WYATT
TWENTY-EIGHT
“What were you thinking?” Parker asked.
“What the fuck happened?” Teddy shouted.
“Why would you do any of this without us?” Donovan said and then spent the next minute coughing.
Autumn rubbed his back next to him on the couch.
They were all looking at me like the monster I was. As if I didn’t know. As if I hadn’t been there when it all went down. As if I couldn’t hear the gunshots echoing through my very insides ripping apart everything in their path.
Tonight was a total screw-up. A screw-up of epic proportions. Three men were dead. Another was critical. And I had no one else to blame for this but myself.
“Nino, he thought he knew what he was doing. He thought this was going to be a meeting to discuss an exchange of power. He didn’t think he needed the backup,” I mumbled, trying to put my own thoughts into some kind of order.
“What about you, though? Didn’t you think? Don’t you know Salieri better than to trust him to keep his word?” Teddy glared at me, nostrils flaring like I’d never seen before.
“Didn’t you make a deal with him to stop trying to bring him down?” Parker asked.
I nodded. “Yes. In exchange for leaving all of you alone.”
“Well, how did that work out?” Dare huffed next to Teddy.
“You don’t have to tell me I screwed up. I know it very well,” I said.
“Do you, though?” Teddy asked.
Parker glanced at him. Slade dropped his head and sighed, Azrael closed his eyes and mumbled something under his breath, probably a prayer. I wasn’t one for faith, but a little miracle right about now wouldn’t hurt.
“What do you think?” I told Teddy.
There was no anger in my tone, but he flinched anyway, and how could I blame him?
He’d brought a kid here under my instruction, and ever since there hadn’t been a moment of peace and quiet in our lives.
He had every right to be mad at me. They all had.
And I didn’t know what to do with myself because of it.
“I think you’ve lost your goddamn mind somewhere along the line and you brought us down with you,” Teddy snapped before King appeared from the hallway and grimaced.
“You guys, stop that! This wasn’t Wyatt’s fault. It was my stupid brother’s. And mine for trusting he’d be able to deal with it on his own,” he said and stood almost in between Teddy and me.
“But Wyatt should know better,” Teddy insisted.
“Or at the very least tell us so we could be there to prevent this shit show,” Dare said.
“Yeah. Maybe if we had been there, none of this would have happened,” Parker added.
I closed my eyes but for a moment and took a deep breath. If only the ground could open up and swallow me right about now.
I couldn’t handle this. Not anymore. I couldn’t handle this guilt, this shame, this…disaster I’d caused.
When I opened them again, Ari was there, standing in the hallway like King had a few moments ago and staring deep down into my eyes. So many mistakes. I’d made so many mistakes, yet he wasn’t one of them. That much I knew.
“What you did has put us into even more danger. Can’t you see that?”
“Trust me, Teddy.” I turned to him. “If I could change everything, I would. In a heartbeat.”
“I wouldn’t,” Slade said and opened his arms to receive King.
“How can you say that?” Teddy asked him.
“Because, then we wouldn’t have reunited,” Slade said and King nodded.
“Oh, come on!” Teddy exclaimed.
“Are you seriously wishing Wyatt hadn’t invited you all here?”
I looked around the guys, trying to find who had spoken, but it was none other than the man who had stolen my mind and heart, one kiss at a time.
Everyone turned to look at Ari.
“Do you seriously wish that? You’d have never met Wesley.
And you, you wouldn’t have Hwan and a kid waiting for you at home,” he said, glancing at Parker.
“And you wouldn’t have Zach,” he told Dare.
“How can you put so much blame on Wyatt when his very invitation brought you all here and helped you find your special someone?”
“Ari, I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t understand—” Teddy started to say, but Ari didn’t back down.
I held my breath the whole time he spoke.
“Oh, I understand. You’re all happy with your lives, you just wish you weren’t in danger, and instead of throwing the blame at the person responsible, you’re casting blame on the wrong guy.
Has he made mistakes? Sure. Show me one of you who hasn’t.
Wyatt clearly underestimated who and what you were up against. But that’s his only sin.
So instead of bitching about the man who brought you all together, how about you focus on the guy who has made your lives and those of the people on this island a misery? ”
Everyone stared at him but no one piped up. No one argued with him.
“Something terrible happened tonight. Three guys lost their lives and King’s brother almost died, and none of this is Wyatt’s fault. It’s Wilson’s. And we need to bring that man down.”
“It’s not that easy,” Parker said, but Ari pursed his lips and glared at him.
“I never said it was, but we can only deal with this threat if we all put our minds together and figure this shit out. Not if we’re attacking one another, “Ari replied. “You know, there’s a phrase in Greek. We’re on the dance floor, now we have to dance.
So let’s fucking dance. Let’s make sure that motherfucker doesn’t hurt any one of you or your families. ”
He looked at each of them in the eyes before he turned to me, and I allowed myself a small breath.
His gaze burned hot within me. Was it me or did he look taller standing in the middle of the room like that?
I didn’t know. What I did know was he was the most beautiful creature I’d ever laid eyes on, and I couldn’t wait until I could kiss him again.
But as soon as I thought about doing that, my heart faltered and I almost lost my footing. Because a realization hit me right there and then. Something that had occurred to me before but was even more evident now, and it terrified me to the bone.
He was a part of this now. Whether I liked it or not, I’d dragged him into this mess. One more person put in danger. One more person to let down. Maybe I had brought all my men together with the loves of their lives, but what good was it if they died in the end?
And what good was it falling in love if it meant putting Ari at risk too?
“Ari is right. We need to stop pointing fingers and make a game plan,” Azrael said. “So what do we do? How do we bring that motherfucker down before he strikes again?”
“You have to hit him where it hurts,” Ari said.
“His empire. But we’ve brought down so many of his cells, yet he’s still going strong. And if what Wyatt said is true, we’ve even helped him get rid of some problem people,” Dare said.
“That’s what he said,” I stressed.
That was what he’d said on his call to me. Before he burned down my bar. Our home.
“No, you guys. That’s not it,” Ari said. “Clearly he’s gotten too powerful for that plan to hurt him.”
Ari looked around the room as if he’d had a revelation, but everyone looked too defeated to follow his train of thought.
“Seriously?” Ari grimaced. “His ego, you guys. He’s clearly got a big ego. He thinks he’s untouchable. He thinks he’s so untouchable, in fact, he’s even crowned himself mayor. He needs to be exposed. That’s the only way to tear down what he’s built.”
Dare sat back. Teddy raised an eyebrow. And Slade clapped his hands together.
“You’re right. Exposing him would take away some of his power,” he said.
“Won’t that make him more desperate?” Parker asked.
“Yeah, but it will strip him down enough so we can deal with him,” I said.
All eyes turned on me.
“Ari is right. He’s got a big ego. He can spin things a hundred ways to Sunday, but he can’t spin the truth. Not with hard evidence.”
Teddy glared at me. “How are we going to do that? You said it yourself. Every time you go close to him, his guards are there to strip down any sort of technology so he won’t be recorded or taped.” He looked at Ari for ideas.
Ari put his hands up and took a step back. “I don’t know. I’m not the plan guy. You people are smarter than me. At least on that front.”
“That’s not true. You just gave us an inch,” Autumn said.
Ari smiled and took another step back. “I should probably check on my patient. But you guys are too clever to be fighting amongst yourselves. You have a common enemy. Now make a game plan,” he said, and just before he turned his back to retreat back to Nino’s room, he glanced at me.
It was only for a second, but it made it easier to breathe. It was good to know at least one person had my back.
He walked into the hallway, and as I turned my attention back to the rest, I caught Dare’s gaze. He narrowed his eyes at me and looked sideways, to where Ari had just been. It took a couple of times before I got his message and my ass got in gear.
“I’ll be right back.” I excused myself and ran after Ari through the hallway and up the stairs, my heart beating faster the closer to him I got.
I caught up with him as he was about to go into the room.
“Wyatt,” he said and let go of the door handle.
I stood in front of him, and my heart pounded so loud in my chest I thought for sure he could hear it, but he didn’t react to the sound.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “For having my back down there.”
He licked his lips and they curved into a hint of a smile before he said, “It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing. It was…it was everything for me. I…I’ve never had anyone in my corner like that.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” he replied, and I reached for his hand.
His eyes bored into me as I brought it up and kissed the back of it, certain my heart would burst out of my chest or that my body would give up and shut down.
I’d never done this before. Be so intimate with someone I liked when there was danger all around. When we could be discovered any second now, but I couldn’t help it. And Dare was right. I needed to find him to thank him after the way he stood up for me.
“It is. I…I needed that. I need you. You…” I had to pause to tame my breath that had turned ragged as if I’d run a mile. “You make everything better. You make me feel…less alone. You make me feel like I’m not a monster.”
In an instant, his free hand came up to my face and he stroked the skin under my eyes, causing a flurry of goosebumps to form under his touch. Goosebumps that traveled to the back of my neck and all down my spine.
“You’re not a monster, Wyatt. Not by a long shot.”
“It’s easier to believe when you’re with me.”
He smiled. “Then I guess I have to be with you until you believe it.”
My heart stopped for a moment, and a frog formed in my throat. “And what happens after?”
He smirked, leaned in, and his lips ghosted over mine for a second before he kissed me. “After that we can just be happy. Like we deserve to be.”
And just like that, with those simple words, the goosebumps prickled my skin everywhere and I could breathe again.
“I…I’d like that very much,” I answered, and he kissed me again.
A soft kiss that was way too short and fleeting for my liking, but it meant so much more than any other kiss we’d ever shared. Because it wasn’t just a kiss. It was a promise. A promise that motivated me now more than ever to bring the real monster down.
So I could be happy with Ari forever.
“I’ll see you later,” he whispered in my ear, then retreated into the room to check on Nino and Santiago.
And me? I returned to the living room downstairs, punched my hand, and looked at my men.
“Right. Let’s end this once and for all.”