Chapter 15 Summer
Chapter Fifteen
SUMMER
I should've run faster.
If I had run faster, I might not be back in this shithole, waiting for the moment they're going to kill me.
I certainly wouldn't be here, thinking about the way Noah's scent isn't as strong as it was on the new sheets. I wouldn't miss the smell of his cologne wrapping around me while I wait for someone to tell me what's going on.
Or waiting for someone to kill me.
Or whatever else he has planned for me.
Though, I don't know why he would save me from Robert if Noah's plan is to kill me. He told me he was going to sell me to a man worse than him. Whoever Robert is, whatever he's done, for Noah to think it's so bad he has to save me is worrying.
Not that I wasn't capable of saving myself. I did get out of this house once.
I don't think I'm going to have a chance to do it again, though.
I get out of bed, pacing around the room. My heart races, and my chest tightens. It gets harder and harder to take a breath. A hand has to be squeezing all the oxygen from me. Either that or my lungs are failing. He slipped me something, and I'm dying.
Hector looks at me from where he's sitting in the corner of the room. "I shit my pants once when I was high."
I stop pacing and look at him, a laugh slipping out. "Excuse me?"
He nods, putting the book he was reading to the side and kicking his feet up on the ottoman in front of the plush reading chair. "Couldn't feel anything. Had one of those moments where I thought it was going to be a fart. It wasn't. Shit my pants at my cousin's wedding."
My laughter gets louder, tears forming in my eyes as I shake my head. "There's no way you did that."
"The photographer got a picture of the look on my face when it happened."
I wipe the tears from my cheeks. "If I'm going to die, my last request is to see that picture."
"I'll do you one better." He pulls out his phone, tapping away before turning it to me. "You're not about to die, for what it's worth. I think the boss likes you more than he wants to admit, even though you are young enough to be his daughter."
Well, that's not the mental image I want when I'm thinking about sleeping with him.
"Why are you showing me this, then?"
He hands over the phone. "Because you looked like you were on your way to a panic attack."
I take one look at the photo, at the look of horror in his eyes and the people around him gagging, and I lose it. I double over laughing, handing the phone back to him.
By the time I finally manage to collect myself, my sides hurt from laughing so hard.
He smiles and picks up his book again, but he still doesn't open it. "You don't have to worry so much about what's going to happen. The boss would've killed you by now if he wanted to."
"There are things worse than death." I go to the window, looking out over the yard as the sun starts to set. "He sold me to what was going to be worse than death. Who is Robert?"
The door opens before Hector has a chance to answer me.
Noah steps inside, and Hector leaves, taking the book with him. Not bothering to shut the door, Noah crosses the room and falls back on the bed, scrubbing his hands down his face.
I glance between him and the open door.
I should go. He's not guarding it, and since Hector was sitting with me and I killed two people the last time I took off, I doubt Noah has people in the house right now.
I could get to the garage again and steal another car.
But I can't make my feet move, not when he throws his arm over his eyes, his chest rising and falling steadily.
Maybe it's the part of me that feels the need to stuff down my own shit in favor of other people hurting, but I move closer to him.
"You good?" I hover at the edge of the bed, looking down at him. "I've been told I'm a good listener if you want to talk. I mean, I know there's a lot you won't talk about with me, but you could, considering you're going to kill me."
The corner of his mouth twitches. "That would be perfect, wouldn't it? Vent all the shit in my life to you and then not have to worry about anything else. You'd be dead and all my secrets would go to the grave."
A chill runs down my spine.
I think Hector's wrong about thinking Noah isn't going to kill me. I don't think there's any way of knowing what Noah is and isn't going to do. I think I'd be an idiot to underestimate him.
Still, I sit on the edge of the bed. "Well, I guess you have your answer, then. I'm a great listener, and you're going to kill me, so it doesn't matter what you say to me."
"And this wouldn't be some attempt from you to get information for your family?" He lifts his arm off his eyes, suspicion in them as his gaze meets mine. "Because I know what you're like, and if you think for one second that I would trust you, you're wrong."
"Not saying you have to trust me."
"I've got enough problems without having to worry about you."
"You could let me go, and then you wouldn't have to worry about me." I fall back onto the bed beside him, staring up at the ceiling.
My fingers brush against his when his arm drops down between us. For a second, I consider taking his hand and lacing my fingers through his, focusing on his pain instead of my own.
It'd be easier than sitting here alone in the room all day and having nothing else to think about.
This is the same man who left you locked in a room with your dead ex-boyfriend.
My mouth goes dry at the thought, but when I try to sit up, it's like my body doesn't want to listen to me. I'm stuck there beside him, and even though he's a horrible person, there's a lingering curiosity that keeps me there beside him. It wants to know more about him.
Maybe I could use it against him when this is all over.
If he's still living.
Not that I think he's going to be. Aiden is going to kill him for everything he's done.
Noah sighs and rolls onto his side, tucking an arm beneath his head. The other hand is still between us. His fingertips trace patterns on my arm.
I try not to focus on the way it feels, staring at the ceiling, sneaking a peek at him every now and then.
"I have family problems, if you hadn't already guessed that," he says, his tone low.
"Yeah, I think I got that. I mean, the others don't really talk about you."
He flinches like it hurts him. I wasn't expecting that. I thought he would've written his siblings and his cousin off when they turned against him. He seems like the kind to turn his back on them, to leave them out to dry, or to maybe get revenge when the time suits him.
Pain is unexpected.
I shift onto my side, copying his posture, studying the lines on his face and the gray strands in his hair. Those strands only seem to be getting more intense.
"Sometimes, I hear them talking about you, though. When they think everyone else is sleeping. They call you a bastard, but I think that means they miss you and care about you."
He scoffs. "I don't think you need to worry about what they really think about me. At the end of the day, they all made their choices, and I'm going to make mine."
"Which means you're going to be able to kill your own family?"
"They're not the highest on the list of priorities, but it's on there."
He keeps his words purposefully vague. It's clear he wants to talk, but he's still worried about saying too much.
Maybe he isn't going to kill me.
Yeah, right. Don't be stupid.
Like I told Hector, there are things worse than death.
Noah presses his lips into a thin line and shrugs. "I don't need to make my life more difficult right now by making them a priority."
"Well, to be fair, you were the one who made your own life more difficult when you kidnapped me, sold me, and then kidnapped me again."
He chuckles, the rough and low sound sending heat flooding through my body.
There's something attractive about the slight laugh. I can picture it sitting around a fire in the dead of winter, him reaching for me, pulling me into his lap...
It's been too long since I got laid.
Noah smirks and shakes his head, sitting up and moving to sit against the headboard, his long legs stretched in front of him. "You might have a point about that. It might not have been the best tactical move, but it's revealed more problems with my own people."
"That Robert guy?" I move to sit beside him, our shoulders only a couple of inches from pressing together.
Noah's mood becomes darker again. "You need to stay away from him. I mean it. If you listen to nothing else I say, then I need you to stay the fuck away from him."
"He must be pretty bad."
"You have no idea." Noah traces a finger along the inside of my thigh, down to where the stab wound is. "I could kill him for doing this to you."
"Yeah. Knife to the side of the knee doesn't feel great, but I've had worse."
"Like what?"
My stomach tosses and turns just thinking about it. "Aiden used to run some light torture practice on us when we were younger. He wanted us to be prepared for anything, and I guess he thought that was the way to do it."
"How much did he put you through?" His tone is tight, his hand stilling on my skin.
If I didn't know better, I'd think it was almost protective.
"Enough." I swallow hard, forcing down the lump in my throat. "Listen, I don't know who Robert is to you, but I know a thing or two about fucked-up dynamics."
I'm hoping he's going to start talking more about Robert and the problems he's having with the rest of the Rinaldo mafia. I want him to open up enough to tell me something I can use against him.
He smirks, giving me a slight shake of his head. "You think I'm going to tell you everything?"
I shrug, wanting to keep talking to him. I don't know if it's the small shred of humanity in him that pulls me to him.
Noah gets out of bed, heading for the door and opening it wider. "I have a surprise for you."
"Is this surprise going to be something where you corner me and kill me?"
He doesn't answer, leaving the room and leaving me wondering what the hell kind of surprise could be waiting for me downstairs.
I don't know if I should follow him or not.
My heart races, but then I hear a laugh that sounds familiar.
There's no way it's possible. Not a single way that laughter is echoing through this house.
But I can't stop myself as I fly down the stairs, pulse rushing, hope flooding through me.
As I turn the corner into the living room, my feet sliding on the floor, my entire world comes to a stop.
Am I dreaming?