WITSEC

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Time slowed down when your world—your soul—was shaken, fractured, or destroyed. You felt every painful heartbeat pound in your chest. Every breath took thought. It was not living when time slowed. It was surviving. And then there was the aftermath, when time sped back up again and you looked around at everything continuing on like normal, but you stood there watching it like an outsider. How do you deal with being forever changed?

Keelan was hurt and my time had slowed.

The guys had come to my rescue after my uncle had drugged me. A part of me didn’t want to believe it. Another part of me wondered why I was surprised. I’d known things could escalate to that. It was why I had grabbed my gun after Logan had found out the guys knew the truth about me. Logan’s desperation to keep me safe made him go to any lengths necessary. To him, the end justified the means.

Creed was currently driving Colt and me to the hospital. Eyes focused on the road, Creed calmly started to explain what had happened after Colt had raced away with me to their cabin in the mountains. “Keelan and your uncle fought.”

Colt let out a curse.

The memory of Keelan restraining Logan on the ground in a choke hold so I could escape through my bedroom window popped into my head.

“How badly is Keelan hurt?” I was surprised at how controlled my voice sounded, because on the inside was utter chaos. The panic alone made me feel like I was moments away from jumping out of my skin.

Creed glanced at me through the rearview mirror. “He’s all right. He has a mild concussion and he dislocated his shoulder.”

Logan had hurt him because of me.

Maybe I should have just let him take me.

Maybe this was the universe’s way of reminding me that those I cared about always got hurt.

My brow scrunched up and my eyes began to burn, but I refused to let myself cry.

Colt reached back for me from where he sat in the front passenger’s seat.

I stared down at the hand he held out. I didn’t deserve him or his comfort. His brother was hurt. The last thing he needed to worry about was comforting me.

“I’m fine,” I said, fisting my hand in my lap so I wouldn’t be tempted to take the comfort Colt offered. I glanced out the window and tried to distract myself with the lush green forest passing by as we made our way down the mountain. It was amazing how different it was up here compared to the bottom, where the city was. I wondered how noticeable the change from forest to desert would be. As we got closer to the bottom, would the trees begin to turn yellow? Or would it be like the Pacific Ocean meeting the Atlantic? A wall of rich green pine trees would draw a line in the earth, identifying the end of the forest, and from that point on there would be saguaro cacti and tumbleweeds.

The sound of a click pulled my attention back into the car and I looked forward just as Colt was crawling over the center console between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. “Colt! We’re driving,” I admonished as he sat in the backseat next to me.

“Don’t do this again.” His tone was pleading as he gently cupped my face with his hands. I gripped his wrists, trying to pull away. Refusing to let me go, his grip tightened. “I’m serious, babe. Don’t shut us out again.”

“I’m not shutting you out.”

His eyes, which were a beautiful mixture of green and blue, bored into mine. “I can see the guilt all over your face. It’s making you punish yourself. You must stop doing that. What happened is not your fault.”

“Isn’t it, though? Keelan wouldn’t be hurt right now if it weren’t for me.”

“No.” His tone was firm like steel. “Keelan fought for you because you matter. Because you’re ours and we protect what's ours.”

What I wouldn’t give to just swoon at those words. To be able to feel anything other than the crushing guilt in my chest. “Everyone I care about gets hurt.”

“Damnit, Shi! Stop thinking like that,” Creed snapped from the front.

“How?” I snapped back. “How do I do that? Maybe I’m being ridiculous, but it’s hard not to think this way when I’m the common denominator. My parents and sister are dead because Mr. X wanted me. Logan hurt Keelan because I called Keelan for help. I’m the problem. My conscience is screaming at me that I am, and I should have let Logan take me, but I’m selfish. I’m selfish because I can’t bring myself to let any of you go.”

Colt’s brow scrunched up. “If you’re selfish, then I’m selfish, because I can’t let you go, either.”

“If he had taken you, we would have found you and brought you back,” Creed said in a softer tone. “As for how to stop blaming yourself…” He let out a sigh. “You matter to us. You matter so damn much and it’s so frustrating that you think you don’t.”

“It’s not a solution, but we’ll keep saying it until it sticks,” Colt said.

“Do we matter to you?” Creed asked.

“More than anything, but I?—”

“Would you fight for us?” Colt cut me off. “If someone tried to hurt us or tried to take us away, would you fight for us?”

Seeing Colt’s point, I nodded. Of course I’d fight for them.

“How come it’s all right for you to fight for us, but not all right for us to fight for you?” Colt asked.

I opened my mouth, but Colt cut me off again. “Don’t you dare say you aren’t worth it. You are. It breaks my heart that you can’t see it.”

I glanced down. “No one is worth getting hurt for.”

Colt tilted my head back, forcing my eyes to meet his. “You’re worth defending. Keelan chose to defend you. It was your uncle’s choice to hurt Keelan. You are not responsible for the actions of others. You are not responsible for your uncle’s actions, and you are sure as hell not responsible for X’s.”

“Logan thinks he’s protecting me.” I wasn’t defending Logan. Just voicing his reason.

“We get that he wanted to protect you. But Christ, Shi, he drugged you,” Creed said with barely contained rage. “I get that X still being out there is making him desperate, but you could have been hurt—no, you were hurt.”

“He went about it the wrong way,” Colt added.

I agreed, but I also felt the need to excuse Logan’s actions. Feeling torn, I pushed the conversation away from the topic of my uncle. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I’m like this. I mean, how pitiful is it to not see your worth?”

Colt’s hands moved to the back of my neck. “This is only a guess, but I think after years of being tormented by Mr. X, you probably began to wonder why you were special and over time convinced yourself that you weren’t in hopes he’d leave you alone.”

“Maybe. I’ve asked myself that over the years. Why me? Why not Shayla? She was so beautiful, and it was like she was this beacon that drew people to her, where I was shy and comfortable hiding in her shadow.”

“You do realize you were her identical twin, right?” Creed asked.

When I frowned, unsure of his point, Colt chuckled. “Your sister’s personality may have been more outgoing, but there’s no way she was more beautiful than you.”

“And you’re a beacon, too, Shi. You drew us in,” Creed said.

I pursed my lips to stop myself from smiling. Colt surprised me with a quick kiss and stared down at me with a grin. “You’re allowed to feel happy about that,” he whispered.

“Even right now?” I asked.

He nodded. “Keelan may be banged-up, but I know he’d rather you were smiling right now instead of blaming yourself. So let the guilt go.”

I exhaled slowly, and with the air leaving my lungs, the weight on my chest lightened.

“That’s it, babe.” Colt kissed me again before pulling me into his arms. He held me like that as I worked to push down the feeling I’d let dig roots and grow in my soul. Because of how deep the roots went, it’d take more than today to expel the guilt completely. It was another long battle. One I’d have to win if I wanted to believe what they did.

We followed Creed through the maze that was the hospital. As we turned down a hall that led to the room Keelan was in, I saw Ian. He was leaning against the wall, on his phone. As I passed him, we locked eyes.

“I’ve got to go,” I heard him say to whoever he was on the phone with as Creed opened a door, I assumed to Keelan’s room.

Colt and Creed went in ahead of me and after taking a few steps inside, my feet seemed to plant themselves into the ground. The room held two beds. Keelan was lying upright in one, with his arm in a sling. He had a bruise on the left side of his jaw and there was a bandage near his right temple.

In the other bed was Logan. He was sitting at the foot of it with his feet touching the white-and-pale-gray checkered floor. He was holding an ice pack to his right eye with one hand and hugging his ribs with the other. The only other visible injury was his swollen and split lip.

Knox was leaning against the wall on Keelan’s side of the room, arms folded over his chest, looking unhurt and calm. Not pleased, but calm.

All three of them had looked in our direction when we’d entered the room and one after the other locked their gazes on me. Creed went to stand next to Knox, while Colt went to Keelan’s bedside, his eyes taking in his brother’s injuries before setting an angry glare on my uncle.

No one said a word and the tension in the room intensified with each second that passed. I kept looking from Keelan to Logan. Back and forth. Angry to devastated. But mostly angry.

The door we’d just come through opened and Ian walked in. He took in the room, reading the growing unease. Smartly, he stayed by the door.

“Shi,” Logan said, breaking the silence and the tether that rooted me where I stood.

I stormed toward him. My hand flew out so quickly and I smacked him across his cheek hard enough to cause my palm to sting.

Logan could have stopped me from striking him, but he hadn’t. He had just sat there and let it happen, with guilt-filled eyes. That pissed me off more.

I shoved him. Still, he did nothing. “Damn you, Logan!” I shoved him again and slammed my fists down on his chest. I wanted him to fight back. I wanted him to give me a reason to hate him.

An arm hooked around my waist and pulled me backward, putting Logan out of my reach. The feel of the bulky body told me it was Knox holding me. I didn’t fight him to get back to my uncle. Instead, I grasped his arm around my middle, holding it in place.

“The messed-up part is I understand why you did it,” I seethed at Logan, and squeezed Knox’s forearm as if I could pull his strength into myself for what I needed to say next. His hold tightened, telling me he had me, he wouldn’t let go. “I had been drowning in my grief,” I forced out, my burning eyes fixed on my uncle. “And you left me the moment I was legally able to live on my own to get revenge on Mr. X. You said it was for my sake, but if that were true, you wouldn’t have lied to me and said Ian pleaded with you to help him. You left for you . Because it was what you needed to deal with your own grief. It pisses me off because I wish I could hold how much that hurt me against you, but I can’t.” My voice cracked and I saw pain furrow Logan’s brow. Seeing that pain ate at me—ate at my strength. “Losing them broke us, Logan. I understand what it means to grasp hold of anything to lessen that pain. It feels like you can finally take a breath when all the air is gone.” Blinking to clear my blurry eyes, I felt two tears roll down my cheeks. “I can’t fault you, but damn you! Damn you for adding to my pain. You lied to me and abandoned me when I felt like dying would be my only escape!” I roared, all the hurt he made me feel riding my voice. I moved my hand up Knox’s arm, pulling him even closer, and I pointed at Keelan and the twins. “They saved me. They did what you couldn’t do, and damn you for trying to take away what I found to help me breathe!”

I was so angry my whole body shook. Feeling it, Knox began to knead my shoulder with his fingers.

Logan looked down, glaring at the floor. “Shiloh, I…” He trailed off.

I waited for him to continue. He didn’t. Instead, he sat there as if unable to figure out what to say.

I had said what I needed to, at least. It was what I should have said to Logan the moment he’d returned, but at the time, I hadn’t known how to handle it. Maybe I was still handling it poorly. I’d never been in a situation where my only family member hurt me repeatedly but was justified because he thought he was protecting me.

Regardless, I’d said everything that had been weighing on my heart. How we moved on from this was on him. I hoped he listened. I hoped he understood. But hoping for something hadn’t always worked in my favor.

Logan didn’t respond. He just continued to stare at the floor.

I wiped my wet cheeks and walked out of Knox’s embrace over to Keelan. Gently, I cupped Keelan’s face. “I’m so sorry.”

His good arm wrapped around me. “Come here,” he said, pulling me down to sit in his lap. His hand traveled up my spine to the back of my neck and he touched his forehead to mine. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

I wanted to argue, but kept my mouth shut.

“It’s just a couple of bumps and bruises,” he played down.

“You have a concussion, Keelan.”

“It was worth it.”

I wanted to say it wasn’t. I wasn’t . It was almost like a knee-jerk reaction to say that, but I refrained.

The corner of Keelan’s mouth lifted. “That’s an interesting face you’re making. I can’t tell if you’re pissed off or you swallowed something sour.”

Colt sighed next to us. “She’s trying very hard not to disagree with you. She doesn’t think she’s worth fighting for. We had a very long discussion about it on the ride here.”

Keelan’s hand moved to my cheek, his golden-brown eyes holding mine. “Yes, baby girl, you are.” His tone was firm and unbudging, as if nothing could change his mind. “But that wasn’t what I meant.”

“I told him if he could beat me, you could stay,” Logan said. I glanced at my uncle. His shoulders were slumped a little, his gaze still glued to the floor. “I needed to know if they could protect you.” As if finding the strength to do so, Logan looked at me. “I knew I fucked up when I heard you scream for help. It was the fear in your voice and knowing I’d put it there.” The muscle in his jaw ticked and his eyes turned haunted.

“Who won?” I asked.

“Keelan,” Knox answered, with a hardened expression pointed at Logan. “You fought dirty.”

“He fought like he wanted to kill Keelan,” Creed grumbled as he also stared at my uncle with an unfriendly look.

“You think X will fight fair if he finds her?” A harshness seeped into Logan’s voice as he spoke. “My niece is all I have left in this world. I pray every night that I find him before he finds her.” He stiffly got to his feet, hugging his ribs as he did. “I needed to know at least one of you has what it takes to protect her.”

“And one of us proved that to you,” Knox said as his hardened expression shifted to one of suspicion.

Logan stepped toward him. They both stared each other down and the air in the room began to feel heavy. “You’ve no idea what the four of you are risking by being with her.” Logan shook his head slightly. Anger narrowed Knox’s eyes. Logan didn’t seem intimidated. “If he finds her, you four…” Logan trailed off and sighed heavily. “I can’t even imagine what he’ll do to you, but you should know that to X, you’ve touched what he thinks is his. Shiloh is his obsession. In his mind, they are in love and possessing her is all that matters to him. If he sees that she cares for you four, or worse, he finds out that she’s had sex with any of you, which I’m pretty sure has already happened with a few of you, he’ll come after you four like a jealous husband. Only this jealous husband is a psychotic serial killer.”

“We did research on X after Shiloh told us,” Colt said, surprising me. I hadn’t known that.

“Reading a few news articles you found on the internet isn’t enough to fully understand what you’re risking,” Logan said and then turned to look at me. “Did you tell them everything? Did you tell them about the girls he’s murdering? The years of stalking? That night?”

That night didn’t need to be clarified. I knew which one he referred to and he knew the lengths I’d gone to not to even think of it. “I haven’t told them everything that happened that night, but?—”

Cutting me off, Logan let out a slew of curses. “You know better, Shi. What the fuck were you thinking dragging them into all of this?”

He was right. I’d known I’d messed up the moment I had told them the truth. A part of me at the time, though, hadn’t cared. I’d been so broken and alone and then the guys had come into my life. It was like this tiny light had finally appeared in the darkness, and the more I got to know them, the more that light grew. My desperation to keep that light from going out made me not care. Colt was wrong. I was selfish. A chance at happiness wasn’t worth this risk.

“If you want someone to blame, blame me,” Knox said. “I’m the one who made Shiloh tell us.”

“How did you even know to make her tell you anything?” Logan argued.

“All I had to do was look at her to know something wasn’t right,” Knox snapped. “Why would someone leave their eighteen-year-old niece behind alone who was clearly going through something she didn’t know how to handle? Almost every night since she moved in next door, we could hear her screaming from her nightmares. Afterward, she would go running before the sun was even up. She’d run for hours like she was running from something that would get her if she stopped. Then we got to know her. We saw the scars she refused to tell us how she got. We saw the way she would react to things with flinches. It became obvious she had been through something violently traumatic. So I began asking questions. I pushed her to answer because I could see she needed help. Don’t you dare shame her for doing the best she could and failing your expectations. Not when you failed to meet expectations as a parent.”

Logan’s jaw clenched. “Shiloh can’t afford to be reckless.”

“I mean this with the utmost disrespect—fuck you,” Creed seethed.

“Creed,” Keelan admonished, but there was zero oomph in his voice.

Creed shook his head. “I can’t stand this. The more this fucker talks, the more Shi is retreating into herself.”

Everyone glanced in my direction and Keelan’s arm tightened around me.

“Enough,” Ian snapped from where he stood by the door, drawing everyone's attention. Ian looked at Logan. “What’s done is done. She doesn’t want to be relocated and I don’t believe them knowing is a big enough risk to enforce that she be relocated, either. Apart from this sheriff, who we need to handle sooner rather than later, I don’t think she’s compromised here.”

“Do you think the sheriff will discover who she really is?” Knox asked.

Ian shook his head. “I’m sure he’s done a background check. With her being in WITSEC, all the information he’ll find was created for her new identity.”

“Is there a different way he could find who she truly is? Like with her fingerprints or something like that?” Creed asked.

Ian smirked at Logan. “WITSEC goes to extensive lengths to hide those in the program, and if we happened to miss something, well, I’m sure Logan called in a few favors to some old friends to make sure Shiloh’s true identity is unattainable.”

Everyone looked at Logan, who held a schooled expression. “I had her completely erased.”

Ian’s smirk stretched into a smile. “I noticed.”

Logan stared at Ian. “You’re the only one who has her information, the original police reports from the years of him stalking her to the night he murdered our family. I even left you Shi’s hospital records. I know you’re going to need it when we catch him.”

“Is that really why, or is it because Carlos or Eddie couldn’t get past the encryption I have protecting her file?” Ian asked him.

“Eddie can get past anything,” Logan said, admitting which of his ex-Navy SEAL buddies had helped him. “How do you think I knew about the hospital records?”

“What do you mean by completely erased?” Keelan asked.

“It means there’s no record I ever existed,” I answered. “If you were to look up my family online, you would find that Shayla was an only child and that Mr. X was stalking her. News articles that covered the night my family was murdered were altered. Of course, erasing me isn’t completely foolproof because the police involved, the people from my old life who knew me and my family know the truth. Not to mention Shayla was my identical twin.”

“I told you I had all of Shayla’s photos online erased,” Logan said. “The only way for someone to connect you to your parents and sister is if someone tells them.”

With a furrowed brow, Creed looked from Logan to Ian and back to Logan. “Not that I care, but should you really be admitting to doing all that to a fed?”

Logan smirked. “I’m sure Ian’s called in a favor or two.”

“By the time this is all over, you’ll owe me enough to last a lifetime,” Ian said. “Especially with all the felonies I have to look the other way on.”

“Ian and Logan are ex-SEAL buddies,” I told the guys.

Ian’s brows rose. “I thought we were lovers?”

Logan huffed a laugh, then grimaced, clutching his ribs. He stepped around Knox, heading toward the door. “I’m not your type. My hair isn’t blond and my breasts don’t have their own zip code.”

Ian shrugged. “And remind me what your type is? Long legs that spread?—”

“I don’t need to hear that information,” I snapped, covering my ears.

As he reached to open the door to leave, Logan glanced back at me, a small smile on his face. For just a moment, all the bad seemed to have been forgotten. But as we locked eyes, it all came back. His smile dropped. “I’m sticking around until we get the shit with the sheriff handled. I know things are rocky right now, but if you ever need me, I’ll come. No matter what, Shi.” He didn’t wait for me to respond and walked out, with Ian following him.

I glanced around at the guys and noticed Knox watching the door close with that suspicious look again. What was weird was that Keelan and Creed were also staring at the door with the same look. Colt, however, was staring at his brothers like me, looking as confused as I felt.

“Why do you all look like that?” Colt asked them.

Knox, Keelan, and Creed exchanged a look.

“I don’t trust him,” Creed said, looking at me. “He didn’t apologize for drugging you. Instead, he deflected by telling you things you would want to hear, and I didn't believe him when he said he was testing us to see if we could protect you. That’s not how the fight went down. I’m sorry, Shi. I hope I’m wrong, but something doesn’t feel right.”

The eldest Stone brothers said nothing and that told me that they agreed with Creed.

He had apologized yesterday before… Now that I thought about it, maybe he hadn’t. Was telling someone you didn’t know how to apologize to them the same as saying you were sorry? And if what Creed said was true, then everything Logan had said—his sad speech as to why he couldn’t step up as a parent—had been a lie to get me to let my guard down.

Logan was good at lies, especially if they manipulated a situation to get what he wanted. I’d just never thought he would do that to me. Or, honestly, I’d never wanted to believe he’d do that to me.

I went to get off Keelan’s lap, but he refused to let me go. “I have this feeling that you’re a flight risk,” he said in a low voice, but everyone seemed to hear.

Unable to meet his eyes, I stared at the strap of his sling. “You’re putting yourselves at risk being with me. I’m putting you at risk staying?—”

“You promised, Shi,” Creed said. “Run or fight, we do it together, remember?”

It had been wrong to make that promise.

“One of us could die tomorrow,” Knox said. “Be it a heart attack, a brain aneurysm, or a car crash. What have I told you about living in fear?”

Living in fear isn’t living.