Chapter Eight
Shai
I drive too fast back toward Ashford and my house, fingers aching from how tightly I’m holding the steering wheel. My tires slide around the road more than once, and I almost end up in a ditch, but I keep going.
Rory, the guy I robbed, just helped me when I was trying to rob someone else. It doesn’t make any sense, and neither does the fact that he’s been following me. He’s been to my house, in my house. He threatened my mom.
My heart punches against my chest, which gets tighter by the second.
It feels like it’s a hundred degrees in my car, like I’m pressing my foot on the gas but not going anywhere.
I’ll fucking kill him if he touches her.
I’ve done a lot of things in my life, killing not being one of them, but I will fucking kill him for touching my mom.
Half the time, I don’t understand my devotion to her, why I put myself on the line for her over and over, when I know she wouldn’t do the same for me.
But then, she kept me, she raised me, she did her best by me.
She was a kid on the streets who got pregnant by a grown-ass man who then pimped her out.
Regardless of the shit she’s done, she’s my mom, and if it comes down to killing him to save her, I’ll gladly do it.
I press harder on the gas, my car fishtailing, heart in my throat as I almost lose control, but somehow I manage to right myself again.
What feels like an eternity later, I pull down our gravel driveway. The lights are out inside, but others glow behind me, letting me know Rory has pulled in.
I shove out of the car and stalk toward his vehicle. The second I do, he’s there, gun raised, pointing straight at my chest. “This is fucking mine,” he grits out, making shivers run down my spine.
Before I have the chance to realize what he’s doing, he swings his arm, the butt of the gun hitting me in the side of the head, like I’d done to him, and then my world goes black.
*
God, it’s hot. Why is it so fucking hot?
I shift, the dull ache in my head shooting to a piercing pain. I groan, roll over, smell cigarettes and old-cat scent from the couch that came with the trailer.
What the fuck?
Why did I go to sleep on the couch?
My eyes flutter, my living room blurry as I try to come to. Did I get drunk? Someone slip me something? My head is too foggy to remember what happened.
I hear faint voices in the background, so I try to focus on that. Someone speaks, and my mom laughs. Jesus, does she have another fucking trick here? I’m not in the mood.
I try to say something, but I’m not sure the words come out.
“Oh look, sleeping beauty is waking up.”
The voice makes my blood run cold. Rory.
I try to shove up to sitting, but my head screams. I ignore it, keep going, wiping my eyes and trying to process my muddled thoughts.
And then I see them—my mom and Rory, standing in front of me, both looking down with smiles on their faces.
“We were worried about you,” he says. “Good thing I got here when I did. What has the world come to? Someone attacking you in your own driveway. I scared them off and got you inside. Kat has been an excellent hostess. She even made bacon and eggs.”
I try to speak again, but nothing comes out. There’s a boulder in my throat, blocking any words. All I know is, I’ll fucking kill him.
The couch sinks beside me, my mom plopping down and wrapping her arm around me.
She’s wearing nothing but a T-shirt and panties, as if there isn’t a fucking stranger in our house.
“Sweetheart, you didn’t tell me you met a friend,” she says with her whole heart, apparently believing whatever story Rory gave her.
“I like him,” Mom whispers in my ear, but not soft enough for him not to hear.
Rory grins. “Thanks, Kat. I like you too.” He gives her a wink, then looks back at me.
My hands ball into fists, nails biting into my flesh. What is he playing at?
“You’ve been out for hours. Kat kept me company, though.”
This guy is a fucking prick. I’m not sure what his endgame is, but I’m not playing.
I shove to my feet, trying to ignore the dizziness.
I must not do a good job because Rory’s hand shoots out and steadies me.
I bite my tongue not to lash out, but I feel like shit, and I don’t want to do something stupid with my mom here.
“Bedroom. Now,” are the only words I can force out.
“He wants to get me alone,” Rory tells my mom, and if it didn’t hurt so bad, I’m certain my eyeballs would roll out of my head. This guy is something else.
Rory keeps ahold of my arm and helps me down the hallway to my room.
“Have fun, boys!” Mom calls out, and damned if I don’t recognize that tone.
“I’m pretty sure your mom thinks we’re fucking,” he says softly.
“Screw you.”
“Aw, why are you mad? I’m not the one who held you at gunpoint and stole four thousand dollars from you.”
I turn into my room, Rory following me. He dive-bombs onto my bed, landing on his back, his shirt pulling up, and I can see the gun tucked in his waistband. “You left yours in your car. Don’t worry. It’s safe in mine.”
Why the hell hadn’t I thought to grab my piece earlier? I’m fucking this up all the way through.
“What do you want?” I fall into my desk chair and massage my temples. “I’ll pay you back.”
“Money means nothing to me. I have more of it than I know what to do with.”
“Must be a tough life being so privileged.”
He shrugs. “In some ways, I am, yes.”
I can’t stop myself from watching him. I can’t believe he’s in this room with me right now. Again, I wonder why I’m not more scared. How I can know someone is dangerous yet not fear him.
“Don’t hurt her. Do what you want to me. Kill me, I don’t fucking care, but don’t hurt her.”
He rolls to his side, pushes up on his elbow, cocking his head, studying me. I don’t get him. I’m not sure how to respond or what the fuck he’s thinking. “Would she sacrifice herself for you?”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m not trying to be a dick. Just curious.”
I shrug. “Probably not.”
“And you don’t care?”
“I don’t stress about things I can’t change.”
He nods slowly, gaze still penetrating.
“What do you want?” I ask again.
“I haven’t figured it out yet. I should kill you. Let’s be real, I probably will, but…you’re intriguing. Plus, my bunny likes you, and I don’t want to disappoint him.”
“Your bunny?” What the hell is he talking about? “Is there something wrong with you?”
“Yes. And Ollie is my bunny. He wouldn’t like you anymore if he knew you robbed me, and Cillian would kill you, which again, is likely where we’ll end up, but…I want to play with you first.”
Either my brain is scrambled from the hit I took, or there really is something wrong with this man.
And I’m fucking lost about the relationship dynamics.
He said Cillian is like a brother to him, but he talks about Ollie like they’re together.
I don’t have the mental capacity right now to disentangle that, and really, I shouldn’t care.
But I don’t want these bastards to take advantage of Ollie.
For now, I choose to focus on his intentions toward me. “Play with me? I’m not a fucking toy.”
His brows draw together. “Yes, you are. I’ve been playing with you for days. Going to the Pizza Palace, following you, watching your house. Now I must find a new game. Why did you steal from me?”
He bounces around topics, I’ve noticed, from playing with me to my stealing from him without any kind of bridge.
“Rent money. Our landlord is a prick. I’m pretty sure he’s into illegal shit.
He’s got this bodyguard that follows him around.
Anyway, my mom spent all the rent money, so I did what I had to do. ”
“Yet you’d still sacrifice yourself for her?” He sits up on the edge of the bed and continues when I don’t answer him. “She said you’re her best friend, that she had you at fifteen. She seems to love you even if she’s a shitty mom.”
“Hey, fuck off. Don’t call her that.” I mean, he’s right. She’s a terrible mom and always has been, but he doesn’t have the right to say it.
“I had shitty parents too. Most of us do. So, you sling pizzas by day and steal by night?”
I rub a hand over my face, then notice the ibuprofen on my desk. I swallow three of them dry.
His forehead wrinkles as he takes me in, like he’s trying to see below the surface. “Was I your first?”
I don’t want to answer, but I don’t have the energy to fight with him. And he has a gun.
“Yes and no.”
“It can only be one.”
“I’ve hurt people before, I’ve stolen before, but I’ve never staked out a place in the hopes to rob a random guy.”
“But now you’ve done it again after me.”
“Jesus. Yes. You’re giving me a fucking headache.”
“You liked it.” He grins, but it’s one that makes me shift uncomfortably…
and one I want to dissect. He said he finds me intriguing, and clearly, I do with him as well.
I wish I didn’t, wish I was disgusted by him, but the truth is, I’m not.
“Were you hard too? When you stole from me and I wasn’t afraid? When I told you I would kill you?”
I shake my head. I want to throw this guy out of my trailer and never see him again. I want to fight him, and God, I think I want to fuck him too.
“Who are you?”
“Rory Fitzpatrick.” He holds his hand out. “Nice to meet you.”
I swat it away, and he chuckles.
“Why did Shai Burrows appear out of thin air?”
“New start. Different last name.”
“You’re running from someone?” His leg bounces up and down.
“You change the subject so often, I’m getting whiplash.”
“Yeah, my mind is an interesting place. Are you?”
“None of your business.”
“That means yes. Is Bunny in trouble if he spends time with you?”
I shake my head. “No.” I have nothing to hide, and I have a feeling he could find out whatever he wanted—hell, he could probably ask my mom, and she would tell him, if she hasn’t already, so I answer truthfully. “My sperm donor…he’s a pimp. Sells women and sex.”
“Your mom?”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t like it? The selling sex, I mean.”
Interesting question. “I don’t know. She still does it, but at least it’s on her terms now, when and how she wants. She gets to keep the money, and she doesn’t have a pimp beating her ass every other day.”
His pupils blow wide. Huh. He doesn’t like that. He didn’t strike me as the type who’d give a fuck about a woman being hit.
“I don’t think he cares enough to come looking for us.
There are a hundred more to take my mom’s place.
Plus, I never made life easy on him, so he fucking hates me.
” I don’t mean that as in our relationship as father and son; we’ve never had that.
But when he hurt her, he had to deal with me, and he didn’t like that.
“You should have killed him,” Rory says, and it’s one of the few things we’ve agreed on.
“I know.” I’ve answered plenty of his questions, and now I have some of my own. “Who are you? Don’t just say your name. You’re fucking someone, and if you want to play with me, whatever the fuck that means, I want to know.”