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“You mean…?” His eyes flash with surprise, then hope, then fear. Eastern drops his head, his shoulders go slack. “Fuck, Asia. Why didn’t I listen to you? It could’ve been so different. This is all my fault. I let you down. I let everyone down,” he mumbles, swiping at his eyes. Like me, Eastern rarely cries, he’s always so strong. Not this time.
Gently I cup his face in my hands, wiping at his tears with the pads of my thumbs. “Look at me,” I say. He lifts his head and for a moment I just look into his eyes. “This is going to be okay.Weare going to be okay.”
He shakes his head. “You can’t know that. Nothing is ever okay for the likes of us.”
“If you can’t trust that, then trustme… Please?”
I can see him mentally pulling away, shutting down and building barriers to protect his heart and those of the ones he loves, and I can’t let him. I won’t. Making a decision, I do what I should’ve done a long time ago, I let him in.
I act.
Leaning in, I press my lips against his, curling my hands in his hair and tugging him closer. A small sound of surprise releases from his lips, before he opens his mouth to my searching tongue. He tastes of home, of years and years of friendship and laughter. He tastes of the first tendrils of real, life-changing love. Moulding myself in his arms, our kiss bonds us, draws us closer, stitching us together and reshaping us into somethingmore, something everlasting, somethingpowerful. Yearning and want, desire and hope, bleed between us, forging us together. Though I’m scared, I know this is right. We belong to each other.
When we part, I take his hand in mine, squeezing it gently. “Do you trust me, Eastern?”
“Yes,” he says simply.
“Then this is the plan. You’ll stay here at Oceanside. We’ll make sure Tracy and Braydon are safe and we’ll deal with this together, okay?”
“Okay,” he murmurs.
Half a minute later Crown, Mr Carmichael and Mr Burnside enter the room. Crown doesn’t waste any time. “What have you decided, prison or Oceanside?”
Squeezing his hand for moral support, we all wait. When Eastern fails to answer, flicking his gaze helplessly at me, I answer for him. “Oceanside. On one proviso.”
“And what’s that?” Crown asks, giving me an assessing look.
“You promise to move Tracy and Braydon into protective custody, you provide them with a home and enough money to live without Tracy having to worry how she’s going to care for Bray. Otherwise you can forget about Eastern giving you any juicy information.”
“Or, I can just throw Eastern into prison…” Crown retorts with a shrug that’s way too affected to be sincere.
I bark out a laugh. “Oh, come on. We all know if that was the case you would’ve done it already. Instead you bring Eastern here knowing full well what we mean to each other and hoping I would change his mind. I have, so agree to the deal orno fucking information.”
I catch the glimpse of a smile pulling up Mr Carmichael’s lips and respect fill his gaze. He nods, mouthing ‘good job’ to me.
“Fine. You’ve got a deal…”
“You’ll keep Braydon and Tracy safe?”
“Yes. We have a witness protection scheme. They’ll be safe, I can assure you both of that. But in return, I have one condition of my own that applies to you, Asia.”
“And what’s that?”
“We need more information on Camden, the leader of Hackney’s Hackers. Find out all you can about his involvement with the King. Get close to him, join his fucking crew if you have too, I really don’t care but get us information and I will ensure that not only will Braydon and Tracy be safe with new identities and a home rather than that flea infested flat they live in, but you two get a new start in life when you leave here. Camden managed to wangle his way out of a very long prison sentence to a short stay here and we have every reason to believe he’s very much in the King’s pocket. Camden’s the key to it all and you, Asia, are going to unlock his secrets.”
“What the fuck? Asia isnotjoining Camden’s crew. Over my fucking dead body,” Eastern snarls. He crushes my hand and I wince with the pain, but I don’t try to protest because… because… Because there are things I need to understand about Camden too, and despite everything that has happened these past few months he has hidden depths I need to explore. Secrets that I need to understand.
“Take the deal or everything is off the table,” Crown growls.
“It’s a deal,” I state before Eastern can say otherwise.
“Asia…please.”
“Nothing changes between us,nothing,” I say fiercely.
“Camden won’t let you go once he has you. I know that better than anyone.”
“Then you don’t know everything. He’s let you go,for me.”
