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Crew - High Voltage.
Anger burns through my body, and I storm out of my building, hitting the street and hightailing it to High Voltage. I don’t know whether to be angry, confused, hurt, or betrayed. Maybe all of them. All I know is that I’ve never regretted being with Crew more.
I just don’t get it. Everything was so cool between us before we had sex, but I guess what they say is true—sex changes everything. I guess I just wasn’t expecting it. Especially after our talk at the bar. He seemed so chill with everything, he was down to keep waiting while knowing that I was still in mywanna have funphase. We agreed, but at the shop yesterday morning, that whole plan went to shit.
Did something happen that I missed? Did I misunderstand his intentions? Or did he just assume that after spending the night rocking my world, I wouldn’t be able to resist falling madly in love with him?
God. Sometimes men can be such idiots.
The walk to High Voltage only takes ten minutes, and before I know it, I’m gripping the door handle and throwing it open. “What in the ever-loving fuck is wrong with you, Crew Ledger?” I demand as the bell chimes above my head.
I storm around the reception area to find Crew sitting at his station, working on sketches, a bottle of whiskey open beside him. His head snaps up, and there’s nothing but pure fury in his dark eyes. “The fuck did you just say?” he demands, getting to his feet. “I’ve been calling you since last night, and you’ve ignored every single one of my fucking messages. Where the fuck have you been?”
Crew strides right into me, his eyes glassy and bloodshot, and I shove my hands against his chest, forcing him back a step. “Are you kidding me?” I snap, the anger raging through my body as I tear my phone out of my back pocket and bring up his messages. I start reciting them for him. “Where the fuck are you? Answer me now. You better not be whoring yourself out. Missed call. Missed call. Missed call. Answer my fucking calls, Kyah. Where the fuck are you?And that’s just the messages from this morning,” I spit. “I’m assuming you don’t need me to read through the bullshit I got last night?”
Crew snatches the phone out of my hand and tosses it across the shop, aiming for the chair in my station, but it slides right off and the screen smashes against the ground. “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?” I roar, whipping around to grab my phone and check the damage, only Crew grabs my elbow and yanks me back toward him.
I stumble and fall against his chest, his grip bruising around my arm. “You belong to me,” Crew growls.
“The fuck I do,” I spit, ripping my arm free of his tight grip. “Do you hear yourself right now? We fucked. It was fun. But that’s it, and considering the way you’ve been behaving ever since, I guarantee that was the last time you’ll ever touch me. You have no fucking right to me. You don’t get to message me at all hours of the night, demanding I come over, and you sure as fuck don’t get to kick down my fucking door and welcome yourself into my apartment. We’re over, Crew. Whatever the fuck you thought was going to happen between us is done. You’ve crossed a line.”
Crew clenches his jaw, and in a flash of lightning, he rears back before striking forward, his fist cracking against my jaw. I fall back, crying out in agony as I crash into Crew’s table with relentless momentum, my ribs instantly bruising against the sharp corner of the table as ink and equipment sprawl across the floor.
My face aches, and I grasp my cheek, almost certain my jaw is dislocated, and as I catch myself, stabilizing on my feet, I turn my horrified stare toward Crew, barely able to process what the fuck just happened.
He hit me. The one man who’s supposed to love me, who’s stood by my side since the day I stormed into High Voltage Ink at seventeen. The man who vowed that one day he’d be my forever. He broke my trust. Betrayed me, and now . . . He laid his fucking hands on me.
Never again.
My hands shake as Crew gapes at me, unable to believe what he’s done. “Ky,” he breathes, looking down at his closed fist in shock. “I didn’t mean . . . I swear, Kyah. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”
Crew inches toward me, and I flinch, backing up a step, hating the traitorous tears that well in my eyes. “Don’t you dare come any closer,” I warn, spitting through my clenched jaw as the pain rocks through my face, but considering I’m able to talk, maybe it’s not dislocated after all, just fucking sore.
“Kyah, please,” he says, staring at me in horror. “It was an accident. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was just worked up, and you were saying shit and it . . . it just happened. I love you. You have to believe that. You know me.”
“You don’t fucking love me, Crew,” I spit, disgusted by the pathetic excuse of a man standing before me. “You want to own me. I’m nothing but a fucking possession to you, and letting you touch me, letting you fuck me . . . I’ve never regretted anything more. So hear me now, Crew—we’re done. You’ll never fucking touch me again.”
And with that, I grab my smashed phone and storm out of High Voltage Ink, and as tears roll down my cheeks, I vow to myself that from here on out, Crew Ledger is dead to me.
14
REID
Myhandscoilintotight fists at my side as I watch Kyah storm out of High Voltage Ink, rage pounding through my veins like poison, infecting me from the inside out. The way she grips the side of her face, agony flashing in those bright blue eyes . . . fuck.
I’ve always gotten off on seeing the woman I’ve toyed with screaming for her life, but there’s something different about the way Kyah hurts. I don’t like it, and it grates on my nerves that I don’t understand why.
When I followed her here this afternoon, I expected a lot of things. I’ve seen the messages Crew sent her and watched as she gritted her teeth while ignoring his insistent calls. I expected him to get on his knees and grovel for forgiveness, that she would put him in his place and then coddle him like she always does, but instead, she stormed in there like the vicious little devil she is and laid down the law. It was the most thrilling thing I’ve ever seen—until it wasn’t.
When his fist cracked across her jaw, I saw red, and when she cried out loud enough for me to hear the agony in her tone from outside the shop, I’ve never wanted to kill someone more in my life.
I always knew Crew Ledger was a small man with his begging and incessant whining, but when it comes to Kyah, I didn't think he could take it this far. He knows he fucked up, but he doesn't realize how badly yet. He put his hands on what’s mine, and for that, he will suffer the consequences.
There’s no mistaking it, Crew Ledger is going to die.
He’s a piece of shit and there’s no doubt in my mind that Kyah has no fucking idea who she’s been screwing with, because if she knew, if she had any fucking idea what kind of bullshit Crew was involved with, she wouldn’t even be able to look him in the eye. She’d despise him and go out of her way just to see him locked up, even if it meant risking her life in the process.
It wasn’t hard to figure out. Crew Ledger is a messy guy and leaves trails of breadcrumbs everywhere he goes. It was only a matter of putting the pieces together, and when you’re as observant as I am, finding out people’s dirty little secrets comes as natural as breathing. And Crew Ledger, he’s about as bad as they come. But what’s worse is the way he has everybody fooled, especially Kyah.
