17. Ozzy
SEVENTEEN
ozzy
Bay stands in front of me, unmoved, as though she’s dead, right along with Wallace’s casket in front of us.
I haven’t seen her crack a smile in days. And I mindlessly find myself longing to see it, because…it makes me content to know she’s okay. That she’s still Bay and not some empty shell walking around with demons in her head.
My chest tightens uncomfortably as the early afternoon sun beats down on the group gathered today. The solemn looks aren’t what’s bothering me, but who could be here.
Sinister thoughts form in my head, because I know the different types of evil. I lived around it as a child, when Cairo was dating Vivian, and when I was sent to prison.
I’ve seen people get beaten to death for stealing a morsel of food. I’ve heard muffled screams within the depths of night, when prisoners would pay off the guards just to get at or to someone.
I’ve been targeted.
Multiple times. And the only thing that brings me solace from those things is her. From the moment I laid eyes on Bay, skipping to her car at a race, I knew she’d help me.
But in the shadow of the large tree she stands under, I feel Bay slipping away from me.
Not that I ever really had her.
Not in the way my brothers have, but we have something.
Our palms, when they touch, I feel something other than empty and weird. I feel like she sees me for what I am and who I’ve become.
Yet, in her grief, it’s not the same. I can’t read her anymore.
Bay is this torpedo of madness I find myself enthralled with. She’s unsystematic; her ideas and movements are always changing and moving. I can never entirely pinpoint her brain, but I do know when she smiles, she’s alright.
But now I’m left in the dark, and I’m afraid she’ll never come out and will be forever changed by her best friend’s death.
Ellie holds one of Bay’s hands, trying to keep it together, but broken sobs escape her lips every few minutes.
We’re so different, from the same parents, and I wonder how we’d be if I didn’t roam down the path I had.
Not that I regret most of it, only some.
And when Bay wraps her fingers tighter around her sister’s— my sister’s —is when I see she barely holds on to what people call sanity.
I don’t like that I can’t see her face, but I stand behind her in silent support anyway. Bay may not care or want me here, but I’m not leaving her side, nor is she abandoning my sight. This chapter of her life isn’t one I’m particularly a fan of. Especially when she’s trying to push us all away. I wonder if Reeve was here if he’d know how to get to her.
To feel.
This powerful anchor she has on De Leon makes me apprehensive about her next move because I know there is one. Cairo says she’s going to listen, but he’s not fully bought.
I’m not either.
It’ll take one spark of something else for an idea to form and for Bay to immediately act on it. She’s like a pitbull, already with her jaws latched onto her prey, and Matteo De Leon is counting on it.
That’s the part she’s not fully understanding.
And we need her to comprehend that.
I’d do anything to him to make her feel at peace again because a part of her is now me.
I need her.
I think that’s the appropriate term to use, I’m not sure.
I’d kill for her, I’m fully aware of that.
I’d murder any being that tries to touch her or causes harm to come to her. I’d do anything she asked me to do, and that concerns my brothers immensely.
Yet, she’s not Vivian, and I’ve known that from the first moment I saw her. And there have been times when I thought she’d try to turn me against my brothers, but she has yet to do so. She won’t let me shoot that little beanpole Travis Muncy, and I honestly don’t expect her to.
Not when touching her hand brings me a mixture of chaos and tranquility. It’s thrilling and frightening all in one go, but I’d rather be near her than in the shadows like before. In her sight, where she can see and speak to me. When I’m on the other side of those blue eyes.
And now that she’s sad, it makes me unbearably anxious.
I haven’t been able to stop clenching my fists behind my back to give myself something to do. And I don’t know what else I can do when it comes to making her feel better. The right words won’t form, and I don’t know how to show empathy.
Hugs are just…agitating and since Vivian, I don’t feel comfortable with someone wrapping themselves around me.
Though, with Bay, one day, I want to try.
I want what she has with my brothers, but different. I wish for her alone, where I can hold her hand without holding my breath.
I want to feel her body under my fingertips and see how my body naturally reacts. My cock responds to her, but I’d never touch it to the thought of her skin on my body because it doesn’t seem to hold the equivalent to what it could be with her.
And I want to save that for the moment she might touch me intimately.
Cairo shifts at Bay’s other side, stoic as ever in the deathly quiet commentary, minus the chirping birds and the slight breeze shuffling the trees. The preacher keeps talking, but I don’t hear a word he says. His words are void to me as I stare at the back of Bay’s head, waiting for her to make any move.
Levi is in a closed casket, and she makes no qualms about seeing him before they bury him in the ground. It makes me apprehensive of later when she might change her mind, and it’ll be too late.
Then she shifts back when the man in the black attire and white collar stops speaking and pivots—right for me.
Her blue eyes slam into mine, and I instantly stop breathing.
She holds power over me and doesn’t even try.
The way she notices me first over everyone else is what does it for me. I don’t dare assume she thinks of me outside of my brothers. It’s too taxing to fathom she considers me as much as I do her.
I’m afraid of the false hope of it all.
I’m uneasy that it’ll all be just like before.
Just like Vivian.
When Bay slowly ambles toward me, it’s not hard to keep her fully in my sights. I’d never want to look anywhere else. She holds me in her grasp and it’s just enough to keep me grounded here, where she can see me.
“What’s wrong?” she asks me, causing my eyebrows to knit a bit. I don’t understand why she’d ask me that question.
Why would there be something wrong with me, someone who isn’t suffering from a loss like she is?
Wallace is my cousin, yes, and he’s family. Although I respect him, I haven’t connected to him like she did. I’m not going to cry over his death, though.
Instead of answering her, I raise my palm, coaxing the familiar way we communicate when all else fails me.
I don’t know what to say or how to offer her any other comfort than this, and she doesn’t seem to mind it.
Bay mocks my actions, her warm palm lightly pressing into mine as she stops within a foot of my body. I can feel her from there. I can smell the faint scent of something fruity mixed with something male.
My eyes flick over her head to look at Cairo, who’s already looking over at me, giving me a curt nod, before he returns his attention to Hod Rod and Juice.
“I want to go home.”
Five words and they make me instantly relieved she’d want to go there over above all else. A safe haven where it’s just us and nothing from the outside world.
I press my palm more firmly into hers as an indication that I’ll take her. Those blue eyes avert from mine, glossed in sadness when something sharp slices right through my right shoulder.
I glance down, immediately finding blood seeping through the material of my black shirt, and my mind instantly goes into defensive mode.
My fingers wrap around Bay’s wrist as I yank her forward and behind me. My eyes are already scanning the small group of people huddled together until I hear Cairo to my left.
“ Sniper !”
Shit.
I feel Bay trying to tug at my hold, probably to get to her sisters, but that’s not where my brain is at—right or wrong.
Pivoting, I drag her with me, calculating the distance between where we currently are and the parked cars we arrived in.
Too far.
“I want someone on that hill, like, five minutes ago!” Cairo orders from somewhere, and there’s only one thing I can do to get Bay somewhat safe.
“Ground.” I abruptly turn, her chest slamming into my bicep as I yank her down to her knees, and I haunch low.
I hear her muttered oomph as she hits the grass, and I scan the area again.
The girls are gone, alluding Cairo or one of our men already has them safe in case we were ambushed at Wallace’s funeral—which doesn’t totally shock me.
“My sisters—” I don’t listen to a word she’s saying because they’re fine. My main concern is that she’s not harmed in any way. “Ozzy, you’re bleeding.”
I’ve bled before.
“Lay down,” I command mindlessly, searching the hilltop and the small throng of trees nearby.
“But—” My glower slices down to her, and all I see are those lips I want to touch with mine before I’m met with those familiar blue eyes.
“ Now .”
Another twinge of discomfort hits me again, this time along my bicep, and I know I’m the target.
We’re the target.
I don’t have to look to see I’ve been hit again, but I can’t pinpoint where the shot is coming from.
It really doesn’t matter.
We’re sitting ducks, and the car is too far away to use as cover. Her being down someone’s scope will be too long for them to get a good shot.
Mindlessly, my body falls on top of hers as a shield, covering the top of her head with my palms as I squeeze her to me. My heart thrashes at the warm contact, but I dare not move.
Not when her life is at risk, and so is mine if something happens to her.
I can endure this.
I have to.
It doesn’t matter how emotionally and physically taxing it is to be this close; Bay’s life is at risk.
“It’s okay,” I hear her whisper underneath me, a tad strained from my body on top of hers. “Close your eyes and breathe.”
I don’t like that she can feel my anxiety coursing through my veins, or maybe it’s my heartbeat that gives me away. It’s a weakness she’s discovered within seconds of us being pressed up against each other.
However, she’s probably already picked up on it since I don’t like being touched.
“Have you found any leads on Reeve?”
I immediately shake my head to her question. I know she’s attempting to take my mind off shit, when it’s me who should be doing it for her.
“We’ll find him. Close your eyes.”
I rock my head back and forth again because I have to be aware of everything surrounding us, but Bay snakes her hand through my body and frees it, palm opened for me to press mine to.
“It’ll be over soon.”
I mindlessly touch her skin. My long fingers brush against hers, and I shudder involuntarily.
“Will you go with me this week to Wharf Bay?” she mutters. “I need some parts for Levi’s car.”
I nod, trying not to unload my heavy exhales on her because I’m embarrassed I’m this way.
“Do you know how to fix cars?”
I shrug. I guess I know a little bit about them, but who fucking cares right now?
“I can teach you.”
My focus topples onto hers, and she gives me a weak smile.
“Then maybe you can teach me something?”
I’d show her anything.
Regardless, nothing comes to mind. She’s distracting me from my job, and I’ll think of that later.
“Okay,” she concludes, as if gaining my answer silently. “It’s a date then.”
I didn’t agree to go on a date.
I’ve never been on a date. I just said I would take her to the auto part store.
“Why do you look more terrified than you did before?” she questions with a grander smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Am I so terrible that you don’t want to be seen with me?”
My brows gnash deeper. “No.”
“Then it’s not a date.”
A sliver of irritation creeps up my chest because I didn’t say that. Sure, it didn’t give me a warm and fuzzy feeling, but now she’s assuming things.
“Why aren’t you crying?”
Bay’s face skews in confusion. “What?”
Levi is dead. And I expected more.
“It’s a date,” I deadpan, then steer my focus away because I don’t want her to see anything else living inside my head.
“Okay,” she whispers, remaining silent so I can pay attention.
A few minutes later, Cairo strides over and perks a brow, studying the current state I’m in and that I haven’t moved just because he’s standing up.
“We’re all good, brother,” he says. “No impending threats. You can let the girl breathe now.”
I quickly crawl off Bay and rise to my feet. Cairo, thankfully, holds out a hand to pull her up before wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into his side.
“You alright, Little T?”
She nods. “Where’re Ellie and Mae?”
“Safe.” He looks at me. “Your husband, however, needs first aid.”
Bay easily pulls out of Cairo’s hold and steps toward me. “C’mon, let’s get you home and cleaned up. We need a doctor.”
I look at Cairo, and he shrugs.
“I don’t need a doctor,” I reply, to which Bay gives me one of those haughty little eyebrow raises.
“I beg to differ.”
“I don’t,” I deadpan with a bit more bite than what she’s used to.
“Well…” She strides forward and rounds my body with nonchalance. “That’s too fuckin’ bad.”