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“What the hell is taking so long?” Sunshine asked.
“Hold on,” I hissed back while pressing my ear to the door. I could hear muffled shouting, and I prayed to God it wasn’t some kinky rough sex I was about to walk in on.
“Now, Grace,” Sunshine insisted. Fuck, she was starting to sound like my brother.
I twisted the knob and waltzed inside with an exhale. Nix and Alessandro were standing face-to-face, snarls on their mouths and their eyes burning with anger. They snapped their attention to me, and I felt their fury roll over my skin.
“What do you want?” Nix growled. His dark eyes danced over my skin, lingering on my chest before dipping to my long legs.
“Was that Nix?” Sunshine asked. “Why the fuck does he sound so pissy? If anyone is going to be pissy, it should be the fucking pregnant woman!” I straightened my spine and put the phone on speaker.
“He can hear you now,” I told her before glaring at Nix. How dare he look at me with lust, then speak such painful words to me? How dare he make me feel like nothing when I’ve been chasing after his memory for five fucking years? How dare he break me.
“Phoenix Bailey!” Sunshine yelled into the receiver. “You asshole! First, you disappear. Then, you call me out of the blue and barely say two words. And no, it’s not to check on me or even give me some sort of clue as to where you were. It’s to see if Grace and Alessandro are okay.”
I cocked my head to the side. Nix wanted to know if I was okay? When did this happen?
Sunshine continued on her rant, and Nix ducked his head in shame. Alessandro raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest, as if smug that Nix was getting a verbal beating. “I tell you I’m pregnant, and what do you do? You yell Banana Split. Like it’s nothing. Grace is calling me crying. I don’t know where you are or what you’re running from. You have always been the bravest person I know, demanding better of me. You didn’t let me sulk when my mother killed herself. You made me go after what I wanted with the Bullets. You saved me, Nix. So stop being a martyr and go after what you want. Stop pushing me out. Stop running from the people who love you. Fuck! I sound like the biggest fucking hypocrite in the world right now, but I’m hormonal and I miss you and none of this is okay.”
I heard a crashing sound on the phone, and I flinched at the boom. Sunshine must have thrown something at the wall. “Baby, what’s wrong?” another voice said on the phone line. I recognized it as Callum.
“I’m fine. Go back to bed,” she snapped. “Nix, are you even listening to me? Say something, dammit!”
“I’m sorry,” Nix croaked before taking a step toward me—toward the phone. “I’m so sorry, Sunshine.”
I could hear Sunshine’s sobs on the line. It felt like I was intruding on a painful yet beautiful moment. “You’re my person, Nix. How could you just leave me?” she asked.
“I didn’t want to,” Nix replied. He was close enough now that he grabbed the phone. “I didn’t want to leave you, Sweets. I still don’t. I want to be there with you. I want to be there for your baby, too. I’ve missed you so much.”
“Then why didn’t you try to come home?” she asked, sadness weighing her voice down. Alessandro leaned closer, as if waiting to hear what Nix would say.
“Because these people are too powerful. The only way out is if I die. And even then, there is no guarantee that they won’t hurt you. I’m in too deep. Soon, they’ll find me here. They’ll find all of us. They have a network of billionaires, thousands of people working for them. They quite literally run the world. Every president. Every royal leader. Hell, your father was a lower ranking member of their group.”
Sunshine gasped. “My father?” she asked. My heart hurt for her. I knew it was hard to talk about him.
“Yes, Sunshine. Finding information about him made them take a special interest in me. Every major company in the world has members of their elite group sitting as board members. It’s bigger than the Bullets. They are the Ringleaders. They control the stock market. They have entire secret islands where they hunt people for sport. Sex trafficking. Satanic rituals, you name it. These are people with too much money and sinister interests. I was pulled into their depths. If I kill my contact, another one will just reappear and give me more work to do. I’m too good at what I do. I might work behind a keyboard, but I’ve killed for these people against my will. I’ve helped them pull too many strings.”
I held my breath for Nix’s entire rant. I had no idea just how deep we were. I had no idea that these people were on this scale of terror. “Take me off speaker phone, Nix,” Sunshine whispered after a long pause.
He did as she requested and then held the phone to his ear. Nix stared at me the entire time she spoke. I wished I could hear what she said. I couldn’t imagine the guilt Sunshine was feeling right now. I couldn’t imagine how painful it was to know that Paul Bright—her evil serial killer father—was partly to blame for getting Nix involved.
“Okay. I will. I promise,” Nix replied before saying, “I love you, too.” He hung up the phone and stared at me.
“What did she say?” I whispered. Nix took a step closer and glared at my lips, as if they were put on my face to offend him. What the fuck was happening?
“She told me to do this.”
Nix slammed me against the basement door and kissed me hard.
Chapter Twelve
Nix
She felt so good pressed up against me. Her soft lips tasted like cotton candy. Her supple body met every hard muscle of mine. I tenderly stroked my tongue against hers. I felt once again the rush of protectiveness. Sure as the road that brought us together, our passionate kiss felt like finally coming home. There was a solid softness to our reunion. Her insistent mouth bloomed with determination. I broke out in tremors like a fucking pussy. This wasn’t the controlling, commanding, demanding kiss of our past.
This was the kiss of a broken man giving in.
She drew me in with her open eyes, like she didn’t want to miss a single second of my failure. For a long time, I kissed Grace Moretti. She was just as I remembered. Just as tender. Just as wild and astonishing. The world was once a roaring declaration of all the things I couldn’t have; now it was silent. Now it was just she and I.
