by Lyssa Layne
His arm snakes around my waist, slowing me down and putting my backside closer to his body than I would consider to be safe given the current topic of conversation.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been having to hide spontaneous boners from people for the last fourteen years. It’s been no picnic pining away for you all this time.”
“Sometimes, you weren’t so hot at hiding them,” Sketch remarks snarkily, reaching for the handle and letting her hand hover on it. “Now break it up before you get another one and Heartbreaker gets too frazzled to punch in the code to activate the alarm.”
“I’m going to remember this, you know.” I move over to the security system’s panel and put in the code.
“And what?”
“And someday, the tables will turn and you’ll be the one getting all antsy and horny over someone and I’m going to dish it back with seconds.”
Sketch grins, opening the door and leading the way outside. “Never going to happen. Me and all that lovey bullshit parted ways ages ago and I have no intention of letting our paths cross again. Ever.”
A bold statement from someone whose one and only long-term relationship has been a constant on again off again for the last decade.
“Oh, it’s going to happen, and I’m going to be ready when it does.”
Sketch turns back to counter, when our silly argument is interrupted by a body being thrown out through the main entrance of the warehouse, slamming into a van parked a few feet over and a man the size of a beast coming flying out after him like he’s prey and the beast is going in for the kill.
Lucas
I’m just at the passenger side door of Liv’s car, preparing to open it for her so I can take her by the bank and then home, when the commotion of a struggle stops me dead in my tracks. Cursing myself for stepping away from her, even just for a second, I hurry back to reach her. Only Liv is on the move as well. Before I can stop her, she’s flinging herself between the kid, slouching against the van, barely even conscious, and the hulk of a dude fixing to pound him into the ground.
“Back off!” she yells, spreading her arms out to shield the crumbling guy behind her.
I don’t wait to see if the hulk will listen. I just swing and hit, punching him square in the side of his jaw and knocking him back. He stumbles but catches himself before he falls. Having no intention of letting him gather his footing again so he can come after me instead of the kid heaped on the ground at Liv’s feet, I charge at him, fists at the ready. This guy’s at least a foot taller than me, but his fighting methods are based on his size, not skill, so I’ve got the upper hand. At least for the time being. Even as we’re going at each other, I can see more guys spilling out of the building and into the lot. It’s just a matter of time before I’m outnumbered in this brawl.
I have a split second of eye contact with Sketch, who’s busy helping Liv get the kid back to his feet and I yell, “Get her the hell out of here!”
“Yeah, okay.” Even under duress I can make out the sarcasm.
I barely dodge a fist to my temple, when someone else bear hugs me from behind and drags me backwards. I snap my head back, forcefully slamming my skull into my newest opponent, who lets go in an instant. It’s no use though. Three more guys are coming at me.
Liv is screaming for the fighting to stop while Sketch is busy cursing loudly at anyone who dares come within a five-foot radius of her and Liv. I can taste blood coming from my split lip. Not sure when that happened, but I’m guessing it’s not the only place I’ve been hit.
“Enough!” A new voice. One I don’t recognize. But I’m the only one, because the fighting stops instantly. My eyes dart straight to Liv. She’s paler than I’ve ever seen her, staring right back at me. The fear is vividly etched into every fleck of skin on her beautiful face. Seeing it hurts worse than anything else bleeding or broken right now.
“Marcus, maybe you’d like to explain to your sister that we’re running a business here. A business she should stay out of in the future, provided she values the prospect of having one.” Now that I can see him, I understand why it only took one word to call off his henchmen. He’s not big, but he’s dangerous. If the maniacal way he smiles when he talks is any indication of it, he’s not just a career criminal but a full-blown psychopath.
“Maybe someone should explain to you, that my business was here first and a dead body in my parking lot would be a real fucking problem for me.”
Goddammit. Why can’t she ever be scared silent?!
“Olivia,” Marcus cuts in before his boss can. “Inside. Now. We need to have a little chat.”
“Fuck that.” All eyes are back on me. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”
“I thought we already had this talk, Lucas.” Marcus moves into my path until we’re looking right at each other.
“So did I. Apparently, you weren’t listening.” I’ll take on every fucking guy out here before I let her walk out of my sight.
“Marcus,” the man’s voice is increasingly impatient. “Deal with this.” He flicks his wrist in our direction. “Or I will.” And there’s no misinterpreting his statement.
“I’ll handle it.” Marcus nods curtly. “This won’t happen again.”
“It better not.” He leers at Liv in a way that makes me want to puke my fucking guts out. No man should ever look at a woman that way, least of all the one I love. And I know, without a second’s contemplation or second guess, that I would kill him if he ever touched her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Heartbreaker
The kid who started this whole mess is still slouched over on the ground at my feet. One of his hands is loosely wrapped around my ankle; he doesn’t even have the strength to grip it. Blood is leaking from his split brow and busted nose, and judging by the way he groans with every breath, his ribs are at the very least severely bruised, but more than likely broken.
But the worst part in all of this, is that I know him. His name is Wes. He goes to school with Madi. He’s been to my house. Studied with her when they were partnered up in debate class last year. Had dinner in my kitchen, stayed late to watch The Breakfast Club one night. I liked him. How I feel about him at this moment in time is up for debate. The way the words stupid fucking kid keep running on repeat in my mind don’t bode well for him, but am I prepared to watch some asshole beat him to death? No fucking way.
“Step away from the boy, Olivia,” my brother orders with his men on standby, ready to haul the kid off to finish whatever the hell they started before they wound up out here.
“No.”
“Olivia.” There’s an underlying plea in his stern tone.
“Why? What did he do?” I demand. Maybe if Marcus hears himself say it out loud he’ll realize how ridiculous it is to kill someone over.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“They cheated,” Wes mutters through his ragged, painful breaths.
“You’re letting kids walk blindly into fixed fights? Why the fuck doesn’t that surprise me?” Lucas’s voice forces me to turn my head in his direction. It’s a pull I can’t control, or break free from, and I hate it. Especially now, because he’s bleeding too. His lip is swollen, and the blood is smeared across his jaw from where he keeps wiping it with the back of his hand.
I take little solace in seeing him standing upright, walking without wincing, because I know he could be dying from internal injuries and somehow he’d still manage to put up a front and keep fighting if that’s what it took to protect me. Me. The person at fault here. The person responsible for dragging him into this bloodbath.
“You want to be in the middle of this shit, McNealy? Fine. Have it your own fucking way, but do us all a favor and get my sister the hell out of here.” My brother’s finger is pointing out into the black night, aimlessly. Just, away.
“Come on, Heartbreaker,” Sketch comes up close to me, her hand on my arm. “Your brother’s right. For once. We need to go. Now.”
Pain stings my chest.
I can’t believe she’d side with him. “Not without Wes.”
“I assumed that much was clear,” she says dryly, bending down to reach for him. I follow her example and hoist him up by his other side.
“I can’t let you take the kid,” my brother hisses under his breath.
Lucas steps between us. “You don’t have a choice.” Then he stands guard between Marcus and his men and Sketch and me until we’ve hauled Wes all the way over to my car and stuffed him unceremoniously into my backseat.
When I turn back, I’m too far out of earshot to hear what else is being said. I can’t breathe, waiting and watching while my brother and the guy who’s taking my whole world by storm have it out. Then, at last, Lucas turns away, coming back to us.
His expression is grim. Grim and pissed, but not scared. He never looks scared.
Marcus is back on his way into the warehouse when I search for him. He’s done with us for the time being. Only after everything that just went down, I can’t help but be worried about my brother and the repercussions he’s bound to have to face after letting all of us walk away. Again.
“Start the car,” Lucas growls as soon as he’s close enough.
“What did he say to you? How did you end it?”
“Get in the fucking car, Liv!” This time I do what he says without hesitating. He never talks to me like that. Whatever was said, it’s likely about to make things a lot worse.
No one says much while we’re driving. Wes is slowly but surely recouping, and insists on being dropped off at his girlfriend’s house, which I reluctantly agree to after he swears repeatedly he'll go to the hospital should he suddenly start vomiting blood or have any other symptoms suggesting his insides are damaged and in need of more than just time and an ice pack.
Sketch makes random comments about having left her precious Jeep behind and how heads will roll if it’s not exactly the way she left it come morning. I know she’s just trying to distract herself. It’s how she copes. Denial. She rides that wave of intentional ignorance all the way to her front door, where we sit and watch from the car until she disappears inside safely.
Then it’s just us. Me and Lucas.
“You have to go to the cops.” Considering he’s had half an hour to come up with it, I’d expected a more complex opening line.
“I can’t.”
“This is getting out of control, Liv. You can’t keep protecting your brother at the expense of your own safety.”
I slam on the brakes, so exasperated by his statement I nearly just ran a red light.
“That’s not what I’m doing. I would have happily called the cops on Marcus’s ass the day he opened up shop in that old warehouse, but I couldn’t. I still can’t.”
“Why not?” His frustration is turning to anger and I’m doing my best not to take it personally. I know it’s not directed at me.
“Don’t you get it? I own that building too. If I call the cops on his illegal business, I go down as well.”
He shakes his head, unwilling to see it. “You don’t know that. You can’t be held responsible –“
“Yes, I can! He has me on tape. Every time I’ve marched over there to have it out with him, it was recorded. The place has more security cameras than a fucking casino. It would take nothing – NOTHING – for Marcus to drag me down with him. Even if by some miracle he didn’t, I would still lose everything. That’s not some amateur criminal Marcus has partnered with. He’s a professional. Major organized crime. The cops bust a place like that, this whole corner lot turns into a crime scene, my shop included. It would take weeks, maybe months before we could get back to business, and by then, I wouldn’t have shit left to do business with.”
“So, what’s the plan? Just sit back and wait for things to escalate?”
“No!” We’re shouting at each other. I hate this. “The exact opposite. Watch and step in when necessary to keep things from escalating!”
He laughs, but it’s harsh and almost hurtful. “You mean like tonight?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, like tonight. They would have killed that kid if we hadn’t stopped them.”
He slams his fist so hard into my dash, I’m shocked the airbag doesn’t deploy. “You’re not getting it, Liv. You stopped them from killing the kid, but now they want to kill you! That’s what Marcus told me before we left. That’s what he said. He said not to let you out of my fucking sight, because you’re on the hit list. One wrong move - you give them even the slightest motivation - and you’re done. Dead. Gone. Call me crazy or selfish or whatever, but hearing that the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with is about to not have one just doesn’t fucking jive with me, Liv.”
I’m basically parked at the stop sign leading down to my street. I’ve been sitting here for several minutes, so it can’t be counted as driving anymore, which is probably good. I’m not sure I should be driving. That last bit pretty much knocked the wind out of me along with everything else that enables me to think and act and function period.
Finally, I can formulate words. Slowly. And quietly. “Marcus won’t let them kill me.”
“Bullshit.”
“He’s my brother, Lucas. He may be capable of heinous things, but I’m still his family.”
He shakes his head, bitterly. “You’re putting too much faith in him. Besides, what makes you think he even has the power to stop them?”
I lift my gaze from where it’s been locked on the steering wheel to meet his. “Because we walked away tonight.” I take a deep, long breath. “And now you need to walk away again.”
“What?” This time his anger is definitely directed at me, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing is going to hurt me worse than what I’m about to do anyway.
“Marcus won’t let them kill me. But he won’t stop them from killing you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Good. Do it. Take care of yourself. But do it really fucking far away from me.” I’ll beg if I have to. I’ll be mean. Cold. I don’t care. Whatever it takes to make him walk, I’ll do it.
“Are you fucking insane? I’m not walking away.”
“Lucas.”
“No. Don’t.” He holds his hand up to try and thwart my arguments, but it’s not enough to stop me from making them.
“Think of your mother. What do you think she went through the last seven years while you were out there, fighting wars and risking your life and all while so far out of reach she couldn’t see you or get to you if anything happened? And now, after finally having you home and knowing that you’re safe, you think it’s okay to put her through that again? It’s not.”
“My mother would never have to know.”
“Yeah. Unless something happens. Think I want to make that fucking call?! Think I want to tell her that my family has cost her more than her sister? That my bastard brother took her son as well?”
“And what about me? Huh? Who the hell is going to call me when it’s you? And what am I going to do when I do find out? How am I going to live with myself then?”
“I don’t care how you live with it, as long as you live.”
“You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to cut me loose and act like it’s some selfless, heroic thing you’re doing. It’s not. It’s selfish.”
I can’t even follow his line of thinking anymore. “How is it selfish that I want you to live?”
“Because you don’t fucking get it. You die, I die. And it won’t matter if I’m still breathing or not. Because I love you. Because I’ve loved you for longer than I can remember. Because I’ve spent every day from the moment I met you waiting for the moment that you would love me back. That’s when I would finally be alive. Until then, I was just in limbo. Stuck. Incapable of feeling anything for anyone else because everything I felt for you was consuming me, engulfing me, trapping me, with no hope of ever reaching you, until now. I know what it’s like to release those feelings now. I know how the sensation of being loved by you in return soars through my body
and brings me to life like nothing else ever has, ever could.”
I swallow – Again – but the lump in my throat won’t budge. Won’t dissolve. Won’t allow me to say what I need to say. And I need to say it.
“No, you don’t,” I whisper. “You couldn’t.”
“Excuse me?” His lids drop low, slanting his eyes at me suspiciously. He knows. He’s warning me not to say it.
“I don’t love you, Lucas.”
“You really expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t. Maybe I wanted to…but I don’t.”
He nods, biting his lip and staring down at his hands, folded in his lap in a way that seems ironically casual. After a moment, he simply opens the door, about to step out of the car, right here in the intersection. I close my eyes, anticipating the slam of it shutting on me, but instead it’s the quiet calm of his deep voice that shatters me from the inside out.
“Heartbreaker. I get it now.”
Then the door closes softly. And it’s my heart that breaks.
My chest tightens and I feel like I can barely breathe, but I can’t worry about air right now. I’m too busy dealing with tears. Tears I don’t deserve to cry. The mounting pressure and painful sting should serve me right for what I’ve done, but I can’t fight them.
I squeeze my eyes shut tightly in one last effort, then open them and breath and tears both escape me in one long, ragged whoosh. When the blur clears, I’m stunned by what I find.
What I feel.
Him.
His arms, reaching out to wrap me up in them. And his voice, rumbling softly in my ear, his breath caressing my hot skin.
“You didn’t really think I would fall for that. Did you?”
Lucas
She almost did it. Almost made me believe out was the only way. For that split second when I opened the door, I thought I was doing it. Thought I was walking away. Then, I felt it. The wall. Some invisible force, stronger than anything I’ve ever felt, keeping me from breaking away from her. I couldn’t do it. I never wanted to do it. But damn it all, if now it hasn’t become completely impossible.