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But she broke that goddamned promise and me in the process.
Young or not, we’d lived through hell. She knew exactly what she was doing when she stole from me and left me bleeding in that motel room. She might as well have put that fucking bullet in my heart, or mercifully in my fucking head. At least then I would have to think about the life she lived without me.
But she left me. She left me to rot in the goddamn hotel room without a plan, without my air, without her.
And the fucked up part was the life I lived without her had everything to do with her. Taylor was in possession of the only link to my son. Amber was the way.
I tossed my pipe onto my dresser and began bagging product. Amber didn’t love me. I wasn’t fucking clueless to it, but she owed me. And I couldn’t help but think her texts were a way of keeping me at bay. Regardless, I would have my son, and Amber would just have to deal with being a casualty as his caregiver. I’d left her the job of raising him while I kept him safe.
I knew Amber had dreams of leaving Dyer like her sister, but no matter what, the Walker boys would come first. And if she so much as tried to stop it from happening, I would have a pile of red hair in my fist and crush her fucking skull into the other until she believed it.
But Amber wasn’t Taylor. She was loyal and had never given me any reason not to trust her. While Taylor saw me as a parasite, Amber saw me as her lord and savior. Something Taylor never had the fucking good sense to acknowledge. But I would make sure Taylor prayed to me one way or the other.
Amber would come back to Dyer.
I would have my son back.
And Taylor would pray, on her knees, right before I returned the favor and broke her.
I dreamed of Ray . . . again. For reasons I couldn’t understand, he’d been on my mind. It was half memory, half fiction, and wholly painful. I’d woken in a daze, feeling foolish for entertaining my wishful thinking when it came to Daniello. Too much wine, too much imagination. Still, the ache in my chest wasn’t imagined. The ache belonged to Daniello, and my need, my craving for his company, the weight in my stomach came from my memory of Ray and the day he returned home.
I was in my room reading the thirteenth novel on my tutor approved reading list. Ray had waltzed into my room like his absence didn’t make us strangers. I sat up on high alert with his aggressive stance in front of my bed.
He was dressed casually—dark jeans and a button down—something I wasn’t used to. His blue eyes sliced through me with contempt, and he reeked of alcohol.
“I don’t like it that you’re here.” Pure anger leaked from him as he glared at me with disgust.
I stood slowly and faced him head on. “We have a deal.”
“I’ll pay you for your absence.” I ignored the hurt and demanded an answer instead.
“What have I done?”
“Pack your things; you need to go. I’ll make arrangements for you.”
I looked around the large bedroom I’d grown used to isolating myself in and started mentally packing a list of things that belonged to me. And then I realize not a single thing did. It had all come from Ray. Even the clothes on my body. I tore off my shirt and threw it down at his feet.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Leaving the way I came. I don’t want a damn thing from you.” I pushed my shorts down and then my panties. I moved toward the whitewashed dresser that held the clothes I came with and was caught by the wrist.
“You can take everything, Taylor.”
“Go to hell.”
Ray’s chest heaved as he looked me over. The awareness of his touch betrayed my body. I had spent a month remembering the look in his eyes, his mouth. I refused to regret what we’d done. I’d been a willing participant, the instigator.
He released me, and I ripped open my dresser, my back to my captor. I didn’t want him to see the tear he was causing with his rejection.
“It wasn’t right.” His words were a whisper.
“No, this isn’t right. This, what you’re doing to me now, isn’t right.”
“You’re a baby.”
I turned to him, vulnerable, bared. “I’m eighteen. I’m an adult, and I’m not sorry. I agreed to all of this. I started it. I knew what I was doing. You were saving me. You are supposed to teach me how to do this, Ray. I still need you. Please don’t throw me away. I can’t go back. I don’t want to go back. You said—”
His eyes trailed down my body. “I changed my mind.”
