I laugh. “I mean, I’m not going to pretend that I understood anything that just went down in there, but even I can tell that those numbers weren’t real.”
“Exactly. They’re just another company on the verge of bankruptcy. They came here hoping that some stupid eighteen-year-old kid would fall for their bullshit and pull them out of the hole they dug.”
I glance up at him, lacing my fingers through his as we walk out to his car, only after he was made to pay for the meal that we were just invited to. I mean, poor form. Again, I don’t know shit about this world, but I can more than understand that if you request an audience with Colton Carrington to try and fool him into partnering with your broke ass company, the least you can do is cover the bill. I highly doubt anyone has slid a check across the table toward Colton and asked him to split it before. That kind of shit just doesn’t happen around here and says more about them than we learned during the whole dinner. “Does that happen often?” I ask, referring to him constantly being asked to partner in businesses.
“More often than I’d like. I avoid three of these bullshit dinners every week, but these guys have been persistent. They have to be idiots if they think I’d be stupid enough to drag my company down into their bullshit. I get it though. If my company was failing, I’d be hoping the new kid with too much money to spare would be dumb enough to sign a contract. Their biggest mistake tonight was assuming my father didn't teach me the ropes … fucking idiots.”
I laugh as I watch him. I love seeing him like this, absolutely dominating this world. He stepped right into his father's shoes, un-did all his dodgy deals, and made his company soar even higher. There’s simply nobody like him, and I’m so damn lucky that I get to be the girl crawling into his bed at night. I mean, it also helps that he wears these suits that have all my bits screaming in desperation.
Colton grabs hold of his tie and pulls it until it’s loose around his neck. He hooks it over his head and undoes his top button, all while saying something more about the dinner we just suffered through, but in all honesty, I’m stuck on the tie. I wonder how he feels about holding onto that for tonight?
“Jade?” he says, tightening his arm around my shoulder and stealing my attention. “Where’d you go? You disappeared for a second there.”
My cheeks flush for the briefest moment before I remember who I'm talking to. There’s no need to be shy about this. If anything, he’ll be just as down for it as I am. “Well,” I tell him. “I was just thinking about all the things you could do with that tie.”
His brow arches and his eyes darken, telling me that he’s more than down. “Oh, yeah?” he murmurs, leaning into me and brushing his lips over the sensitive skin on my neck before working them up and gently biting my ear lobe. “What’d you have in mind?”
Holy hell.
“Trust me,” I whisper, squeezing his hand as my panties begin to soak. “There’s not enough time in a night for all the things I have in mind.”
Colton’s lips twist into a cocky smirk, and I can’t help but love it. “Anything you want, Jade,” he says with fire burning in his eyes. “But first, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
Both my brows raise in curiosity. “Like what?”
“Like something serious, something that I’m not about to bring up in a fucking dirty parking lot outside a shitty restaurant. I’ll tell you when we get home.”
“Come on,” I groan, unhooking his arm from my shoulder just so I can glare at him better. “You realize that the whole drive home is going to kill me, right? I can’t handle that kind of suspense.”
He grins, his eyes sparkling with laughter. “I know.”
I roll my eyes. “You suck.”
He laughs a little more. “I know that too,” he tells me. “But trust me, I know you, Jade, and you’re going to want to put this conversation off for as long as you can.”
I groan. “This better not be about the whole paying for college thing again.”
“It’s not.”
My brows furrow. “Then what the hell could it be about? Is it bad?”
Colton shakes his head, but the amusement in his eyes is shining brighter than the sun. “I don’t think it’s bad at all,” he murmurs, his voice dropping lower as a grin tears wide across his face. “But you will.”
“Fuck, you know I hate you right now,” I tell him, resisting having a full-blown tantrum as we finally reach his car. “I’m going to get it out of you.”
Colton scoffs as he digs into his suit pocket and pulls out his keys. I walk around to the passenger side as he looks over the top of his car at me, making his way to the driver’s door. “I really, really want to watch you try.”
I shake my head, way too amused for my own good. I press the fancy little thing that opens the sleek suicide door, and just before I go to get in, I find myself glancing back up at Colton. His eyes are still on mine, so warm and loving, but in the blink of an eye, his face drops, and horror takes over him.
“JADE,” he yells, but it’s too late. Hands grab at me, and I scream out as I’m tugged back into the darkness of the parking lot. An arm is curled around my head, blocking my vision and sending my world into complete darkness.
Panic soars through me, and I try to pull myself free, but the fingers digging deep into my skin are too tight, too painful. “COLTON,” I scream as I’m tossed around. “COLTON.”
I tug and try to find purchase on the ground, digging my heels in and desperately trying to get free, searching around, but it’s too dark. Disorientation rumbles through me. I don't know where I am, what direction they're dragging me in. How do I get back? How do I even fight?
Fear tears through me. Where’s Colton? I try searching, desperately looking around. There are too many hands, too many people.
A familiar chuckle tears through the night, the sound tearing right through to my fears. “You want to be a fucking Wolf, well you got your wish, bitch.”
Snake.
Fuck. This is it. This is the Wolves coming to hurt me, jump me into their world. There’s no going back after this.
“Get off me, you fucking bastards.” I hear the anger and desperation thick in Colton's voice as he struggles against someone. Where is he? There’s a scuffle, and I hear flesh being pounded on before the sound of urgent footsteps approach. “If you even think about fucking touching her … JADE? WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?”
“COLTON.” Tears stream down my face. Where is he? I need him. “I’M HERE. I’M HERE. PLEASE …”
“Shut up, bitch,” comes Snake’s voice again before a heavy fist slams down over my face, hitting the side of my nose. Pain rockets through me, and I cry out, feeling a warm trickle of blood seeping down from my nose and dropping into the curve of my lips. I taste it there, mixing with my tears.
I grab onto the arm around my eyes before digging my nails deep into his skin. The guy howls in pain, and with every ounce of strength I have, I tear his arm down and bite down as hard as I possibly can.
The arm is torn away from me, and my weight instantly drops to the hard concrete. I don’t waste a damn second. I scramble to my feet as I see Snake launching toward me.
Not today, fucker.
I run, heading straight for Colton who’s still coming at me. Three guys lay on the ground behind him, all struggling to get to their feet. I reach out and take his hand, and he holds onto it with every ounce of strength he possesses. “Fucking run,” he tells me, spinning on the spot before taking off like a fucking bull out of a cage, pushing me ahead of him as the Wolves gain from behind.
I glance back over my shoulder into the night. There are at least twenty of them. We’ll never win. I’ll never get away from this. Snake bounds down behind me, and with a quick flash, I notice Christian chasing after me, and fuck, he looks sick at what he has to do. “We’ll never make it,” I panic, yelling across at Colton.
“I’m not about to let you get hurt.” My feet pound against the concrete, my heart racing in fear, and then
his voice comes again as a cold metal key is put into my hand. “Just keep running,” he tells me. “Don’t stop until you’re in the car. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”
“What?”
I look over at him, but it’s too late.
Colton releases my hands and turns on the Wolves, ready to give his freedom for mine. “NOOOOOO,” I scream, doubling back.
His desperate stare meets mine. “FUCKING RUN, JADE.”
Tears stream down my face, but I do as I’m told, refusing to look back as I hear the sound of the Wolves catching up to Colton. There’s a scuffle, shouts, and curses before an all too familiar pained groan.
Every fiber in my body screams at me to turn back, to help him, but I keep running, one devastating foot after another.
I’m only a few feet away as I fumble with the key fob, trying to concentrate enough to find the button to automatically open the door. I finally get it, and just as I go to launch myself through the door, a hand curls around my elbow and squeezes hard.
I’m tugged back with a hard yank and completely pulled off my feet. My ass hits the ground, and before I have a chance to pull myself up, my thighs are scraped along the concrete as Snake drags me back toward the darkness.
I scream out as I kick and flail about, doing anything and everything to try and get free. He drags me back past Colton, and as I meet his eyes, four guys struggle to hold him down while another slams his fists into his abdomen. His eyes are dark and wild, filled with desperation, regret, and failure. I can only imagine the things going through his mind right now.
This is all my fault, I did this. He shouldn’t be involved. I was so stupid to assume that I’d be safe with him, that they’d leave him out of it. How am I ever going to make up for that?
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Snake rumbles, adjusting his grip on me so that he’s mainly dragging me by my hair.
I cry out in agony, and Snake laughs as Colton groans, hating nothing more than the sound of my despair. I try to meet his eyes again, but he’s lost in a sea of Wolves. “No,” I cry, around the sounds of my muffled pain. “Leave him alone.”
Another hand grips my upper arm, this one gentle but firm. “Stop fighting it, Ocean,” Christian’s voice sounds right by my ear. “It’ll be quicker that way.”
Fearing just how right he is, my body crumples, and I’m thrown into a circle of Wolves as they cheer me on, but not for the reasons anyone would hope for. Colton is barely standing at the outskirts of the circle, restrained and being forced to watch.
I don’t dare tear my eyes off his. Right now, he’s my only beacon of hope that I might just get out of this alive. But the anguish in his eyes is something that I will never forget, and I despise myself for putting him through this. I’ve seen him hurting before, I’ve seen him begging on his knees, but this … this is so much worse than anything I could ever imagine. I’ve always seen Colton as the strongest person in the room. Even from his knees, he's like a pillar of strength, an indestructible force. But the hopelessness clouding those beautiful eyes tears my soul right in two. “Don’t you fucking give up,” he begs me.
I shake my head, trying desperately to swallow past the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry.”
His head hangs, and before I can start begging for his forgiveness, a heavy fist slams into me. One after another, hit after hit. Pain rips through me like never before, and I do everything I can to roll into a ball and protect my unborn child.
I scream in agony as the punches keep coming, delivered with hatred. The Wolves come at me with loud grunts and laughter, intent to cause as much damage to my already aching body as they can. Some are wearing rings, and they hurt the worst, tearing my skin right open.
Blood oozes onto the dirty concrete beneath me, and I do everything in my power to tune out Colton’s groans and grunts as he tries to fight his way out and get to me.
Boots slam into my ribs, my skin is shredded, and my face is left for the taking as I keep my arms cradled around my stomach, pulled tightly into the fetal position.
Time escapes me, it could only be thirty seconds, or I could have been here for ten minutes before Christian steps in front of me, looking as though he’s about to pass out. He meets my eyes, and I instantly clench them, not wanting to see what he’s about to do to me, but knowing that if he refused right now, he’ll be facing a much worse punishment than this.
He hesitates for the briefest moment. “Just get it over and done with,” I grunt through a mouthful of blood, unsure how much longer I can take it. I’d do anything to be anywhere but here. On a tropical beach with Colton, in the darkest pits of hell, fuck, I’ll even switch this out for the bullshit I suffered at the hands of Jude Carter.
I feel the brush of air against my skin as Christian steps into me, and with one devastating blow, his fist slams into my chest. I do everything in my power to hold in my grunts of pain, knowing that it’s killing him just as much as it is me.
Christian instantly steps back, not willing to touch me again, and just like that Russo steps into the circle and raises his hand. I hadn’t even known the fucker was here, but that’s just foolish of me. Of course he’d want to see his little snitch taking a beating. Hell, maybe I even deserved it for betraying the boys.
“Enough,” Russo says, stopping another Wolf from stepping forward. He meets my eyes, daring me to try and get up, but I don’t move, I physically can’t. He glances around and with one firm nod, the Wolves clear out of the darkness, leaving Colton to deal with the mess they left behind.
Colton dives toward me, scooping me off the ground and pulling me into his arms. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Jade. Baby, please tell me you’re alright. Can you hear me? Look at me, baby, please. Show me those fucking eyes.”
With every last ounce of energy left within my body, I turn my head to look up at him. “I… I…”
“Shhhh, Jade. It’s okay. I’m going to make it better,” he promises me as a tear rolls down my cheek. “I’m going to make the hurt go away.”
I nod, fearing the absolute worst.
“I love you, just hold on,” he tells me, the very last words I hear before my world falls into darkness.
Chapter 13
A hand twitches in mine, and I’m instantly alerted to the soft rhythmic beep of the hospital room. I peel my eyes open into the bright clinical light while taking note of the agony coursing through my body. I’ve never felt pain like this. Everywhere hurts. The idea of moving is like some twisted joke.
My eyes scan the room. It’s massive. The hospital back home was a piece of shit that I visited with the boys on far too many occasions. It was squishy with six beds jammed into the same room with cheap curtains between them. This here is different. This room is bigger than my whole kitchen and living room back home in Breakers Flats, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Colton is paying top dollar for it.
Mom and Colton sit in my room, one on either side of me. Mom just sits, staring at my broken and bruised body while Colton holds my hand, his thumb rubbing back and forth over my fractured skin. His head is dropped down onto the bed beside me, and I can only imagine the bullshit running circles through his head.
I meet Mom’s eye and as she gasps and instantly begins sobbing, Colton’s head whips up. “Oh, thank fuck,” he says, relief pouring over him in waves. He searches my eyes just as I do the same to him. “I thought the fucking worst,” he tells me. “The way they were hurting you …”
“I know,” I whisper, trying to squeeze his hand, but my strength is completely gone. I glance back at Mom, desperately needing to ease her worries. “I tried to run.”
A loud, broken sob tears out of her, and tears stream down her face. “I know, sweetie,” she cries. “You would have been so brave.” Her words bring tears to my eyes and I do everything that I can to hold it together. If I break, I don’t think I’ll have the energy to pull myself back together. “How are you feeling? Are you hurting, or do you need some more pain meds?”
“I �
��” I shake my head, trying to take a mental catalog of everything going on right now. “I don’t really know.”
“Okay,” she says, standing and wiping her tears on the back of her arms, trying to be strong when it’s more than okay to fall to pieces. “I’ll grab the nurse so she can check you out. You’ve been out for a few hours.”
I nod as best I can, but the movement has a sharp, searing pain shooting down the back of my neck. I keep my pain to myself, not wanting to hurt her any more than I already have. Mom leans into me and ever so gently brushes her lips over my forehead. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” I whisper, terrified of my voice breaking.
Silence fills the room as Mom looks down at me, struggling to convince herself to walk out of the room. She takes a heavy breath and then finally takes the few steps to the door, keeping her gaze locked on me until she steps out of the room, leaving me with Colton, who hasn’t stopped watching me since the moment his head snapped up.
“How are you really?” he questions, gently squeezing my hand as his thumb continues rubbing back and forth over my skin. Despite the pain pulsing through my veins, his touch soothes me and gives me something else to focus on.
“It hurts so fucking bad,” I tell him, finally allowing the tears to flow freely.
“Fuck,” he panics, raising out of the stiff chair by my bedside and leaning into me. He props his elbow beside my shoulder and dips his head to mine. His lips brush over mine, and I do my best to savor it before he pulls away. “I’m so fucking sorry, Jade. I should never have dragged you out to dinner with me. I knew there was a chance they would come for you, but I didn’t think it’d happen like that. I thought you were safe with me, and I fucking let you down. There were too many. I tried … fuck, Jade, I really tried.”
Ride or Die: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Rejects Paradise Book 4) Page 12