Chapter 37 #3
I yank my phone out of my pocket with shaking fingers. I need to leave. Now. I tap at the screen only to find it black. Of course it’s dead. Of course, everything falls apart today.
I groan low in my throat, grip tightening around the useless device, and shoot her a glare so cold it makes her flinch.
“I don’t care that he’s dead,” I sign slowly, deliberately, so she sees every word. So it burns. “If anything, I wish it had been worse. Slower. More painful.”
Her hand flies to her mouth again, like she couldn’t believe what I am saying to her.
“I’d do it again,” I add, venom sharp in every motion. “Over and over again, if I had the chance.”
My chest heaves, but I don’t cry. There are no tears left for this. For her, and clearly not for him.
I head for the door, anger boiling in my chest, my hands trembling as I reach for the handle. I’m ready to be done with this place, with her. Done with everything that always finds a way to pull me back into this hell.
But just as my fingers curl around the knob, the door swings open on its own.
My heart skips.
Standing there, blocking the exit like a goddamn nightmare, is a man I hoped I’d never see ever again.
He’s tall. Broad. Towering, even. His skin is a canvas of ink, every inch of him from his throat to his face, down to the stretch of abs peeking out beneath his open suit jacket, is covered in tattoos.
There’s no shirt underneath, just bare muscle and art.
A cigarette dangles lazily from his lips, smoke curling up into the air.
He looks like someone who doesn’t just enjoy chaos, he thrives in it.
And that smirk on his face is the one I had wished to never see again after meeting him once in the past. This is the man my mother borrowed from. The man who owns the kind of debts that get paid in blood.
Oliver Carson.
Behind him, two other men stand—taller than him, somehow. Built like mountains, their faces hard, eyes scanning the room like they’re casing it.
My blood freezes, and for a second, I forget how to breathe.
“Hello, Lucas,” Oliver drawls, his voice slick and dark, like oil on water. That smirk widens, flashing teeth. “Mind if I join the family meeting?”
I swallow hard.
Every instinct in me screams run. Run to where?
“What are you doing here?” my mother says sharply, her voice tight with fear.
Before I can even react, she’s stepping in front of me like a shield, frail and trembling, but still trying. Still pretending she can protect me from a world she handed me over to.
Oliver lets out a laugh. A bark, rough and guttural, like this moment is a joke to him.
Thick smoke curled from his lips like poison.
In a blink, he moves. The heavy stomp of his boots echoes as he climbs the trailer steps, and with one brutal swing of his arm, he throws her aside, making me flinch.
She flies across the trailer like a rag doll, crashing into a cabinet with a sickening thud.
My heart doesn’t even have time to react.
Because the next second, his hand is around my throat.
I don’t even see it coming.
One moment I’m stunned and the next, my back slams into the trailer wall with bone-jarring force, a force no one prepared me for.
A breath punches out of me as his fingers squeeze around my neck tightly.
I gasp, trying to inhale, but nothing comes.
My lungs scramble for air as he lifts me just slightly off the ground like I weigh nothing at all.
“Nice to see you again,” Oliver drawls, his voice gravel and venom. His face is inches from mine, cigarette smoke mixing with the scent of vodka and sweat and something far darker.
I glare at him.
And I don’t stop glaring.
Because I’m so fucking tired.
Tired of all of it—this place, these people, this life.
And for one dizzy, dangerous second, I wish he’d kill me. Right here. Right now. Let it end.
But then, Alex.
His face flashes in my mind. His arms wrapped around me last night. His voice whispering my name like it was something holy, I think of Tyler, too, my over dramatic best friend who can’t do anything without me by his side, my first real home.
No. Not like this.
I want to live.
I have to live.
A strangled sound rips from my throat as my hands fly to Oliver’s, trying to pry him off.
My nails dig into his wrists. My chest burns.
Everything is spinning. Every fiber in my being is screaming at me to fight.
My ears are ringing so loudly that I barely hear the sound of my mother screaming my name.
But I catch the blur of her body in the corner of my eye, fighting and struggling but being held back by the two other men. One of them claps a hand over her mouth. She’s crying and thrashing like she’s gone feral.
Just like me.
“You’ve got fire,” Oliver rasps, grinning at me. “I like that. Is that the same look you gave Tim when you stabbed him, over and over? Were your eyes wild like this when you bled him out?”
I freeze.
His words slam into me harder than the wall ever could.
My hands falter. My limbs go still.
How the fuck does he know?
How does he know what I did to Tim?
His grip tightens once more, then suddenly lets go. I collapse, knees buckling as I slide down the wall, coughing, choking, sucking in air like it’s the first breath I’ve ever taken. My vision blurs with tears. My throat throbs.
And through it all, Oliver just stands there giving me an amused look. And when he leans down to look at me, his face turns serious, all traces of humor gone.
“On your feet, Lucas,” he says, voice tight. “We have so much to discuss, you owe me money, remember?”