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I’d get those few moments of peace that I desperately needed.
My phone rang again.
And this time, I dropped to the floor, scrambling to pick it up, my breathing labored and uneven. It took three or four tries, my hands coated in sweat, but I managed to swipe across to pick up his call.
“Shay? You good?”
“No,” I answered, my voice cracking. “No. I need you.”
Chapter Seventeen
BISHOP
“Shay!” I took the stairs two at a time, using the handrail to propel me forward.
Calli’s room was the first off the landing, and I ducked inside, my eyes scanning the room quickly before I hurried out and down the hall.
The bathroom door was shut, and when I twisted the handle, it didn’t push open.
“Shay? Open the door.” I leaned in close, hoping to hear something, fucking anything. “Shay, I need to know you’re okay.”
Still silence.
“I swear to God, Shay.”
The lock finally flicked, and I braced my hands against the doorframe as the door swung back, ready to demand to know what the hell was happening.
Seeing her standing on the other side instantly made my heart rate slow. No injuries, no blood. I would have said she seemed okay, but then I saw her eyes. They were bloodshot and red from where she’d obviously been rubbing them, but there was something else.
Something in her eyes staring back at me had my stomach sinking like I’d swallowed a pile of lead.
I knew Shay had been exhausted this week, even though she hadn’t come straight out and told me. I figured she was still working her way through what had happened. It was traumatic, and there was no denying that. It’s not every day you get in a fight with the son of a mob boss and then have your house filled with bullets.
She was stronger than most people, and I admired the hell out of her for it. But she wasn’t invincible.
She wasn’t unbreakable.
“The hell happened?” I demanded, watching her carefully as she pulled back, moving one step after another until she stood in front of the double vanity. “Shay…”
She turned and braced her hands against it, leaning in and staring at herself in the mirror.
Something was very fucking wrong.
Her eyes fell, and I followed her gaze, curling my hands into fists when I spotted the bag of pills. “You want to tell me what those are?”
Neither of us moved, both caught in this limbo as we stared at the fucking drugs laid out on my bathroom counter.
“Oxy.”
“Where the fuck did you get oxy?”
She didn’t even lift her eyes, just swiped at a single tear as it dripped down her cheek. “Did I ever tell you that my dad murdered my mom?”
I stepped inside the bathroom, my body crowding the small space, but I needed her within reach. I needed to know I could get to her before she could get to those damn pills.
“You didn’t tell me that.”
Her head bounced up and down. “Yep. He hunted us for years. We moved across the country, trying to escape him, but he would show up, start banging on the doors, smashing the windows, and screaming at my mom for leaving him. He got locked up for a while, but then he found us again. He got into the house in the middle of the night, and he stabbed Mom fourteen times. Killed her. Then set the house on fire to try and kill me and my brother.”
