7. Bay
SEVEN
bay
“I need you to get rid of the photo, got it?”
Travis bobs his head in tandem with what I’m saying, but he hasn’t taken his gaze off Ozzy, who’s eerily standing directly behind me.
I’d tell him to beat it, but he’s like a hood ornament. He comes attached to me, and I don’t have the energy to tell him to go take a long walk off a short pier.
“Trav.”
Bluish-greens find me, and they appear terrified.
And it makes me feel like a monster.
He watched me lose my entire shit on Nessa. The number of times I shot her. My screaming words I don’t remember now.
All I can vividly recall is she’s dead.
And Matteo will be soon.
The need to apologize hovers over my head like an annoying rain cloud, but I don’t allow it to spill from my lips because I’m not repentant for what I did.
I’m just regretful I dragged Travis along with me to see it.
“Can you do that for me?” I repeat. “I used your phone, and I wasn’t thinking. It can’t come back—” I hold out my hand because I don’t want him caught up in what I’ve done. If shit goes down, I don’t want it linked to him in any way. “Here, give it to me, and I’ll handle?—”
“I got it.” He drops his head and goes deadly silent again.
I pushed too hard on this one.
I lost him, and it’s for the best, right? I don’t want to drag Travis into any more of what’s to come and what I’m going to do.
What I’ve already done.
In my red-filled rage, I sent Matteo a photo of Nessa’s dead body and told him nice try.
Nice try with attempting to gain the upper hand.
Nice try using my ex-best girlfriend to try and bring us all down.
Nice fucking try.
“How can he really be gone?”
Travis’s sudden words slice right through me, and it makes my breath catch.
The reality of what’s happened and Matteo not getting the upper hand.
He won, right?
Levi’s gone.
“Shit…Bay,” he mutters under his breath, and it’s then I realize I’m crying when a tear hits my cheek. “Come here.”
I slowly inch for him, wrapping my arms around his ribs and squeezing him tightly to me.
He’s an immediate comfort as I rest my cheek to his chest. Something I truly don’t deserve right now but demand anyway.
“I’m not going to reach out,” I tell him as I feel his body shift, and his arms begin to encase me. “I’ll send Juice to?—”
Travis suddenly flinches backward and out of my grasp as if something just shocked him.
Then a tower of all-black and lean muscle shows up at my side.
Ozzy.
My jaw tics, but I’m not in the mindset to deal with my husband right now. I have to get home to Ellie and Mae and…tell them tomorrow.
Travis remains frozen on the sidewalk, unable to move with sheer fear in his eyes when I step out in front of my bodyguard and glare up at him.
“ Stop .” Ozzy doesn’t utter a word, but I’m immediately greeted with those dark blue eyes. “What did I tell you about that?”
Ozzy only stares back, not giving up an inch of what he wants to unleash on Trav.
Turning on my heel, I find Travis’s frame already fleeing back to his house. He’s reached his limit, and I can’t say I blame him one bit for not wanting to stick around.
Not only that, but he lost a friend, too. Someone he looked up to. Someone I simply can’t live without.
Exhaling heavily through my nose, I pivot back to my stolen vehicle when Ozzy decides he’s going to block my path.
I clench my teeth and, ever-so-slowly, peer up and find my silent partner still staring down at me with those dark blue eyes. “Well?”
Nothing.
Like always.
And since I’m not a mind reader, he’s going to need to produce some words or we’re not going to get far here.
Inhaling a deep breath to gain some patience, I begin to round his body again when Ozzy’s arm shoots out, and I’m about ready to lose my fucking shit.
Nostrils flaring, I glance back up at him and wait.
And wait.
And wait some more.
It’s not a game I like playing, honestly. But it’s become a thing for us, apparently.
“ What ?” I finally snap, thrusting both my arms down at my sides because it’s either that or punching him in the stomach. “If you want something, speak . If not, fuck off .”
Ozzy’s face softens a tad, yet he doesn’t utter a single syllable.
I don’t have time for this shit.
I’m about to go in on him for bothering me, but he raises a palm, and I swear my chest swells through some of the anger there.
“ No ,” I retort, even though I do want to press against him for more reasons than I can count. “You’re an asshole, and I’ve told you before Travis is a friend. You don’t?—”
“No.”
My eyebrows collide with his direct dismissal. “This shit again?”
He blinks.
“I’m tired of you.”
Ozzy doesn’t move a muscle, not even his hand from the air.
“Can I go home now?” I get nothing back and count to three before I begin to step around him for the third time, but Ozzy pulls the same bullshit blocking move, and I’m ready to lose it. “ Stop doing that to me.”
“Bay…”
I immediately avert my gaze because I can’t stand to look at him. His voice is soft, and I want violence.
I want revenge.
His empathy and concern only blanket those things around me and try to prevent them from turning into actions.
Ozzy has this mind-boggling effect on me I can’t seem to shake. He’s frustrating at times but not as much as I’d like. It’d be easier to brush him away if he’d fight back or come up with some shitty comment to keep me going, but he says nothing.
He lets me get everything out and then makes me think about everything I said.
And everything I’ve done leading me to this point.
I did this.
This is my fault.
My heart drops and crashes into the pit of my stomach at the realization I sent my best friend out to do something he didn’t want to do, and he died because of it. Levi went out looking for Reeve because he knew how much it was killing me that he was off the rails.
I did this.
I set up the domino effect.
If I hadn’t rejected Reeve’s offer to take care of me, he wouldn’t have gone on a binge. He wouldn’t be in the fucked-up state he is now, where people are having to search for him.
Levi went because he knew how much I cared about Reeve without me having to say it.
I sent him to his untimely death. He put himself on the line for his enemy. Men he doesn’t like, but I do.
Most of them, anyway.
Stepping away from Ozzy, my brain runs a million miles a minute. How reckless and selfish I’ve been. How I just can’t do anything right or be with anyone correctly.
I’m like Paisley, my shape-shifting mother. A burden to everyone around her.
A fucking bitch.
Someone who just takes and doesn’t give a shit about the consequences.
I killed my best friend because I told Matteo time and time again I was through. There’s no universe where he and I exist in the same room with the same plan. All these deciding factors and things I put into motion. I made it perfectly clear Levi was my strength, my courage, and my life.
I was the ringleader in this. I’m the reason I’ll never see Levi again.
“Please…” Ozzy’s voice, the melancholy in it, draws my attention once more and so does his outstretched palm.
I can’t deny this silent asshole eases me into a state of calm.
But it’s conflicting with intense fury that wants to go out and slit Matteo’s throat while I watch him bleed out in front of me.
“You don’t want to be around me, Oz,” I say simply, those dark blues penetrating through the middle of my emotions like the Red Sea. “Please…just let me go.”
It’s a civil war in my head, and I just want the bad side of it. I need the frenzied state so I don’t lose myself in grief.
Not until this is all said and done. Then I’ll deal with it.
“I’m no good for you,” I explain to really drive my point home. “You shouldn’t have come out of those shadows… You were safe there.”
He spreads his fingers, lips parted, and he’s so torturously beautiful. A sweet nature with a bad boy exterior filled with black ink and piercing eyes that could strangle you to his will.
I’m trapped without walls or chains because it’s him that keeps me still and grounded.
“I need you,” he mutters ever-so-softly, cracking something hard in my body as a sob breaks free and causes my eyes to snap shut.
“Please don’t.”
“Bay…”
“You can’t right now,” I retort steely, a twinge of irritation coursing through me because he’s not getting it. I will drive him to madness. I will hurt him.
I did it to Torin.
I did it to Reeve.
Cairo is on his way, and I fucking sent Levi off to his ultimate demise. I shouldn’t have fallen for the Forsaken boys in the first place. If it weren’t for all of this, Levi would be in South Shore safe. This never would’ve happened.
You should go off yourself right now for everyone’s sake. You’re just no good to anyone here.
Judah was right.
But what about Ellie and Mae? What is going to happen to them? Are they going to die too because you can’t keep your fucking mouth shut?
Ozzy doesn’t understand I’m just as much of a fuckhead as Torin is. And I don’t want to be the one who makes Ozzy feel obsolete. He deserves a well-rounded girl who can give him the attention he merits and nothing less. Someone sweet-natured and patient. A woman who isn’t a complete psychopath when she believes the situation warrants it.
“I can’t be what you need,” I vouch evenly, the words caught up in my throat. “I’m not someone who’s going to make you better.” I crack my lids open and find him through glossy vision. “I care about you… Please don’t be in the way.”
He slowly rocks his head back and forth, denying he could never not be.
However, he can’t save me from this, and I don’t need him to try.
“I’m only going to betray you,” I grind out. “Don’t you understand? You’re going to want me to stay put, and I can’t. There’s no way I’m letting him walk around with…”
He didn’t make it. They couldn’t save him.
No. No. No.
I drop my head, and suddenly I can’t breathe.
I can’t do this.
I can’t survive without him.
“ Leave .”
My one-word order to Ozzy doesn’t have the effect I asked for. He’s as fucking stubborn as Torin. He’s as sweet as Reeve. He’s as loyal as Cairo. He’s as comforting as Levi.
My mouth opens, a shitty countenance forming from my throat to get him to question his faithfulness to me when Ozzy’s long fingers wrap gingerly around my face, and I gasp from the warmth penetrating off his hands.
I flinch under his touch, palms trembling as my breathing heaves.
Each inch of his digits splayed across my cheeks and underneath my jaw sends shrills of bafflement coursing through me.
I am living in a fucking nightmare.
Then a dream.
My head lifts as those dark blues penetrate my mix of emotions, leaving only one behind.
Him.
A man hidden away behind a fucked-up past and a woman who used him.
This is a big step. A huge gesture not lost on me.
I’ve touched him before, and he’s wavered away from me, but this is different.
Amid my chaotic mindset, he shoves his desires aside and gains my attention the only way he knows how.
The only way that seems to be working.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, unable to move or think straight because when his thumb grazes slowly down my throat, I almost wish he’d snap my neck and end this for me.
I’d trust him with it.
I’d ask him for it, but he’d rat me out to Cairo. Then I’d be under heavier house arrest and constant supervision that’ll make me crazier.
“I need you,” he desperately says again. This time with a slight hardness to his tone. “He let you go.”
My brows clench together, but then he flicks his gaze over my head to where Travis disappeared moments ago.
I can semi-understand why he’d be pissed at him—again. It didn’t help that my husband found me with Trav on the couch sharing a sandwich. Maybe it looked a little intimate, but we don’t roll that way.
Never have.
If I found Ozzy on the couch with any female, sharing anything, I’d probably do worse than he did. I may have not pulled a gun, but I’d throw a few punches.
You’re obviously capable of pulling out a gun.
“It’s my fault Travis went,” I admit simply. “I called him. He was the only one I knew would come with me.” Ozzy frowns before his eyebrows tilt downward. “You would’ve come? If I came out and said, hey, I need to go find Levi…you would’ve snuck out with me?”
“Yes.”
I wrinkle my nose because my immediate thought is he wouldn’t. It would have been an awful thing to ask of him when Cairo’s his brother. Having Ozzy pick and choose between me and them is something I’d never do.
I was just trying to prove a point.
And now Ozzy is starting to get attached.
I’m already attached to him.
We’ve been the least intimate but sometimes, I feel like he’s the most. His touch is low-key disturbing to my psyche. I feel it everywhere, mentally and physically. I’ve never felt devotion so dedicated to someone who’s barely said shit-all to me as I do with Ozzy.
He says nothing but everything at the same time.
This shit is psychotic and fuckin’ weird.
“You never chose me,” I emit tersely. “Understand?”
“No.”
“No, you, no. I’m not going to get?—”
“You’re my wife.”
It’s the first time he’s ever acknowledged it, and my body suddenly melts into molten lava.
Wife.
I wonder how much he thinks about that. If it means as much to him as the word does to other people who chose it.
I turn my face to the side, trying to escape his hold, but Ozzy only tightens it, causing his whole body to go taut and unstable with each exhale.
He can’t contain me for much longer, stretching his mind to be this close to me, but I can’t say I don’t love it. I can see the physical effects it has on him, so I can only imagine the mental.
Raising my palm between us, I give him an out. Something he’s more comfortable with. Ozzy immediately drops his hold from my face and presses his palm firmly against mine while putting some space between us.
“I want you safe,” I convey through the thick emotions of everything from tonight threatening to choke me alive. “From anyone and everything that comes my way. And the method to do that is to push you away. I want you to find something else to occupy your time.”
He blinks once, listening and possibly waiting for more.
The thing is, I know what I’m about to venture on. My path has already been laid out for me.
“I’m not going to be here much longer.” His brows slowly pinch together through my vagueness, but I desperately need him to hear this. Because I might not get another chance to tell him how I feel. How his existence means something to me, since it doesn’t seem like anyone else besides the boys has given a fuck about him. “When I make my move on Matteo…” Tears burn the backs of my eyes, because if it weren’t for me dating my ex, I wouldn’t know who he was. He wouldn’t have killed my best friend. I wouldn’t be standing here with my heart fractured into a million pieces. “When I go after him…I have a really good feeling that I’m either not going to be walking away, or I’m going to be severely traumatized.”
His palm presses harder into mine to reassure me of something, but the next word he says doesn’t. “Torin.”
Oh, God, no.
I blow out a long exhale through my lips, preparing myself for him .
Pretty Boy.
God, no more. I can’t do any more tonight.
“Please,” I utter through some shakiness of my breath. “For the love of God…tell me, he’s fine.”
Ozzy nods, and I’m grateful for that.
“Bay…I’m sorry.”
I focus on the gentleness of his tone. Not the fact that I’m going to have to face people in a few days and express that I appreciate them coming to support Levi in death.
To celebrate his life when he shouldn’t be gone in the first place.
“Shoreline Peaks.”
My eyebrows crash together in confusion. That’s Matteo’s stomping grounds.
I continue to stare up at Ozzy and can’t fathom why he’d mention that right now. I know where he’s from and where that prick stays.
“Torin.” My face skews, not understanding what he’s saying. “He’s there.”
My heart literally stops because…that’s not funny.
“ Matteo has him?—”
“No.” Ozzy cocks his head a bit to the side, stretching out the black ink of his neck tattoos. It’s like he’s—There’s no fucking way.
None.
“What are you saying to me right now?” I ask gently, though the slight pressure on his hand alludes I need the answer ASAP. “Where is he?”
“Safe.”
I shake my head. “That’s not safe. You have Torin right under Matteo’s nose and—” I stop then because it dawns on me like a light bulb. “You’re all fucking crazy.”
It’s the last place Matteo would look.
His own territory.
If he was planning or attempting to get to Levi and Torin to finish them off, he wouldn’t look within his own damn borders.
He’d look here.
“You need to get him out of there.” I don’t like it. He needs to be around the Forsaken Crew and under close monitoring so he’s not gone again. “Ozzy…I’m fuckin’ serious.”
“Soon.”
That seems to be a trend around here.
The waiting game.
“Bay?”
“What?”
I see him swallow before I notice him pull some of his braveness from his chest and say with confidence, “I’m never leaving you.”