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Where was she?
I ran to her bedroom to find her.
She wasn’t there.
I searched the whole house.
She was nowhere.
Tears fell down my cheeks as my body crumpled against the wall.
My heart raced in my chest.
She was always home. She never left us alone after school.
Chris entered the room and I knew from his face and the way his shoulders hunched over a little that he didn’t have anything good to tell me.
“Mum’s gone,” he said, waving a piece of paper in the air, his eyes sad. “And she’s never coming back.”
“Vegas, I’ve got you.” Nitro’s voice cut into my nightmare, and I blinked my eyes open.
My heart beat faster as I stared up at him. I wasn’t sure if he was really there or part of my dream. The sunlight filtered through the curtain, though, slanting rays of sunshine across his bruised face.
It was him.
He really was standing in front of me.
My nightmare slayer.
He stopped me when I tried to sit up. Shaking his head, he said, “Don’t move, it’ll hurt too much.”
My mind raced with a million questions and my body felt like it would burst from the happiness rushing through it. “How? When did you get here? Is he dea—”
He placed a finger to my lips, silencing me. “It’s early still. Go back to sleep. We’ll talk later.”
Like fuck.
I’d been waiting for him to come home for days. There was no way I could sleep even if I wanted to.
“I’m not sleeping, so you should just start talking now.” Thank goodness my throat wasn’t as sore anymore. It’d be easier to argue with him if necessary.
His lips twitched. “There’s my girl,” he rumbled quietly. Sitting on the chair that had been Monroe’s for days, he said, “He’s dead.” It was as if the words had been ripped from the darkest part of his soul. I felt every sliver of his torment.
Overwhelming relief hit me like a tonne of bricks. My tears fell uncontrollably, and Nitro reached out to wipe them away. I stopped him and said, “It hurts to touch my face.”
He moved his hand away, and I caught the clench of his fist as he did. His eyes travelled the length of my body before he looked back at my face. “I’m so sorry, Tatum.”
The raw agony I heard in his voice and the devastation I saw in his eyes only made me cry harder. I reached for him, grasping for any contact. It hurt so much to do, but I didn’t care. I needed his skin. His touch. When I found his hand, I linked my fingers through his. The instant calm I felt was what I’d been searching for. “You have nothing to be sorry for. If it wasn’t for you, I might not be here now.”
“If it wasn’t for me, you would never have ended up like this.”
I stared at him, letting my gaze trace his face. This man had been to hell and back for me and his family, and yet he had no care for himself. All he worried about was us.
“We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one, champ. These bruises and all this shit you see… it will disappear and heal. But my life? You gave me that, in ways you might never understand, and for that, I will be eternally grateful.”
His gaze dropped to my lips and lingered there for a long time. “I want to kiss you,” he murmured, deep in thought. He found my eyes again. “I won’t, but I need you to know how fucking much I want to right now.”
My tears that had almost dried up began flowing again. I was beginning to think they might never stop. Usually I hated crying in front of others, but with Nitro, I let them fall and didn’t think twice. He was my safe place.
