Trust

by Casey Diam

  He was making me concede.

  I hate that...

  But I stopped fussing and allowed him to wrap his arms around me. And, as he pulled me closer and tucked me against his broad chest, his strong physique consoled me, and I felt safe. Comfort shouldn’t exist in the arms of my enemy.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Caleb

  When Paige had put that knife to my throat, I wasn’t scared of dying as I should have been. I was scared of what it would do to her if she’d gone through with it. It took guts to do what she did, much less consider carrying out the task. She would never come back from that, and the darkness I glimpsed in her blue eyes more often than not would destroy her; although, at this point, I was certain it already had, which only pissed me off more.

  I still hadn’t gotten anywhere in figuring out what my father had done to her and how she was linked to him.

  The door closed behind me as I guided her into the hotel room I’d rented for the night. I’d given her both keys and told her I wouldn’t stay. I just needed to know she was someplace safe. All my stuff was left in Calvin’s car, except the first aid kit currently dangling from my hand.

  Paige dropped her backpack by the foot of a cushioned chair and started to sit, but I stopped her.

  “Bathroom. There’s more light in there.”

  Still pressing the piece of gauze I’d given her to the small cut on her head, she let out a pained sigh but proceeded into the bathroom without argument. She leaned on the vanity as I set the red case next to her and zipped it open. Parting her hair with my hands, I viewed the small gash and sighed inwardly. She wouldn’t need stitches. Standing this close to her made my cock twitch in my pants. I’d thought I was satisfied with our session in the car on the highway or, at the very least, left without desire after she’d threatened me with her knife. But, as it seemed, she wasn’t the only crazy one in the room.

  A tiny, dark pool of blood covered the injury, which was closer to her temple but behind her hairline. At least it wasn’t bleeding anymore. I filled a cup of water and grabbed one of the folded hand towels.

  Pressing the washcloth below the injury, I said, “Hold this here.”

  Her hand covered mine when she did as I asked. I shook my head, trying not to think of the warmth circulating my body, trying not to think of her and me together. She was leaving me. She wanted nothing to do with me. She’d made that clear when she told me to stay away from her.

  Raising the cup, I poured the liquid over the wound and used a clean gauze to wipe away the blood. Blood that, if it hadn’t been for my idiotic brother, wouldn’t have been there.

  “You know, you should go to the hospital after a hit like that,” I said, wondering why she didn’t want to go.

  The doctors would be able to help her more than I could. There could be underlying damages that weren’t visible to me.

  “No.” She dropped her hand and placed the towel on the counter behind her.

  Her hands slid into my front pockets, and my muscles tightened. Slowly, she pulled them out but then moved them around the waistband of my pants before sliding them down into my back pockets.

  The need I had for her hands to touch the most apparent thing straining against my zipper in front of her deepened.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, still attending to her wound.

  “Patting you down for weapons.” Her hands moved back to the front of my pants where she curled her fingers into my belt loop.

  My cock stirred, and I bit my lip because I must have lost my mind.

  How can I be this turned on by a woman who’d tried to kill me not even an hour ago and is now patting me down—not for her or my pleasure, but for weapons? What the fuck?

  “Who knows what you’re capable of? After what I did to you... if you didn’t want to hurt me before, you probably do now.”

  My teenage years of living with Brad at my father’s house fleeted through my mind, and I cleared my throat while I used the scissors to cut a piece of tape.

  “You weren’t the first person to hold a knife to my throat. I told you that I won’t hurt you, and what you did doesn’t change that.”

  I affixed the smallest incision tape I could over the wound to keep it covered and closed, and then I wiped away the blood that had run down her hairline to her neck. She peered up at me in wonder with her glazed, big blue eyes. She’d been drinking. I’d forgotten about that.

  “Stop thinking; it’ll make your head hurt more.” Removing her fingers from my belt loop, I took her hand and led her to the bed. “It’s been a long night. Try to get some sleep, and if you need anything, you have my number.”

  She removed her hoodie and went under the covers, looking like an innocent child now. But she was lost in this world with the rest of us who knew the kind of pain she carried in her eyes most days. The addicting kind. The pain that would be nice to let go, yet all you could do was hold on because letting it go could hurt you way more than holding on to it ever could.

  My fingers tingled from the need to touch her, to smooth over her small, round cheeks. Like that pain, she was addicting, too. I didn’t care about the significant pain I could pay for being with her, the pain I was already feeling for being with her.

  Her eyes closed, and I started to back away, wondering if this would be the last time I saw her. That thought alone made me not want to leave her, but it was what she wanted, and I still had to drop off that briefcase at Alex Connor’s place.

  “Wait.” She dug into her pocket and extended her hand with the silver firing pin centered in her palm. “I’m sorry for what I did. I was scared, and I didn’t know if I could trust you. I still don’t know if I can. But thank you. For this. For helping me.”

  “No problem.” I stood there for a moment, watching her until her eyes drooped close, and then I couldn’t help it. “Paige,” I said, stepping closer.

  When I reached down to smooth my hand over her cheek, I expected her to flinch, but she just watched me.

  “You can trust me,” I told her. “You’ll see.”

  Leaning down, I pressed a kiss to her forehead and then a lighter one to the injured spot hidden in the waves of her blonde hair. But it would never be hidden to me. What had happened to her tonight was because of me, because of my own selfish motives. Paige wasn’t safer around me. In fact, the closer she got to me, the closer they got to her.

  As I drove to pick up the wrecked car nearby, I reminisced on my father’s words when I was just a boy.

  “We do this to people who deserve it. None of them are innocent. We’re merely profiting from other people’s mistakes. Making this world better one person at a time.”

  I didn’t know why I’d cared if Paige was innocent or not when I first set out to find out who she was because it didn’t excuse my father’s illegal “business transactions,” as he called it. The thought of what he had been doing, what I’d been pulled into doing, yanked on my memory bank, eliciting a wave of nausea. Saliva filled my mouth.

  I needed her.

  It was all so easy to forget when she was in my arms.

  She was mine; I felt it all over. I might not have known her long, and I might not get to have her for long, but the moment I’d laid eyes on her, something had come alive in me. Something that’d been dead for a while, if not for my whole life.

  I needed her.

  A part of me wanted to run away with her while another part wanted to help put an end to my father’s business transactions. She would want answers soon, but I knew she wouldn’t believe I was against my father. Not when I still worked for the man. If she found out, she would run away from me. She was smart, and with her lack of trust toward anyone, the son of the man hunting her would hardly be her first pick for someone she should trust.

  How could I show her who I was without showing her who I was?

  I parked Calvin’s car in the guest underground parking area and clicked on the button to the private garage, located in the far back corner of the unde
rground lot. Brad and I had our own space for our vehicles with its own roll-up door.

  As I walked into the familiar boxed area, I headed straight to the two-tier wooden storage container with cleaning supplies. Our area had six parking spaces, three on each side. Two spots were always empty to hide a vehicle if needed, and the other four spaces were always occupied with the current car for myself, my brother, and a backup car that looked just like both our current cars. For me, it was the black Challenger. For my brother, it was a blue Mustang.

  I cracked the door open to my wrecked Challenger and started to vacuum the insides. Calvin had wiped it down for me, but I needed to make sure there was no proof of Paige anywhere on or in this car. After what had happened tonight, I should be taking it to the dump yard, but I had other plans.

  Brad was the impulsive one, which meant Paige wouldn’t even be safe at her job if he was lurking around. The guy simply didn’t give a shit as long as he got the job done and got whatever he wanted out of it. So, I needed to force him off this assignment. After his forbidden tattoo, the stunt he’d pulled tonight wouldn’t bode well with our father, especially since his package was in my possession at the time of the accident. Usually, I ignored all the stupid shit Brad did, but not tonight. Tonight, I would retaliate when I parked this car in Alex Connor’s driveway instead of the dump yard like the obedient son I was expected to be.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Paige

  My reentering-apartment routine was usually shorter if I returned home in the daytime but not this time. Not after all the shit that had happened last night. Since my morning classes ended by eleven and I needed to be at work by twelve thirty, I came back to my apartment, rushed to my mattress, and pulled out the weapon I’d left tucked under it before leaving for the party yesterday. Then, I cleared the hidden spaces in my small studio, trying to relax, but even so, being in here had me on edge.

  Kneeling in the closet, I placed the weapon next to me, pulled out the dirty clothes I had worn to the party from my backpack, and shoved them into my laundry bag. Twisting to my right, I grabbed two sets of work clothes and two sets of everyday wear from my large rucksack and then deposited them into my backpack.

  All my clothes were gym wear, and besides the dark jeans and T-shirt I wore at the bar, I had in my possession five workout tights, a pair of joggers, two tank tops, eight T-shirts, a coat, a hoodie, and two pairs of shoes. Not only did having this precise amount of clothes help me when it was moving time, but also they were all plain, which meant I would never stand out.

  Sitting on the floor, I unlaced my combat boots and pulled on my sneakers before throwing my backpack over my shoulder and hurrying to the front door. As my hand wrapped around the lock, my mind drifted to what I’d just seen or thought I’d just seen a split-second ago. Releasing the lock, I took two steps back and caught sight of what had grabbed my attention. The blood drained from my face. Everything in my apartment was strategically placed, and all drawers or cupboards were always fully closed, no matter how much of a hurry I was in. So, as I stared at the one slightly cracked kitchen cupboard next to the fridge, alarms went off inside my head.

  With a few quick steps toward the stove, I pushed up the vent above it and removed the sheet of metal from the surrounding hinges. I spotted the small telescopic red tube I’d placed items in from the past, and my chest collapsed with relief. Taking off my backpack, I placed the tube inside.

  They had found me; there was no question about it. I needed to move now, but I hadn’t found an apartment to move into, and I couldn’t afford to stay in any more hotels or motels. I was screwed. That had become clear this morning in my calculus class when I logged into my bank account. Two thousand dollars. An amount that already wasn’t enough to break my current lease, plus pay first month’s rent and deposit when I found a new place.

  I ran back to the closet, grabbed two extra outfits, and stuffed them into my backpack. Then, something urged me to shove everything into my rucksack, and I did. If I took everything, it would eliminate my having to come back here, and I could store it in my locker at work. The rest I would have to figure out after work because I needed every second on that time clock to be on my next check.

  ❧

  By the end of my shift at the gym, my head was hurting again. I was tired of running. Tired of hiding. The thoughts on my life paused as I walked into the female’s locker room. Caleb hadn’t even texted me back. I’d texted that I was fine this morning after I saw his message on a notepad sitting on my nightstand, asking me to text him to let him know I was okay. I didn’t even remember him leaving last night. And, all day, I’d been so worked up in packing up my life once more that I’d forgotten about him, the weapon, the man he’d shot. The vehicle that had almost ended my life and possibly his, too. The knife...

  Shit, he must hate me. That’s why he hasn’t responded.

  There was nothing I would like more than working out, but it would only bring back my headache to full force. I opened my locker and removed just my backpack. And as I sat on one of the benches with my earbuds in, I stared at my phone screen. No alerts. Not even from Chelsey. Meaning she really thought I was at fault for what had happened with Ian.

  I had done this to myself.

  If I had allowed myself to get closer to her, then she would have realized it wasn’t something I would do. I pushed people away. I was the reason I didn’t have anyone.

  I looked around at the few women getting changed, either fresh from a shower or getting ready to work out. Two girls who were around my age, one of Spanish descent and the other African American, were chatting. They always came into the gym together, talking and giggling about something. In this moment, I realized I had no friends.

  Now that Chelsey was gone, I had no friends.

  Clicking the message icon on my phone, I relented.

  Me: I need to see you. Please.

  I swallowed the ache rising from my chest to my throat when a few minutes went by and I still didn’t get a response from Caleb. He was good at making me forget, and right now, I needed him to help me forget. I didn’t care if he was a bad guy. He’d been nice to me and promised he wouldn’t hurt me. I just needed him to make me feel wanted, to make me feel... loved.

  You can’t go down this road. You’ll be fine once you disappear again, and everything will go back to normal.

  As I shoved all the things I didn’t want to feel back down into the well I’d created, I donned my backpack, exited the locker room, and waved to one of my coworkers, a bright smile on my face. An external smile I’d polished so well that it continued to fool the world. And it was so good sometimes that it fooled me.

  My phone rang, but as I looked down to answer it, someone bumped into me, causing me to stumble backward. From the size of the person, I knew it was a man. Clasping his hands at either side of my rib cage, he steadied me.

  “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t see you there.” His voice was deep and unsettling.

  “It’s okay. I wasn’t really paying attention either,” I said, looking up to the stranger’s face, only there was something familiar about him.

  He couldn’t be much older than I was. Black hair, dark eyes, and skin tone a few shades darker than Caleb’s.

  Why am I comparing him to Caleb?

  “Damn, that’s too bad. I was planning to buy you dinner to make up for that.”

  My eyes shifted from his blatantly leering ones to the two healed horizontal scars on the right side of his neck. I peered down to my ringing phone. Upon seeing a number I didn’t recognize, I silenced the call and pocketed my phone.

  Sidestepping to walk around him, I apologized, “Um, sorry again.”

  Something about his presence was giving me the creeps. Or it was probably because I hated anyone I didn’t know in my personal space, and he’d looked way too comfortable while he was inside of it, messing with my already-paranoid bubble.

  “No problem,” a small utter came from him.

  Af
ter a few strides forward, I looked behind me, and he’d already disappeared into the crowded gym. I looked at my ringing phone again. The same unknown number.

  What the hell?

  “Hello?”

  “Paige, it’s Caleb. Are you okay?” he asked, sounding out of breath.

  My eyebrows wrinkled. “Yeah.” I almost asked why but remembered I’d texted him. Wait, what happened to his phone?

  “I want to show you something tonight. Can you take the metro to the Children’s Museum? From there, we’ll get on the train together.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To see who I am. Outside of the bedroom.”

  ❧

  There were so many questions. About last night. About him. But they all vanished as Caleb appeared in front of me in the train station. Hugging me, he pressed a tender kiss to the sensitive spot on my head before pulling back, and the genuine smile on his gorgeous face didn’t match the evil one I’d expected after I threatened him with my knife.

  “Hi,” I said, nibbling on my lip and staring down at the concrete platform.

  He brushed his thumbs on either side of my face. “What’s wrong?”

  Forgetting the world buzzing around us, I stared up into his dark eyes. “You’re not mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  His thumb moved to the worried line between my brows and trailed to the tip of my nose and then to the center of my lips where he traced the rough tip along my bottom lip. His eyes seemed to have grown darker, if that were even possible. “It was kind of badass, and I was kind of turned on after that actually.”

  “Don’t say that. There are different kinds of crazy, and if I do something that crazy again, seriously, just take me back to the ward.”

  “Back?”