I narrow my eyes at him, but murmurs and movement behind me have me spinning around to find out what the hell is going on. Everybody walks to the windows, glancing out and watching whatever the fuck is going on outside. “What’s happening?” I ask, glancing back at Jaren.
He shrugs his shoulder. “Beats me.”
“What’s happening,” Russo’s deep, booming voice comes tearing through the den. “Is that it looks like you have a visitor.”
“What?” I demand, throwing myself out of my chair. “Who? No one knows I’m here.”
“Well, you’ve been found.”
Panic surges through me. Only a handful of people would be stupid enough to come here to get me, and they’re all Widows. It’s going to end in bloodshed, and I can’t have that. I have to get rid of them.
I start surging toward the door, more than ready to tell them all to fuck off, praying to whoever exists above that this goes smoothly. “Stop right there,” Russo demands. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I look back at him, still making my way to the door. “I’m going to get rid of them.”
“I don’t think so,” he says, nodding to his men who instantly fall in front of the door, blocking my way. “If your boyfriend would like a minute of your time, then he will come inside.”
My eyes bug out of my head. “Boyfriend?” I question, and the panic only intensifies. No, he can’t be here. He’ll get hurt.
I run to the door and try to barge my way through Russo’s men, but it’s impossible. “Move,” I demand. “Get the fuck out of my way before I make you.”
They laugh at my pathetic attempts, and I start looking around in a panic. What am I going to do? I don’t even have my phone to call him. Russo took that from me the second I walked in here.
I hurry over to one of the many windows and barge my way to the front only to find Colton standing out front, leaning against his Veneno and staring at the Wolf Den. His arms are crossed over his chest, and he looks like the baddest kind of motherfucker around. He’s lethal and terrifying and it has a thrill rushing through me, but what’s more, he looks as though he’s ready to wait all damn night.
Fuck. The idea of Colton coming in here? No. I can't allow that to happen. These guys won't hesitate to hurt him and attempt to drain him of every last cent he has, and only then will they finally kill him. I couldn't live if they took him away from me like that. I would never forgive myself. There are too many of them, and I can guarantee that he'd go down fighting. He'd never survive against numbers like this.
“Please,” I beg, turning back to Russo. “Just let me get rid of him. I swear, I won't run. Just ... I'll make him leave.”
Russo meets my eyes, and with a firm shake of his head, he walks away.
Fuck.
I look back out the window, watching as Colton pushes off his Veneno. He opens his arms out wide, daring the Wolves to make a move. “Jade,” he calls, his voice loud and strong enough that it carries through to the den. It's only been a matter of hours since I saw him last. How is it possible for that one word to fill me with so much hope? “I know you're in there, baby. Come out here, and we won't have a problem.”
Silence follows, and minutes slowly tick by. “I can wait all fucking night, baby girl.”
Shiiiiit.
He leans back against his Veneno, knowing damn well that I’m not the reason I can't walk out that door, but he's fucking stubborn, and I don't doubt that he'll stand by his word. I guess it's a matter of who tires of this bullshit game first.
It's impossible to tear my eyes away from him, watching as he paces back and forth, then leans back against the car. It quickly becomes a torturous routine. He'll call out, daring someone to come out and face him. He'll call for me to call off this bullshit, and then he'll pace, run his hands through his hair in frustration, and then lean, only to start all over again.
An hour quickly turns into two and then to three before Russo finally emerges from somewhere deep in the den with Snake by his side. All the other Wolves quickly got bored with the rich kid outside. One by one, they left the windows in favor of drinking out the bar. Until, eventually, I was left standing here alone to watch the guy I'm madly in love with offering himself up like a fucking buffet.
By the time Russo and Snake step into my side, my nerves are at their peak.
Snake steps in far too close, pressing his arm up against mine and leaning into the window to see Colton standing out in the dark. He shakes his head, more than annoyed by his presence. “This has gone on long enough,” he growls, his voice low and spiteful as he slips his hand behind his back and pulls out a gun. “I'll get rid of him.”
Fear surges through me as he pushes away from me and starts striding toward the door, then without thinking, I sprint after him. There’s no way in hell this motherfucker is going anywhere near Colton with a gun. I’d sooner die.
In the blink of an eye, I fly in front of him, and before he has a chance to pull himself up, I grab his shoulders and slam my fist into his stomach as hard as I possibly can. Snake doubles over in pain, struggling to catch a breath, and as he goes down, I rip the gun from his hands and jam it up against his temple. For a moment, I forgot about the gun I stole from Leon, already tucked in the waistband of my skirt. That would have been easier, but this way, he’s left without a weapon to fight back.
That’s two for two. Maybe these dickheads will quickly learn not to mess with me. Though, they’re all a bit dense for that.
Snake goes impossibly still, knowing I’m more than capable of pulling this trigger after the bullshit these guys pulled in that back alleyway. “If you even think of stepping out of this fucking den and going anywhere near Colton, I swear to you, I’ll fucking end you right now. Trust me, you don’t want to push me on this, not where he’s concerned.”
Snake’s jaw clenches, and he glances back at Russo, probably wondering if he can disarm me quicker than I can pull the trigger. Russo meets my eye, narrowing his own, considering the situation.
“I swear,” I tell him, not above begging. “I’ll tell you anything you need to know or do anything you want me to do, just spare him. Let me send him away.”
Russo clenches his jaw, still considering me and making the seconds tick by painfully slow. “Okay,” he finally says, seeing something in me that he likes. “You have ten minutes with the boy. Snake goes with you. A second longer and Snake will put a bullet through his head. Is that understood?”
I swallow hard past the lump in my throat and nod before shoving the gun back into Snake’s chest and turning on my heel, terrified of how the next ten minutes are going to go.
Chapter 5
Taking a breath, I push through the massive metal door of the Wolf Den and watch as Colton’s head snaps up. He takes me in with wide eyes, almost as though he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing. Darkness covers Blaxlands Grove but, I could make out the concern in his eyes from a mile away.
He lets out a heavy sigh and pushes off the side of his car, desperate to get to me as the relief washes over him. “Fuck Jade, you—” He pulls himself up, his eyes snapping to the door as Snake follows me out. “Jade?” he questions, his voice low and full of warning as he continues to move toward me, now at a cautious creep. “What the fuck is going on?”
Knowing Snake won’t attempt to do anything until my ten minutes is up, I make my way toward Colton. The second he can, he pulls me into his arms and instantly starts dragging me toward his car. “No, stop,” I tell him, trying to pull back. “You can’t be here.”
“What the fuck are you doing? I need to get you out of here,” he murmurs low, gripping my arm tightly. As he pulls me towards his Veneno, he keeps me right by his side, more than ready to pick my ass up and toss me in if that’s what it comes down to.
“You can’t,” I insist, speaking through my teeth to try and keep our conversation private. “If you try to take me, Snake will kill you. Just please, you have to go.”
Colton finall
y stops tugging at me as we step in beside his car, and he glances up at Snake, watching him cautiously. “What are you doing, Jade? Just get in the fucking car, we can sort this out later. I’m not about to leave you here.”
“You have to. I walked in here and gave them my word. If I go back on that … just please, Colton. You don’t understand. I know you hate this but, you have to trust me.”
“Trust you?” he questions, taking my shoulders and giving them a tight squeeze, silently letting me know how badly this is killing him. “Are you insane? You just walked straight into the fucking Wolf Den without even thinking about it. Forgive me, but trusting you isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities right now.”
“I know,” I murmur, reaching up and taking hold of his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m just … I don’t even know. I haven’t had a chance to really process everything that’s going on, but I swear, I’m safe here. They need the information that I have, and they know that if I was to get hurt, I’d never give it up.”
“Babe,” he groans with pain in his eyes. “Please just get in the fucking car. We can sort it out later, just let me take you away from here. You don’t belong here.”
“It’s too late,” I tell him. “The second I stepped over the threshold, I accepted my place as a Wolf. I'm one of them now, and there’s no going back. If you try to take me away, they’ll see it as an attack against them, and they won’t hesitate to come at you.” I step in closer to him, needing to feel his body close to mine. “I’ll never forgive myself if you were to get hurt because of my bullshit drama.”
“Hurt?” he scoffs. “If getting hurt is what it takes to get you free from all of this, then I’ll fucking do it. I’d give it all up, Jade. I fucking love you and seeing you here … you don’t fucking belong here. You belong with me.”
I shake my head, willing my eyes not to fill with tears. “I can’t,” I tell him. “I’m sorry. You wouldn’t understand. Too much has changed. A lot has gone down today and I haven’t even had a chance to process it all but if you knew what was going on, I promise, it would all make sense. You just need to trust that I’m doing the right thing despite how fucking crazy it sounds. Believe me, if I could have settled this any other way, I would have.”
Colton’s hands run down my arms and over my body until they come to a stop at my waist. He meets my eyes, holding me close. “I know about the baby, Ocean,” he finally tells me his tone filled with the deepest kind of agony.
My eyes bug out of my head as I study him in horror, feeling my world begin to crumble around me. How could he know but more importantly, what could he possibly think of me now? I'm tainted, used, and abused. “What? How do you … I haven’t …”
“I know,” he says, his thumbs moving back and forth over my waist. “Eli, Sebastian, and Kairo came to see me today. Eli told me.”
Betrayal slices right through me. That dickhead promised he wouldn’t say a word. He hovered just outside my car door and gave me his word that he wouldn’t say a damn thing, but apparently, the promise of his word doesn’t hold the same kind of weight that it used to.
“Don’t,” Colton says, cutting off whatever bullshit was about to come flying out of my mouth. “He was worried about you. They all are. He followed you after your appointment this morning. He said you were acting strange, and he wanted to check that you were going to get home alright, but you made a stop that he wasn’t expecting.”
Fear races through me. “They know I’m here?” I question, knowing damn well that if they know I’m here, then Nic would know, and if anyone was able to figure out why I’d come, it’d be him, which means that we’re all in trouble.
He presses his lips into a tight line and nods. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Eli saw you walk in there, but before he could do anything about it, it was already too late. That’s why they came to me. They assumed that you must have told me about the baby and I didn’t take it well. They’re pissed, babe.”
“I … I don't even know what to say,” I whisper, struggling to meet his eyes as I try to come to terms with the fact that Nic could potentially know that I’m plotting against him. “Why aren’t you running? I’m pregnant. Normal eighteen-year-old guys would be running so damn fast, especially when it’s not their kid.”
“If you think I’m the kind of guy to run away when things get hard, you don’t know me very well,” he says, offended. “I get it, and yeah, it’s probably going to take a while to wrap my head around, but I want you in my life. If that means playing the role of baby daddy to your kid just to keep you by my side, then I’ll do it.”
I pull back and stare at him in shock. I surely didn’t hear him right. I could have sworn that he just said that he’ll be the father of my baby, despite knowing that this child’s biological father is a rapist. “You’d do that?”
“I’d do just about anything if it meant hanging onto you.”
A fat tear rolls over my cheek and drops off my chin, splashing onto my white school blouse. I can’t find the words to tell him how much his admission means to me, but I don't have to, he gets it. He tugs me into his body, and he holds me with everything he’s got. His big hands claim my skin and make me feel alive for the first time since peeing on that damn stick this morning.
“It doesn’t make sense to me, Jade. Why’d you come here?” Colton asks after a moment of silence, making me realize that I was standing in his arms far too long. The minutes are quickly counting down, and I don’t doubt that Snake wouldn’t hesitate to take Colton out. In fact, he’d probably enjoy it just to spite me.
I run my tongue over my very suddenly dry lips. “It’s Nic,” I explain. “I don’t know what came over me, but after my doctor's appointment this morning, a fierce protectiveness for this baby just settled inside of me. I realized that I can’t bring a baby into this world while I’m still at war with Nic. He would use the baby against me, and I can’t allow that to happen.”
I let out a heavy sigh and meet his eyes, knowing how much the fact that I’m currently pregnant with someone else's child must be hurting him. “This baby is innocent. It didn't ask for any of this, and while we’re on the topic, you need to know that I didn’t purposefully keep this from you. I only found out this morning, and I was freaking out. I didn’t want to tell you until I knew for sure, so I went to the doctor’s appointment with Eli, and he told me that I was seven weeks along, making it Jude’s baby. I just … I couldn’t think clearly after that. My head is literally a mess. I don't know what to do, if I’m going to keep it or what my options are. But, I know that I have a responsibility to keep this baby safe until I can finally make that decision, and having Nic against me is not safe. I have to end this, Colton, and I have to do it without bringing you into it either.”
He shakes his head. “Jade, no. What were you thinking? I told you that I could handle Nic. Call this shit off, and let me take you home. I swear to you, Jade, I'll handle this, and you’ll never have to think about him again. I won’t let him get away with it.”
I clench my jaw and just as I’m about to explain myself a little more, Snake’s deep, rumbly tone carries across the gravel drive. “Two minutes,” he warns, making a show of already having his gun out and ready to go.
I take Colton’s hands and squeeze. “I wish I could,” I tell him, letting out a heavy breath and wishing that I was anywhere but here. “Thinking that they already knew, I said that Nic was the one who killed my father, and it all spiraled out of control from there. They want me to hand over every little bit of information that I have on Nic and the boys, and then they’re going to go to war. I told them that’s not what I wanted but it’s too late. I fucked up. I should have trusted you, but I hated the idea of you getting hurt in all this. Eli, Sebastian, and Kai are going to hate me when they find out what I’ve done.”
“They'll be fine,” he says, his tone filled with distaste. “Don’t worry about them. We just need to worry about getting you the fuck out of here.”
I s
hake my head, lowering my eyes to his chest. “Nic is never going to let this go.”
“I know,” he murmurs. “Which is exactly why you need to let me handle it. You’re too close to this, to them. You’re—”
“Colton, please,” I say, looking up and meeting his concerned stare. “I need you to go.”
“I … no. No way in hell. I’m not leaving you here.”
“Please,” I beg, allowing him to see my desperation. “They’re going to kill you if I can’t make you go, and without you … I just … I can’t. Please, just trust me to sort this out. I’ll come home as soon as I can.”
“Jade,” he whispers, pulling me in again. “I can’t leave you here.”
“You have to.”
He stares at me in horror as though I’m asking him to do the impossible. I press up onto my tippy-toes and brush my lips across his. “I love you, Colton. I promise you, when all of this is over, I will come home. I won’t let them break me.”
“You know that I can’t just stand back and let you do this.”
“You have to,” I whisper. “It’s already done. I’m a Wolf now.”
I step back out of his arms, and despite it only being a small space between us, I’ve never felt so far away. I take another step. “Babe, don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He groans, the frustration quickly taking over. He takes a step toward me, and I instantly step back again. “Fuck, Jade, please. Don't do this.” He rakes his hands through his hair, and I see the exact moment where he fears he’s losing me, but he should know better, that would never happen.
I take another step, and he holds his hands out, fearing that I’m going to go before he gets a chance to say everything he needs to say. “Wait, don’t go yet. Just … call me back, okay? We can talk about this.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. Russo took my phone the second I walked in there. I haven't been able to call anyone.”
He slips his hand into his pocket and glances over my shoulder at Snake. With his attention elsewhere, Colton quickly tosses me his phone. “Keep this on you and turn it to silent. Call me the second you can and we’ll work something out. I’m not just going to give you up like this.”
Ride or Die: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Rejects Paradise Book 4) Page 5