“Yeah, well a lie’s a fuckin’ lie.” I’d been telling so many they were going to bury me.
“It’s the only shot we’ve got, man. Pretty sure this just proved that, yeah?”
With that, he turned and walked away, leaving me standing there watching behind him.
Wondering which of those lies would finally be the end of me.“Come on, come on, come on,” I muttered under my breath, my feet wearing a path in my darkened room, anxiety clawing through me like a bitch.
Nearly choked on the relief when the low voice finally came through the line. “Richard.”
“Kade.” I exhaled. “Why the fuck haven’t you called?”
He blew out a sigh. “Quieter we stay, the safer we are.”
I rammed the heel of my hand into my eye and tried to focus. To remember my purpose. “How are they?”
“Secure,” he said.
“You’re sure?”
“There has been no new activity.”
Relief blistered through my body. But it didn’t last long. Not when I could feel all of this comin’ to a head. Faster than we could let it.
“You need to tighten security.”
He roughed out a menacing sound. “Think I’ve got it covered.”
Dude was a badass, but this wasn’t the time to get cocky.
“The two witnesses went missing,” I told him.
Silence shocked through the line before he uttered a hushed, “Shit.”
“They’re cleaning their tracks.”
“Knew they would, didn’t we?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
“We just have to push through and get them there safely. See it through. Only goal I’ve got.” He issued it like a promise.
“We will,” I said, resolute.
Sure of where I stood.
After that?
I would burn.
I knew I would.
Violet might hate me now? But when all was revealed, she was going to curse my existence.
Didn’t matter.
This was the due that I owed.
“We can’t fail them,” Kade murmured, his worry coming through.
“And we won’t.”
That face flashed through my mind.
A splash of Violet lighting up behind my eyes. Color and life. That little girl at her side. Regret flashed and flared. Blinding my sight in my darkened room.
“Stay safe,” I grated, “and keep me updated if you see anything out of the ordinary.”
My mind flashed to the shadow I’d hunted in the night.
That uneasiness taking hold. Rooting itself deep.
“I will, brother.”
I ended the call and clutched my phone in my hand, feeling like I was being skinned alive.
Walls too tight. Closing in. Everything I’d been running from gaining speed. Beating and thrashing.
Could feel a tornado approaching and getting ready to touch down.
A force that would annihilate.
Jagged rocks slayed my throat, and I tried to swallow around them.
Unable to sit still for a second longer, I grabbed my favorite guitar propped on a stand near the wall, the one I took with me everywhere.
Music was my only solace in the middle of this. Funny how it’d been what’d started it in the first place.
The culprit.
My love of a song clouding sound judgment.
I sank onto the floor and leaned against the bed. I propped her on my lap, my fingers playing across the strings as my left hand curled around the worn neck.
My head dropped back, and I closed my eyes, and I searched through the disorder for a melody.
For peace.
Every shade of Violet came rushing back.
Her eyes and that mouth and her sweet, delicate hands.
Body I wanted to get lost in forever.
Bliss.
My eternity that I would never touch.
The words gusted, swept in like a soft breeze through a meadow.
I closed my eyes
I fell into a dream
Watching through a looking glass
Nothin’s what it seems
Shards of ice
Cold, bitter bliss
That’s what I get
For stealing that first kissMy eyes slowly opened, my gaze on my fingers that played along the frets. I reached out and touched it, the tiny violet tattooed on the inside of my left wrist. No matter where I went, whatever faraway place.
A distant land.
A darkened room.
Lost in a trance.
She was there.TenVioletIt turned out, I was just getting myself deeper and deeper.
“Wallflowers would be honored to host your wedding,” I whispered into my cell, silently cursing myself for agreeing. But how could I deny her when Emily had just spent the last twenty minutes asking for something and apologizing for it at the same time?
Asking for something she shouldn’t when her request made complete sense.
The logical choice.
The only choice, really.
Which was why telling her yes was the only answer I could give.
The problem was, I had no idea how I would get through this.
I’d already been faltering. Running into Richard far too often. The man remaining in the distance but watching me through the space.
Showing up in random places.
Watching from afar.
Those eyes intent. His spirit unrelenting.
We hadn’t actually spoken since the run-in at the grocery store, but still, I felt as if he were picking me apart, piece by piece, sifting through the wreckage for something salvageable.
Which I was nothing but a fool for even thinkin’ it. For even letting the speck of a thought infiltrate my mind—the thought that he might want reconciliation rather than seeking our complete destruction.