13. Lilah
13
LILAH
I sat in the front seat of a black Range Rover while Jude drove. It seemed like overkill to have Rafe and Nolan in the back seat, but they’d insisted on coming to my apartment as a group to scope it out and make sure it was safe.
I didn’t know what to do with this weirdly chivalrous version of the Bastards. Probably they just wanted to sanitize their conscience. They had to know what they’d done to me in high school was fucked up even if they hadn’t been there for all of the fallout.
I wasn’t interested in being an instrument of their character rehab but I would have been lying if I said it wasn’t comforting to have them all in the car. The truth was, I didn’t know what awaited me at my apartment and I was more than a little glad to have three huge former Navy SEALs on my side, if only for the next ten minutes.
After that, it was so long, goodbye, hope to see you never.
I ignored the twinge in my chest. It was only human to be grateful. They’d saved my ass last night, and Nolan had been especially nice about administering first aid and giving me meds for my AVS. I remembered the way he’d looked at me outside the sauna, like his blue-green eyes could see right through me, and felt my face get hot.
And okay, I was hot in other places too, but that was just biology. All the more reason to say good riddance and never look back. My history with Rafe, Nolan, and Jude had always been confusing, but only because I’d never understood why they’d done what they’d done. There had only ever been one thing I’d known, one thing I’d been sure of: they were fucking bastards.
I didn’t need Nolan’s gentle hands and Jude’s soulful puppy-dog eyes to make me second-guess my assessment.
As for Rafe, well, Rafe Maddox would always be the biggest bastard of all.
“This it?” Jude asked, making a right-hand turn.
He looked stupidly attractive in the dim light leaking in from the streetlights, his short hair highlighting cheekbones that could cut glass. His big hands gripped the steering wheel and I was annoyed to feel heat rush between my thighs.
“Yep,” I said, relieved when my voice came out sounding normal. “It’s about a half mile up, on the left.”
The roads had been clear coming off the mountain, but the pavement was still slippery, the surrounding trees covered with a thick layer of snow. I'd always liked driving right after a big snowstorm when the roads were empty, the world still hushed as everyone shook themselves from their imposed hibernation.
Now the silence felt dangerous.
Ominous.
Once I was back in my apartment I was on my own. It wasn’t like it was the first time. I’d been on my own since I was eighteen, cut off by my mom for being an “unrepentant sinner,” separated from Matt, ostracized from everyone I’d known in high school, which to be fair wasn’t very many people.
It was fine. I’d done okay. I’d worked hard for the little I had, supported myself, paid my bills (mostly) on time, went to the gym and learned to defend myself.
I hadn’t thought much about it before. It was just the way it was, the way it had been since I’d left home.
But now I really felt it. I was alone.
Like, alone alone.
And far from being invisible, I had a target painted on my back now. Vic and the other men who’d chased me through the woods obviously had something to hide, and it wasn’t like my address was a secret.
My heart raced and I forced myself to breathe slowly in an attempt to calm it down. Stress was the enemy with AVS and I’d put my heart through a lot in the past twenty-four hours.
It wasn’t over yet. I’d charged my phone just in time to discover a text from Shirley, my boss at the Mountaintop Inn, telling me I’d been fired for not showing up to my shift that morning. That was something a lot of people didn’t understand: people like me, people who worked crappy under-the-table jobs that barely paid the bills, didn’t get snow days. We didn’t get paid sick days and there was no HR department where we could file a complaint.
I’d tried calling Shirley to explain that I’d been stranded without my phone because of the storm but Shirley didn’t give a fuck.
That was two jobs down counting the Dive, which was clearly not a winning career path. Thankfully I wasn’t due at Burger Haven, the tacky chain restaurant where I worked as a waitress twenty hours a week, for another two days.
“Right there,” I said, pointing out the driveway on the right.
Jude turned into a half-empty gravel lot in front of a dingy two-story building. It had definitely seen better days, but I’d gotten used to its peeling paint and old windows, the leaky roof (my unit didn’t leak, but Marv, the old man in the unit next to mine, said his had been leaking for months).
After the Bastards’ luxurious digs (I hadn’t even had a chance to ask them what they did for a living now that they obviously weren’t in the military anymore), it looked extra pathetic.
“This is good,” I said when Jude pulled next to Marv’s shit-brown sedan. “Thanks.”
“Not so fast, boss,” Jude said.
I looked back at him. “What? I appreciate the place to stay last night, but I don’t have any money to give you if that’s what you’re getting at, and you’re definitely not getting anything else from me.”
He scowled, and I was truly sorry to say it only made him hotter. “We don’t want money. Or anything else.” He reached for the door. “We’re going up with you, just to make sure everything’s cool.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Everything looks fine.”
I tried to sound carefree but there was a teensy tiny part of me that definitely wanted them to walk me up, just to make sure Vic wasn’t waiting to put a bullet between my eyes or stuff me into a car like they did to the girl behind the Dive.
“What Jude meant to say is we’re not leaving until we make sure your apartment’s clear,” Rafe said, his voice cold as he opened the door. “Now get out of the fucking car.”
I bit back the retort at the tip of my tongue. Rafe was a dickbag but why cut off my nose to spite my face? I might as well take advantage of being in the company of three trained-to-kill former soldiers while I had them.
I sighed. “Fine.”