I pushed myself harder. Faster.
Wind whipped, and my heart slammed against my ribs.
Madness whisking me into fury.
The car skidded before it made a sharp right.
Fuck.
I braked hard.
The roaring engine whined, and the rear-wheel locked up and sent the bike skidding into a fishtail.
I fought to gain traction. To get control.
Still, I took the turn too goddamn fast.
Too goddamn sharp.
Tires screeched as they slid on the pavement. Tried to see through the panic, and my foot came down in a bid to keep it from skidding into a full slide. One second before I hit the ground, I caught traction.
Righting it.
Barely managing to straighten it to upright before I gunned it again.
But the car I’d been chasing down was disappearing around a left turn about a quarter of a mile ahead.
I raced to get there, but by the time I made the same turn, the car was gone.
Vanished.
Nowhere.
Refusing to give up, I searched, taking the side streets slow like some kind of deranged motherfucker. Peering into windows of cars, like searching through rubble in a battlefield in the middle of the night.
Wanted to scream that I was coming up empty-handed.
That I’d failed again.
Finally had to concede that there was no chance I was going to stumble across them after I’d been riding aimlessly for the last hour and a cop running his beat had clocked me as suspicious.
Before I made a bigger mess of things, I turned and headed for home.
Home.
Bitter laughter rumbled out, knowing my brain had gone bad.
The taste of this betrayal sour on my tongue.
Venom in my blood.
But it didn’t matter.
I parked my bike in the garage and went through the gate. Instantly, my gaze was pulled to the windows on her wing of the house. Dim lights illuminated the girl who was at one of the easels, a brush in hand.
Heaven.
Eden.
A perfect, tortuous Hell.
Drawn, I moved. No will left.
I punched in the code, and she didn’t even flinch, like she’d felt my approach all along.
“Lost ’em,” I grunted. Sheer defeat.
Sable eyes found me, the quivering at the corner of her mouth telling me everything. “I was worried.”
“I know,” I told her. What the fuck else was I going to say? Knew she’d already gone there. Both of us digging the same grave.
In the shadows, I eased up behind her, needing to seep into her warmth.
Nearly buckled at the knees when I caught sight of the picture she was painting.
Slayed.
Cleaved in two.
“It’s you,” she whispered, agony and affection written in her tone.
Knew she wasn’t talking about the image she was actually painting. Knew it was the first time that she’d been able to pick up her brush to bring her art to life since she’d witnessed the trauma of losing her best friend.
But still, it sliced through me like a double-edged knife.
Brutal and beautiful.
I inched forward, that knife cutting me to the core, my breaths haggard as I peered over her shoulder at the painting.
In the image, I was on my knees, facing away but in profile, my expression somehow distorted yet clear.
I stared at the snowy ground where I knelt.
Broken.
The image ached of loneliness.
Of grief.
Of loss.
My fingers were drawing a face in the snow beneath me.
Mia lifted her arm again, her hand trembling with sorrow as she swept the brush across the obscured, shrouded face, detailing it more.
I knew without question that this was Mia’s representation of the woman she saw as my wife. Like she’d plucked the misery from my soul and perfectly put it on a canvas.
Knowing me the way she couldn’t.
Moisture gathered in my eyes.
I had to stop this.
End it.
Go back to the beginning.
Remember.
Problem was, the only thing I was doing was remembering.
Agony and pain.
And I couldn’t stop.
Couldn’t stop from giving her more.
I reached for Mia’s hand, every muscle on my body edged with tension.
Sharp and bleeding.
I curled my hand over hers so that we were holding the brush together, and in haphazard strokes, I painted a second face in the snow beside the other.
The little girl the only thing I could see.
Haylee. Haylee. Haylee.
Mia gasped, and her free hand flew to her mouth to keep back a cry. “Oh, God. Leif.”
I leaned in, my voice a scrape of anguish where I whispered in her ear, “I told you, I ruin everything I touch.”
Twenty-Eight
Leif
Twenty-Three Years Old
Maddie bounced on her toes in our kitchen. Her feet bare. The girl adorable. Barely contained excitement radiated from her.
“What are you up to?” I asked, cocking a grin.
Because fuck.
She made me happy.
Made me smile.
My one truth in the middle of the lies.
“I have something to tell you.”
That grin grew, and I spun the rest of the way around from where I faced the counter and leaned back against it. “And what’s that?”
Her hands spread out over her belly and she bit down on her bottom lip like she was trying to temper the thrill. “We’re going to have a baby.”
Then she let it loose, squealing, and she was moving for me. “Leif, we’re going to have a baby.”
I pushed off the counter. Flying across the floor. Whisking her from her feet and swinging her around and around.
I hugged her.
So close.
Those arms were wrapped around me.
Nothing but love.
She sighed and pressed her face into my neck.
“I’m going to be a dad,” I muttered low.
She nodded there.
Joy lit.
So intense.
I slowly eased her onto her feet, but I didn’t let her go. Just hugged her and rocked her in the middle of our kitchen.
“I love you, so much,” she whispered.
“Luckiest man alive,” I murmured, barely able to speak with the clot of emotion that had gathered in my throat.
Luckiest man alive.
One who was barely treading water.
Fear burned up my throat. Sticky and tight.
I’d tried. Tried to cut ties. Only for Keeton to reel me back in. My obligation to him a millstone around my neck.
I didn’t do much. Just the few jobs he required.
Problem was, Maddie didn’t know. And I couldn’t let her.
This betrayal, the lies, so heavy I didn’t know how I continued to stand up straight.
She would hate me if she knew. Couldn’t handle it, if she left me.
I needed her.
God. I needed her so bad.
I hugged her tighter.
Knowing the only thing I could do was shelter her from it.
Shield her from the depravity that I was trying to get out from under. Buying my way out.
Soon.
Soon we’d be free.
Until then? I would protect her and our child with everything I had.
* * *
Leif, Twenty-Four Years Old
A rattled cry filled the room.
My chest tightened and my eyes burned and my heart felt like it was going to bust out from behind my ribs.
The amount of love that filled me devastating.
Crushing.
This tiny, precious thing was set on Maddie’s chest. My girl weeping from the exhaustion. From the joy.
From the shock.
Her hair drenched with sweat and her face drenched with tears.
She pressed her lips to our baby’s head while I pressed my lips to the top of hers.
Unable to believe this was my life.
That I’d been given this. Trusted with it.
“I love you. You did it. You did it,” I mumbled, barely able to speak with the emotion that filled everything to overflowing.
I was talking to them both.
My only truth.
Maddie smiled this smile through her tears, running her shaking hands over every inch of our daughter.
“She’s perfect. She’s perfect.”
I could barely nod.
Overwhelmed.
Overcome.
I kissed Maddie’s temple. Set my hand on Haylee’s back.
My hand close to eclipsing her entire body she was so small.
But her eyes? They were so big when they looked up at me.
In trust.
Devotion thrummed deep.
A massive demand that shouted in my ear.
This—this was my duty.
My reason.
My purpose.
I had to get free. For them. So I could be the man they needed me to be.
* * *
The second I walked through the door, she squealed. Clamored off the floor where she was playing with paper dolls.
She jumped to her feet.
Footsteps my perfect drumbeat.
A rhythm I felt to the deepest part of me.
She threw her arms into the air as she ran in my direction.
Blonde, shiny curls bounced around her little shoulders, and her smile was so big I didn’t know how it fit on her face.
“Daddy!”
Love rushed at the sound of her sweet voice.
At her trust.
This adoration I had overwhelming. So much that sometimes it felt like too much.
I swept her off her feet.
She curled her arms around my neck. “I missed you. Don’t ever leave me.”
A smile edged my mouth. She told me that every time I left.
“I will always come back for you.”
I prayed I was telling the truth.
I’d tried for years to get loose. Keeton would always reel me back in.
Threats.
Reasons.
His hold on me a noose.
But I couldn’t keep doing this—walking out that door and not knowing if I’d return. If I’d be taken in a strike of violence, knowing what that would do to Maddie and my baby girl.
* * *
“It’s over. I can’t keep doing this.” I stared down Keeton in the middle of the night. He’d called me in once again. Saying it was urgent. Holding this bullshit over my head. “I’ve got a family, and this isn’t the life I want.”
Never was to begin with.
In the middle of it before I’d known what had hit me.
Nothing but a sixteen-year-old kid bribed with a shiny new bike like I was a five-year-old being suckered into the back of a van with a piece of candy.
“Six months ago, you said I was done. And now you’re demanding I come back? This is bullshit.”
Keeton rocked back in his chair. “We need you right now. Things are shaky with Krane and his crew.”
Yeah. They always were.
I gave him a harsh shake of my head. “And you know I can’t fix that.”
“Think you might be the only one who can.”
“I’m done, Keeton. I mean it. You want to end me for walking? So be it. But I’m no longer your pawn.”
His face flashed displeasure, hard because the asshole didn’t like to be crossed.
I stood my ground. Think he knew I was serious this time.
“Fine, Leif. You want to be cut out? See this deal through, and you’re free. Honorable discharge.” He cracked a menacing grin.
He and I both knew there was nothing honorable about it.
I fought the disquiet that sparked.
The disbelief that Keeton would ever actually let me go.
I edged back and rapped a fist on the table.
“After this shipment? You forget I exist.”
Twenty-Nine
Mia
A light breeze whispered at the windows, the sound soothing and calm, washing over us where we lie in the middle of my bed.
Legs tangled under the covers and our hearts beating in sync.
Both of us were on our sides, facing each other, no words needed for the long minutes that passed as we fought to find our breaths.
I’d let him take me again because I’d known he’d needed it after what he’d revealed on the painting. If I were being truthful, I’d needed it, too.
The connection.
The physical promise that I was there.
Leif threaded his fingers through mine and brought the back of my hand to his lips.
He kissed me there.
Gently.
Reverently.
Tingles spread.
Emotion right behind it.
Those brown-sugared eyes searched mine. Tonight, they were so soft that I could feel them seeping through my flesh.
“Will you tell me about them?” I asked into the lapping shadows of my room, my voice quieted to make sure I didn’t disturb the kids.
He flinched, but then, with our hands still twined, he reached up and brushed his knuckles down my jaw. “Not sure it’s something you want to hear about.”
Nervously, my tongue swept across my dried, swollen lips. “I want to know you, Leif.”
“And I’m terrified for you to know that person, Mia. Terrified for you to know the real me.”
I reached out and trembled my fingers across his lips. “I already see the real you, and I know there is no reason to be afraid.”
He blinked, as if he wanted to shut me out. “That’s you projecting again, Mia. Seeing what you want to see.”
My head shook. “We all make mistakes.”
He bit out a harsh laugh. “But some of us make mistakes that cost others their lives.”
My heart skipped a beat of dread. Misery for this man. Maybe a little of my own. “Like I did with Lana?”
His head shook on the pillow. “No, Mia. That is different. Completely different. You didn’t do anything to put her in danger in the first place.”
I gulped around the lump that grew solid in my throat, not sure if I wanted to ask. Knowing I had to. “And you did?”
Grief struck through his features. Dark and forbidding. Disgust and hatred. “Told you I wasn’t a good guy.”
“And I’ve seen nothing but a good guy,” I argued.
A swell of discomfort rolled through him. “Feel like I’m someone different when I’m around you. Think that might be what scares me most. Fact you make me feel like I could be someone different. Someone better.”
“But you loved her? Loved them?”
Agony crawled through his body, a resounding, palpable wave that nearly took me under. “More than anything. They were my life, Mia. My everything. But the rest of who I was? He was a bad guy. He did horrible, bad things.”
His lips pressed together. Blanching. Self-loathing pinching every line on his face.
Dark laughter rumbled from his lips. “You know, they say karma will one day bite you in the ass. Come back and make you pay.” His brow twisted in vicious emphasis. “She got me double, Mia. That bitch took everything. All of it. But she made the ones who weren’t guilty pay. And now . . . now I’m going to exact that same fate on the one she used to make it possible. And when I do? I doubt there’s going to be anything left of me.”
I should be scared. Terrified. Get up and climb out of this bed.
But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but stay there in the strong security of his arms. Sure he would never hurt me. That he was wrong on so many levels.
I blinked, searching his face, trying to keep up. To understand.
Something tender passed
through his features, his own eyes confused. He touched my chin, tilting it up as he looked at me closer. “And then here you are, Mia . . . beautiful you . . . making me question everything. My purpose. My reason. But you’ve got to understand I can’t let that go.”
“B-b-but your music? The band?”
I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying.
He cringed. “You want my honest?”
“Yes.” I issued it without hesitation.
“Love them, Mia. They became the only family I have, even when I tried to stop it. Never wanted to use them, but when it comes down to it, that’s what they were. A cover. An excuse. A distraction.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s because you can’t.”
“Or you don’t want me to?”
“I told you that you couldn’t get that deep, Mia. That I couldn’t let you go there. It’s not safe. And I’m not willing to let you get in the middle of what’s coming.”
I was suddenly frantic. A frenzy of words hurling from my mouth, desperate to find a way to meet with this man. To understand what he was really going through. “Who hurt them? Your wife? Your daughter?”
My fingernails scratching across his chest like I could claw my way inside.
Desperately, he squeezed my hand, words choked. “Please. Mia.”
I didn’t know what he was begging for. For me to stop asking questions. To stop making him remember. Or if he was pleading with me to make it better.
I touched him all over his beautiful, hardened face, hit by the realization of what he had done.
Of what he had put himself through the night he’d saved my Penny.
Of what he’d suffered.
And I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t. Tears streamed free, hot down my face. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
My hands were everywhere, and I was peppering soaked kisses to his face.
Adoring him with all the strength that I had.
It was Leif. It was Leif.
And I didn’t know if it was my tears or his as we touched and adored and sought a way to heal.
When the haggard, stricken words fell from his lips and pled against mine. “She was three, Mia. She was three. A baby. A baby.”
His agony cut and slayed.
Kiss the Stars Page 27