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I had somehow convinced myself it was a hallucination. I’d never taken ecstasy before, so I didn’t know what kind of effects they’d have. I was certain he wouldn’t just stab a man without so much as a grunt of effort.
He winks at me, proving that it wasn’t my imagination that created that scenario. For some reason, that affects me in a way that makes me lick my lips. He was willing to kill someone to keep me safe? Maybe it was anger, because I remember taunting him by mentioning I’d fuck them both at the same time. Fuck my life. If it was jealousy that made him do it, I might melt right here on the spot.
Donavan’s eyes are slow to lift from my lips back up to meet my gaze.
“Are you sure?” Nash asks, pulling my attention away from Donavan.
Ayla looks from me to the man before she locks eyes with her man again.
“I’m sure,” she says, holding her head a little higher as if to compensate for the waver in her voice.
“You want to do it?” he asks, and I want to take a step forward and argue.
I stop short, thinking maybe this man is one of the ones who hurt her in Mexico. If that’s the case, then she deserves to be the one to seek the revenge.
She shakes her head, her throat working on a rough swallow.
“I can’t.”
A thrill of opportunity seeps inside of me.
“Down, tiger,” Donavan says, but there’s a hint of humor in his voice that sinks inside of me in an unexplained way.
My sister turns and leaves the room, and I feel obligated to follow her. I walk past her when she stops in the middle of the living room, and head to the kitchen sink, washing my hands the way Donavan did earlier before rejoining them.
“We were getting ready to go look for you,” Ayla says. “I was freaked out when you didn’t come home.”
“I appreciate your concern,” I tell her, knowing my tone makes me sound completely ungrateful, but I feel like they’re here interrupting something.
I know what comes next. She’s going to insist I come home with them, but I can’t. I don’t want to leave here, but if Nash gets involved, always quick to voice his opinions, then Donavan’s going to insist I leave. Hell, history says he’s going to tell me to get out of here anyway.
When she frowns, I feel the niggling urge to apologize so I choose distraction instead.
“How far are we from the diner?”
“Ten minutes,” Ayla says. “Thirty from home.”
I nod, realizing that Donavan lives freaking close. It shouldn’t surprise me, considering he and Nash sort of work together.
Nash and Donavan step outside to talk, and the second the front door closes, Ayla steps in closer to me.
“Is he hurting you?”
I lift my now clean hand to my neck. “He injected me with something that knocked me out, but Donavan—”
“Is Donavan hurting you?” she clarifies. “Making you hurt that man? Is he holding something over your head?”
I tilt my head in confusion. “Donavan? What? No, he’s not hurting me or making me do anything.”
“Have you… done that before? Cut someone?”
“No, never.” I shove away the shame she’s trying to make me feel. “He’s a bad man.”
“And he’ll die for his association with Cortez, but torturing him? You don’t find anything wrong with that?”
I shake my head, my answer immediate. “No, Ayla. I don’t see a damn thing wrong with it.”
“I’m worried about you,” she whispers, and I have to take a step back before she can place her hand on my arm.
It’s comforting, and it’s also something Mom would do. I hate the way it makes me feel, like my own emotions don’t matter because they might not look the way someone would expect them to.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” I assure her. “I’m fine.”
“I guess I’d be wasting my breath asking you to come back home tonight?”
I nod. “He may ask me to leave, but I don’t want to.”
“What exactly is going on between the two of you?”
I shake my head. “I don’t have a clue, but I can tell you I’m drawn to him.”
“He’s dangerous,” she says.
“So is Nash.” Her man is just as willing to kill that man in the room as Donavan is.
“I know,” she says with a nod. “Don’t lose yourself by getting lost in him.”
I don’t respond because I can’t make that promise. Hell, if I’m being honest, I might have already lost myself to him long before tonight.
Chapter 24
Donavan
“I don’t mind taking care of it,” I tell Nash. “But if you want to do it, that’s fine, too.”
He shakes his head, his eyes staring off into the sunrise, the sky barely pink and orange.
“He’s not one of the ones from before.”
“They’re all pieces of shit. Just because he didn’t hurt you or Ayla doesn’t mean he didn’t hurt someone.”
