Chapter 7
EVERLY
Charli steps closer and keeps her voice low. “I’ll take her upstairs to one of the guest rooms. She’ll sleep better in a bed. You okay with that?”
My first instinct is to say no, to snatch Kaylee up and keep her glued to my chest, to run even though I have nowhere to go. Then I look at Charli’s face and see nothing but tenderness and fierce loyalty, and I realize how ridiculous it is that I still think I have to do everything alone.
I nod once. “Yeah. Thank you.”
Charli doesn’t make a big deal out of it. She just moves to the couch, lifts Kaylee carefully like she’s precious cargo, and presses a kiss to her forehead before she carries her toward the stairs.
Kaylee doesn’t even stir. I don’t know how she does it, but that girl trusts everyone.
My throat burns with the knowledge that she trusts everyone because I’ve kept everyone who isn't safe away from her. But while doing so, I also locked out good people. Suddenly the need to tell Phantom everything grips my insides.
Phantom extends his hand, waiting for me to take it.
Gray meets green.
Love stares down at me. This is the one chance I have at healing us. I can feel the eyes in the room tracking us even as they pretend not to.
I take a breath, and then I put my hand in his. Callused skin slides over my smooth palm and it’s like coming home to where I belong.
His fingers close around mine, warm and firm, and the moment he has me, he pulls me closer like he can’t help it, like he’s reminding himself I’m real.
His voice drops, meant for me alone. “You’re shaking, baby.”
He tilts my head up with a finger under my chin, and then slowly kisses my lips.
“I’m fine.”
“Liar. But I know what you need.”
I bet he does.
He turns toward the hallway and guides me away from the kitchen, away from the tree lights and the smell of food, away from the softness that’s trying to trick me into relaxing.
And doing a damn good job of it.
We move through the house and I feel it all around me, the quiet hum of a place that runs like a machine even when it looks like a home.
Cameras are tucked into corners. Each exit is really a reinforced door, if memory serves.
The subtle placement of men who are not visible until you’re already past them all give my worried soul reason to calm down for half a heartbeat.
Savage Reign compound is warm, but this place is also a fortress.
Phantom’s room in the compound is upstairs, down a hall lined with closed doors and muffled voices.
The air is warmer here, carrying the scent of cedar and leather and something clean that reminds me of him.
I remember being on this floor years ago and walking barefoot.
Back then we were almost carefree and then everything changed once I realized what my father was capable of.
Now my boots leave wet prints on the floor runner and I feel like I’m dragging the storm inside with me.
Phantom stops at a door and opens it without breaking stride.
His room is exactly how I remember.
Dark wood. A heavy bed with charcoal sheets pulled tight. A dresser that looks like it could double as an armory. A small desk in the corner with a laptop, a gun safe, and a stack of paperwork that says he runs a piece of this kingdom even if he doesn’t wear the president’s patch.
There’s a faint glow from a lamp, throwing light across the walls and catching on the worn leather of a chair.
And the scent hits me the second the door clicks shut behind us.
Phantom. Ivory soap and smoke. A hint of mint. The warmth of his cologne that clings to the back of my memory.
I almost laugh at how much I feared coming in here to find remnants from current lovers who took my place. But I see nothing that doesn’t belong to Phantom.
Except…
I walk over to the nightstand and pick up a heavy silver frame.
Inside the glass is a picture of us the day before he proposed.
I’m all smiles and he’s looking at me like I am the stars in his universe.
I place it back on the nightstand and slowly turn to face him.
My heart is pounding so hard it feels loud in the quiet room.
He watches me like prey and as if I am an answered prayer all at once.
I pull back a fraction more and he moves to take one of my hands in his. He brings it to his lips. Small kisses send jolts of electricity to parts of me that have been numb for a long time.
A light of hope flashes across his face. It’s buried under years of pain, angst, and loneliness, but I see it. And I am responsible for putting both inside this man’s heart.
But I know the arousal I see in the way he’s visually caressing my curves can’t happen until he knows why I left.
“I like the ideas you have floating around in your head, Phantom. But they’ll have to wait a minute.”
The tip of his lip curls into a half grin. “You can see my thoughts, can you?”
I shuffle forward until I have my fingers sliding through his hair.
I rise to the tips of my toes and don’t stop until I have my lips on his.
Our breath mingles and the way he holds me to him says we are going to have a meeting of the bodies before we have one of the mind and heart if I stay in his arms much longer.
I physically watch my one-time lover’s chest expand and his eyes flicker with dark intentions when I pull away.
“Everly,” he groans in a husky voice that says his patience is running thin.
Goosebumps erupt over my skin from the guttural rumble in his chest.
I twine our fingers together and lead him to a small sofa pushed up against the far wall and sit. When he finally takes the seat beside me I spill my heart out for him to either accept or reject.
“You said you know about Shawn, right? The night he died?”
Phantom nods. “It was the night you left me. Actually, if memory serves, I proposed, you said yes and then you left me before noon. Shawn was discovered later that night. I couldn’t find you for hours.
You didn’t answer your phone. Nothing. And then news traveled fast through the underground about Shawn.
It took everything the men could find to keep me from approaching your father.
They didn’t want a war, and I didn’t have proof you didn’t leave me on your own, so I begged Chloe to help me. ”
The rough edges of his voice cause my heart to clench.
“She never told me you came looking.”
“Every day for the first year and then every month in the next and by the third year I lost hope. I didn’t know if you were dead with your brother or what.” Wisps of pain whip across his dark expression.
My heart races, but I push through the doubt of saying so much.
Phantom deserves to know everything. I slowly nod.
“My father murdered him and brought me and Micah into his office still wearing the shirt he wore when he shot him. Specks of blood are hard to miss on a crisp white shirt.” I drag my eyes off Phantom and pin them to the floor so I can see the sympathy in his eyes for my pain.
I need to get through this without crying.
Phantom quietly strokes his thumb over the back of my hand and gives me the time I need. Heartbeat after heartbeat, I gather the rest of my strength from the deepest parts of my soul and push on.
“Shawn loved the family business and was glued to our father’s every word for years. Only thing is, our younger brother suffered from two of our father’s shortcomings–an abundance of ego and arrogance.”
“What did he do that got him killed?”
“Shawn was a people person and had the gift for words. He sweet-talked my father’s first suppliers for some hardcore drugs into selling to him first so he could then turn and up the price to my father.
He told my father the suppliers upped the price when in reality it was his price my father was paying. ”
Phantom stays silent as I continue.
“My father found out and ended him on the spot in a dirty warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Like he was not his own flesh and blood.”
Phantom watches me as I speak. This is the first time I’ve actually put the horror story into words for another person and they hurt as deeply as I imagined.
“My father called us in, it’s why I left so soon after you proposed. When me and Micah walked into his office, I had every intention of telling him about us. But he tossed his phone on the desk in front of us and told us if either of us ever thought we could betray him, he would do the same.”
I turn to face Phantom. “When you proposed I knew I was pregnant. I wanted to tell you but everything happened so fast. But when I saw my brother’s lifeless body crumpled on the floor in filth, something in me broke. I left the house that day and never looked back”
Phantom pulls me into his arms and crushes me to his chest. “Fuck, baby. Why didn’t you come to me? I could have protected you and our unborn child. How did you survive?”
“Chloe is a forger. She got me a fake name and papers. I’ve been living under Kandy Williams for three years.”
When Phantom doesn’t say anything for several minutes, I push to my feet slowly.
The ninja moves I pulled off earlier tonight are making my muscles cramp.
The last few hours of the night will be over soon enough and I need a shower.
If I’m lucky, I can catch a couple of hours of sleep before Kaylee wakes.
I drop my borrowed coat on the edge of the bed and kick off my boots. I leave Phantom behind and head for the ensuite bathroom.
The mirror inside is not my best friend.
The braid I started the evening out with is more like a knotted mess.
Twigs and leaves cling to my hair. Smudges of dirt streak my face and my black onesie has seen better days.
The rip-proof material is very much not rip proof at all.
There’s a gash across the stretchy material on my outer thigh.
Another on my hip and one under my left breast.
I’m a mess.
Phantom walks in behind me, his eyes sweeping over my body and the near misses on my life.