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“Don’t do that.” Sebastian’s voice is low as he stares at me. His gaze is heated and so penetrating I can barely look at him, but I do. “Don’t make it out like I don’t care, Chloe. All I care about is you.”
“Then why are we here?” I can’t control the emotion in my voice.
The quiet forest seems to get darker with every minute we sit here arguing in the car.
“Because Carter needs me,” he answers me in a tight voice.
Carter. His best friend. The one he left behind in order to run away with me.
I could never relate to that friendship. A friendship he calls family. Because I had no one to leave behind. Friend, family, or otherwise. I only ever had Sebastian.
“And that’s his place?” I surmise. “The big one when we entered?” Big one doesn’t quite do it justice.
“This is all his property, but the place we’re going is deeper in the land. Private but safe and close. He lives there with his brothers,” Bastian answers, all the tension leaving him. He knows I have a soft spot for Carter. What he doesn’t know is how guilty I feel about everything that happened. But how could he, when he doesn’t even know I’m very aware of what actually happened all those years ago?
“And what did he need you for?” I ask him, meeting his gaze. I can already see that he’s going to lie. His tell is the way he narrows just his left eye, ever so slightly.
“You never tell me anything,” I say before he can disrespect me with another lie.
“What you need to know is that you’re safe here, and that I love you and I would do anything for you.”
My first instinct is to correct him and tell him it’s not about what I need to know, it’s about telling me everything because I’m his partner. And those are the words sitting there on the tip of my tongue until I look in his eyes and see a hint of worry, and I let his statement digest.
Safe here. Are we in danger? My hand moves to my belly and the fear of loss is all too real. The last time we left this place, death remained behind. The lingering memory of the nightmares and the fears creep into my mind. But I know what happened back then, and it can’t be that. I pray it’s not that.
I don’t know if it’s just being back here that causes chills to trail up my arms and down my spine, or if it’s something else. I swallow my question, knowing Sebastian won’t answer me anyway.
“Just come with me,” Bastian asks, holding out his strong hand for me to take.
It doesn’t mean I forgive him when I place my hand in his. And it doesn’t mean we’re okay when I follow him up the paved walkway to the gorgeous red walnut French doors.
All it means is that it’s getting late, I’m tired, and I don’t want to fight right now.
I fought all my life just to get by. I thought I was done fighting.
I thought wrong.
2
Sebastian
“Is he going to be a problem?”
I ask Carter the only question that’s been eating away at me as we drove down here. The hate, the anger… the fear, it’s all mixed into a deadly concoction that’s been destroying my sanity for days. Ever since I left Chloe, all I could think is that this prick would go after her. That Romano would take her away from me.
Even though I knew she was safe, I couldn’t sleep not having her right here by my side where she belongs. I don’t know how we lived so long thinking we’d get away from it forever, but we can’t. I’m not running away; I’m not going anywhere. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”
“Romano’s a dead man and he knows it,” Carter answers, the early morning light filtering in from the large window behind his desk.
“While he’s still breathing, he’s a fucking problem,” I respond and run my thumb along my jaw. “I thought about how we could do it on the way over to pick up Chloe and then that cop had to show up.”
“Officer Walsh is a menace. He thinks he can question everyone and wait in parking lots for shit to go down and that he’ll somehow be the hero? He doesn’t know shit. Not about how things work around here, or about how deep these cuts go. All he’s doing is delaying the inevitable.”
“He has damn fine timing.” I blow out the statement, sitting back farther in my seat and hating that this new cop had to come down here and force us all to wait for what’s rightfully ours. Even though he’s former FBI from New York, all we have to do is wait until he turns his back, just like they all do. He’ll learn what it’s like down here and how far a piece of paper and a badge will get him.
