Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
Enoch
I slammed my fist into the pad as hard as I could, using my hips to gain momentum.
“Are you sure,” Jae said with a knowing look, grunting at the impact, “you’re not back on that Joe Goldberg shit?”
“No, I’m not,” I said, barreling out a combo that made him falter backward. “It’s not kidnapping when we’re her friends.”
Jae put the mitts down and pulled his hand out, stepping to the side to grab his water. I leaned over, my hands braced on my knees as I caught my breath.
“Friends?” he said, pausing to wipe his sweaty forehead with the back of his arm. “I thought y’all were a couple now.”
“You know what I mean, dip. I just know that isolation is not what she needs no matter how much she’s tried to shrug us off this week.”
He squeezed my shoulder before he put his mitts back on, motioning for us to get back to sparring.
It was eating me alive—her pain. I just wished she would let me in so I could help her.
If she wasn’t so damn stubborn, I would’ve already showed up at her apartment.
I just wanted to see her again, to know that she was okay.
She’d refused to answer my FaceTime calls and was sporadic in her text responses.
There was a nagging knot in my stomach. I had nightmares of her not showing up to school because she’d been beaten so badly.
And in one of them she had been taken hostage and I was trying to break down her door to save her, but I couldn’t get through before a gun was fired.
I could only assume she had been killed.
That nightmare haunted me for days. The sound of her screaming for help. The gun ringing out, and then—silence.
My stomach twisted further into knots just thinking about it.
I didn’t tell Jae about the nightmares. I didn’t tell anyone. Which was why I was sounding like a stalker for wanting to show up at her building with an elaborate plan to find her apartment unit and not leave until she came back to my house.
I shouldn’t have been so worried because if Shiloh was in danger, my dad would have stepped in. He was a mandated reporter for Christ’s sake. But something in my gut told me I needed to be persistent in making sure she was safe. I couldn’t explain it, but I wasn’t going to ignore it any longer.
I didn’t care what Jae thought, if I was being stalkerish. As soon as work was over, I was going to her apartment building and knocking on every door until I found out which unit she lived in.
Someone called my name, and my eyes bounced around until they landed on Cassy at the front desk waving me over. It wasn’t until I had walked closer that I could see Shiloh standing in front of the desk.
“Hey!” I quickly pulled her into a hug, not even thinking about the fact that I was shirtless and sweaty.
When she didn’t reciprocate the hug, I pulled back and led us over to the empty hallway.
“You okay?”
Getting a better look at her she seemed pale and then I realized she was cradling her hand.
“Woah,” I mumbled, holding her hand in mine and sizing up the red and puffy knuckles. I scanned her body again but nothing else looked physically out of sorts.
“Tell me what happened.”
She rolled her eyes, waving her free hand dismissively.
“Nothing. Someone tripped and landed face first into my fist.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And nothing else is hurt?”
“No, I’m good. I, um, I punched a wall, actually, and fucked my hand up in the process.”
Several people passed us on their way to the locker rooms, so I pulled us into the staff room and closed the door. Not a moment later, the door was thrown open by Jae.
“There you are! Oh!” He stopped in his tracks, bouncing his eyes between Shiloh, her busted hand and me. “Damn. Am I interrupting some kinky shit or…”
Shiloh rolled her eyes.
“No. I was just asking Shiloh about how her hand ended up like this.” I held up her puffy hand as proof to Jae. “Can you grab her an ice pack?”
Jae nodded and with urgency cracked an ice bag mixing the chemicals to make it cold before handing it to her.
“So? The suspense is killing me. Whose ass did you beat?” he asked.
“No one’s. I punched a wall. Am I interrupting a workout or something?”
She tried to move the conversation away from herself, typical Shiloh behavior, but neither Jae nor I were going to budge.
“Shy. It does matter because you could’ve broken your hand. Did something happen with your dad?”
“I didn’t come here to get the third degree from y’all.”
“No. Look, we’re just worried. That’s all,” I said.
“Well, I didn’t ask you to be worried about me. I don’t want you to be. I just thought if you weren’t busy, you’d want to hang out.” Shiloh chewed her lip painfully and I reached for her waist.
“I’m always going to worry about you. So, you’ve got to get used to it.
It comes with the territory of caring about someone deeply.
I’ll drop the issue of the hand drama and go get dressed.
Then I’ll meet you at the front desk.” I held her chin in my palm so her eyes would meet mine and she sighed with a soft nod.
I couldn’t resist kissing her forehead before I ushered Jae from the room and across the hall to the locker rooms.
“I thought you weren’t gonna let her keep any more secrets after the whole drugs shitshow?” Jae gave me an amused look, and I shoved him over, allowing me to walk into the locker room first.
“Dip.”
He chuckled at my remark.
“Any ideas who she fucked up with her fist? Or are we believing the whole fight with a wall story?”
I groaned, just wanting to shower and get back to Shiloh ASAP.
“Well, it doesn’t sound like it was her dad. So, it could’ve been anyone. I dunno. Maybe her ex, Adrian?”
“She still sees him?”
I grabbed my shower stuff and ducked into a stall.
“I don’t think it’s a regular thing. But yeah. I know she does.”
“And you’re not worried?” He called from the stall next to mine.
“No. She’s been honest about that at least. About us being exclusive.”
I hopped out the shower, quickly toweling off before raking up my jeans.
Jae had just emerged from the shower when I was finished dressing, and I raised a brow. “You coming over?”
“Nah. I’ll let you guys have some alone time. Maybe she’ll open up later if it’s just the two of you.”
I mulled it over for a moment before nodding.
“Alright. Later, bro.”
I hauled ass to the front, eager to spend some alone time with Shiloh.
???
November 24, Wednesday
Shiloh
Adrian thankfully hadn’t barged back into my apartment last night after I slugged him.
I was hoping that I had hallucinated the whole thing, but my busted-up hand told me otherwise.
I was terrified, ashamed, angry…How had I been so stupid?
He was working with law enforcement and now he was going to force me to do the same?
If Carlos found out, if he got to Adrian, he could spill my secrets, and everything would have been pointless. Everything.
I didn’t bother getting my hopes up that law enforcement could actually take down Los Siete.
Adrian was living in a fucking fantasy for thinking otherwise.
Los Siete had never been touched by law enforcement.
I didn’t know the other jefes, but I knew Carlos owned the local police.
Hell, Granby had won awards for being the safest city in the whole damn state with crime rates so damn low.
Obviously, that was a lie, but he made sure to keep any crime off the books and out of the city he was mayor of.
There weren’t even any local drug dealers.
If my dad wanted drugs he had to drive thirty minutes to La Grange.
And fuck him for using my friends against me. Fuck him. I had fucked this up so fucking badly that I’d put all their lives at risk. I couldn’t fucking handle it. My chest ached with the weight of my sins.
And I was the worst person for not being able to stay away.
Adrian’s very real threats should have been a wakeup call for me to stay the fuck away from them all.
And yet, here I fucking was. Like a fucking fiend getting their fix.
Five days. Five more days was all I had left as Shiloh and fuck me for wanting to spend it with people that made me forget.
I tried shutting off my brain, but I wasn’t doing a very good job because Enoch suddenly squeezed my leg, grabbing my attention.
“Yeah?”
“I said, did you want to watch something downstairs?”
I glanced at his fresh pajamas he had left moments ago to change into and shrugged with indifference.
“I just want a distraction.”
“Hmm,” he raised a brow, tapping his finger against his bottom lip in mock thoughtfulness. “I could think of a thing or two we could do to distract you.”
Before I could even blush at what he was insinuating, his body was on top of mine, tickling my sides relentlessly.
I gasped for air between peals of laughter.
“Don’t,” I gasped, putting my good hand against his chest. “Make. Me. Cry. Shit. Bird.”
“Oh shit,” he sobered up quickly, and pulled his hands away from my sides, leaning back on his haunches above my waist.
His curls had fallen into his face, and I found myself wishing I could touch them, but I didn’t want to fuck them up.
“What?” he asked, when he noticed my stare. “Does my hair look crazy?”
“No. It’s just gotten long and was in your eyes.”
He huffed, pushing and twisting the curls away from his face.
“Better?”
I nodded. “Will you have to cut them for the military? Your curls, I mean.”
“Uh, yeah. I will actually. I’ve been meaning to get my hair cut, but then I kept thinking this is my last chance to grow it long before I’m stuck with short hair for four years.”
“They don’t make you buzz it, do they?”
“Only at basic training,” he said. “What about you? You always keep your hair this long?”
He fingered the ends of my braid absently as he waited for my answer.
“Since I was little. I’ve got a fear of cutting my hair actually.”
“Wait, for real?” He cocked his head with intrigue. “Why?”