Chapter 7 - Bash
BASH
The rain begins as a soft mist, barely noticeable at first. It settles slowly over the narrow street outside The Red Boot, turning the pavement slick beneath the yellow glow of the streetlamps.
Livingston walks ahead of me now, unaware that I’m there.
Unaware that this is a ritual for me, that I have been following her more times than she could ever fathom.
My fingers are still tingling from getting to feel her soft skin.
It wasn't something I intended to happen, but I’ll never forget the feeling.
I was ready to murder my teammate right there in front of her just to have a few more seconds of her undivided attention.
I keep enough distance between us that she would never hear my footsteps over the quiet rush of the wind and the distant laughter spilling out of the pub behind us.
Even if she turned around, the shadows would swallow me easily enough.
I’ve spent most of my life learning how to move unseen, how to slip through any situation without drawing attention to myself.
Tonight is no different.
The hood of my sweatshirt is pulled low over my head, the damp air clinging to the fabric as the rain begins to fall harder. It soaks into my hair and runs down the back of my neck, but I barely notice.
My attention is fixed entirely on her.
I can’t get the sound of the way she gasped when I touched her out of my head.
The way her breath caught when she looked up at me outside the pub.
For a moment she was completely startled, those sea-green eyes widening as recognition flickered across her face.
Before she even understood what she was reacting to.
Her long lashes brushed the soft curve of her cheeks when her eyes fluttered closed, and the memory of it hits me now with the same quiet force it did a few minutes ago.
I’ve replayed that moment at least twenty times since she walked away.
The girl I’ve spent the last decade searching for is now only a few yards ahead of me, walking through the misty darkness.
Even from this distance, I can see the way she moves.
She is careful, alert, and her gaze shifts constantly, taking in everything around her without lingering on anything for too long.
Her awareness sharp for someone so sweet, and it’s interesting to me because I want to know what made her this way.
Was it her parents’ murder? Was that the only event in her life that made her this hypervigilant?
I try to keep my mind from wandering because I need to focus on her. I can’t get distracted thinking about all the lives I’m going to ruin when I find out who has hurt her over the years.
Livingston has spent most of her life surviving things that would break other people. The world taught her early that danger doesn’t announce itself politely, it comes in swinging when you least expect it.
Still, even with all that careful attention, she never once glances in my direction.
She doesn’t see me.
The realization settles into my chest with a slow burn of anger.
Because if she can’t see me following her this easily, someone else could do the same thing.
Someone who has been fixated on her just like I have all these years. I’m going to find the fucker who’s looking for her. Then I’m going to start with his fingers and eyelids, ripping him apart for even thinking about my girl.
My jaw tightens at the thought.
It wouldn’t be the first time someone made the mistake of thinking Livingston doesn’t have someone willing to kill for her.
Since I’ve been on this campus, I’ve already dealt with three men who thought she was an easy target, but I can spot them from a fucking mile away. None of them ever got close enough to actually touch her, but the way they watched her was enough for me.
One of them thought it would be funny to trail her after one of her classes, keeping just close enough behind her that she could feel it. He was older, not a professor, but wore the St. Killian crest on his stupid little polo shirt.
He didn’t think it was funny when I found him later and beat the breath out of him.
He begged me to kill him before I tossed him off the cliff, but that would have been too humane.
I saw the way his eyes moved up her legs and over the curve of her ass.
I know what he was thinking because I’m no better than him.
Livingston’s body wrapped in that plaid skirt is a fucking wet dream that belongs only to me.
I don’t give a fuck. She’s mine.
Livingston will never know any of that happened, and she shouldn’t.
I don’t want her to ever worry about anything.
Money, protection, her happiness? That’s all my job, and I’m more than equipped to provide that for her.
Even if my brother and I hadn’t had success with that silly little game built and sold, I’d find a way to provide for her.
That’s what makes this life worth living in the first place.
I want to give Livingston everything and anything she could ever want.
My girl would probably run in the opposite direction the second she realized what I’m capable of, but I have a sneaking suspicion she’ll warm up to the idea.
The rain begins to fall harder now, the soft mist turning into a steady drizzle and I’m annoyed that I can’t catch up to her and get her out of the rain.
Livingston cups her hands over the top of her head in a futile effort to save her hair from getting soaked.
It’s beginning to cling to her shoulders.
She looks smaller like this. Fragile in a way that makes something protective coil deep in my chest. My girl is close enough that if I wanted to, and fuck do I want to, I could reach her in a few strides and haul her into my arms.
But like a good little stalker, I keep my distance.
I can’t stop thinking about the look on her face when she realized I was standing in front of her outside the pub. It told me everything I needed to know.
Livingston Rhodes isn’t ready for me yet.
And if I’ve learned anything over the last decade, it’s that protecting her means knowing when to put my feelings second to hers.
Even if every instinct I have is telling me to walk up beside her and grab her, hold her to my chest and never let her go.
I have to admit that there are moments when watching her feels almost peaceful.
Not often.
But sometimes.
Like the quiet evenings when she walks Juniper’s dog through the narrow streets around campus, the leash looped loosely around her wrist as the old dog trots beside her.
I’ve watched her do it more times than I can count now.
She always takes the long way around the block, even when the weather is miserable, even when the wind coming off the sea is strong enough to whip her hair all around her face.
Livingston never rushes the dog.
Instead, she slows her pace, bending down every few minutes to scratch behind its ears or murmur something softly to it when she thinks no one else is around to hear her.
The first time I saw her do it, I had been sitting across the street, watching from a distance the way I always do.
She was crouched down in the middle of the walkway, her blonde hair falling forward over her shoulder as she cupped the dog’s face in both hands and pressed her forehead gently against its nose.
The sound of her voice had been so soft I could barely hear the words. But I swear the tenderness settled somewhere deep in my chest. Livingston is kind in a way the world has never been to her.
There’s a quiet warmth that lives in everything she does, in the way she moves through the world with a careful gentleness that most people probably mistake for weakness. I fear that she could never love the kind of darkness that lives inside me.
The monstrous rage.
The absolute lack of empathy I feel for anyone who isn’t her.
If it ever came down to it, I would choose Livingston over anyone.
Over everyone.
It wouldn’t even be a choice.
I would choose her without half a thought, even over my twin brother.
The thought pulls a quiet smirk from my lips.
Not because I doubt my brother would do the exact same thing.
Tristan Vale might be the only person in the world who understands that kind of devotion better than I do.
If someone ever threatened his girl, Winter, he wouldn’t hesitate for a second. He would burn entire cities to the ground if it meant keeping her safe.
And if it came down to choosing between me and her, I have no doubt my twin would cut me into pieces without losing a minute of sleep. The respect between us runs deep enough that neither of us would ever question it.
Which is exactly why he understands why I’m here. He didn’t say hey, maybe don’t fly across the world to stalk some girl you met once when you were ten. He didn’t ask me for an explanation, instead, he drove me to the airport.
I don’t consider myself or my brother anything like our father at all. We get our looks from him, I suppose. Our height and the jet black hair, but there’s something else we get from him that most people would say is an unbecoming trait.
Whatever we want we get, and we will fight for it until someone surrenders and hands it over. I’ve heard people liken my father to a monster, but the things that he covets and desires aren’t what interests Tristan and myself.
Our father wants power, money, the souls of people he can control. My brother and I have one track minds, I’d say. All of our time, attention, and devotion are poured into one thing.
In his case, it’s our foster sister Winter LeBlanc. For me, no matter how many times our father told me I was wasting my potential, how I could have so much more in this life if I would just stop fixating on a girl who probably doesn’t even remember me, that was never an option.
Because Livingston Rhodes has been my entire life since the day I laid eyes on her, and her name will be the last thing to pass my lips before I leave this earth.
Even when I was too young to understand what the feeling meant, she lived quietly in the back of my mind.
When I was a teenager and finally old enough to start looking for her, the search consumed every part of my life.
Every decision I made, every connection I built, every skill I learned eventually circled back to the same goal.
Finding her.
Making sure she was safe.
Now that she’s finally within reach, the ache I thought would disappear has only grown worse.
For years I imagined that being close to her again would settle something restless inside me, that seeing her in person would somehow quiet the constant tension that has lived under my skin since the day she disappeared from my life.
Instead, the opposite has happened. Being this close to her without touching her is unbearable. Watching her walk just a few paces ahead of me without being able to reach out and pull her into my arms feels almost impossible to endure.
I want to know what her hair feels like sliding between my fingers.
I want to hear the sound she makes when she laughs without trying to hide it.
I want to hold her against my chest and promise her that the rest of her life will be safe.
The thought of never having any of those things twists something violent in my chest. Because my girl should never have to walk through the dark alone.
I immediately match Livingston’s pace when she slows.
The movement is subtle, but I notice it immediately. Her hand slips into the bag she’s always carrying around. What I wouldn’t give to go through the contents and learn things about her no one else will ever know. She pulls out her phone and for a moment she simply stares down at the screen.
Then something shifts. Livingston’s entire posture changes in a way that makes my stomach drop.
The softness in her shoulders disappears, replaced by a sharp tension that runs straight through her spine. Her head lifts abruptly as she scans her surroundings.
Alarm is all I see etched on her pretty face.
Something on that phone just set every instinct she has on edge.
Before she can turn far enough in my direction, I step back quickly and press myself into the narrow space between two stone buildings.
I don’t even know what classes are held here.
In fact, I haven’t been to one single class Caiden signed me up for.
He told me to immerse myself, to act like a real student, but to be honest if I was a real student here, living the college life with my pretty girlfriend and a coveted spot on the rugby team, I wouldn’t go to class either.
I’d spend every single day doing whatever the fuck I wanted, and that would mean a lot of days not getting out of our bed.
The cold wall is damp against my shoulder as the rain continues to fall, but I barely register the sensation.
My attention is locked on Livingston and whatever the hell has her so scared.
She looks around again, more erratically this time, her eyes searching the darkness in a way that sends a tight, violent clench through my chest that settles in like a slow burn.
And the second I find out who caused that look on her face, I’m going to ruin them.
I don’t even hesitate over the thought.
It arrives fully formed and completely certain.
Whoever upset her enough to make her look over her shoulder like that has no idea how close they are to making the worst mistake of their life.
Livingston stands there for another moment, her gaze moving slowly across the street one last time before she finally slips her phone back into her bag.
Then she walks faster.
The careful pace she held earlier is gone now, replaced by long, purposeful strides that carry her quickly down the cobblestone path that will lead her straight to her dorm.
I pull out my phone and watch the cameras in her bedroom until she comes into view.
Just as an extra precaution, I check all the cameras in the house, even the ones in Juniper’s room since I know she’s not in there.
Kalen would probably still be mad that I hacked his setup, but with my girl being there alone, I’m not taking any chances that someone is inside waiting for her.
I turn and sprint down the street because I want to watch her on my monitors in my room.
I’m sure I’d get flagged as a creep if I said it out loud, but I have an entire system set up, and I can watch her from multiple angles at once.
I haven’t known much comfort in my life.
This one thing, being able to watch even the smallest movements as she gets ready for bed or sets up at her desk to study, calms me in ways I can’t explain.