cover off and began feeling around inside.
“Cameras?” I asked, my eyes going wide.
He put the cover back on. “Yes, cameras,” he replied, then moved over to inspect a lamp shade, the curtains, and the light fixture.
I just watched silently in horror.
“At least they didn’t invade your private space. There will be cameras in other areas of the house though. Hopefully, I wasn’t caught on one.”
He turned to look back at me.
“Do you like working for Glenda?”
I nodded. “Yes, I do. Very much.” I liked the security that I felt, although it had been snatched away from me in a matter of minutes.
“Fine. Then stay. I’ll … handle it.”
“What do you mean by handle it?” I asked him.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Exactly what it sounds like. I’ll find out who placed you here. And make sure you don’t get any more fucking threatening texts.”
“I didn’t come back here for you, if they think that’s why I’m here. I came for other reasons. I thought you were in Alabama.”
His jawline grew sharper as he clenched his teeth.
We said nothing while staring at each other a moment more before he started for the door.
He was leaving. Relief should come with that, but there was the urge to call him back.
Ask him to stay. I wouldn’t do that though. He needed to go for both our sakes.
The door opened and closed silently. He was gone. The room felt colder than before.