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“I wanted him dead, too,” I admitted on a rush. “I wanted him to suffer for what he stole from us.”
My mother’s face flashed behind my eyes. I’d been nine. Nine when she was ripped from me. And sometimes I thought the most terrifying part of it all was that her memory was starting to fade.
I’d only been a little girl. A little girl who couldn’t fully grasp the loss.
It’d become a misshapen hole. A piece carved out that I didn’t know the fullness of.
Now it was a misty hollowness. A lingering awareness that something vital was missing.
My thoughts dipped to the hourglass that had been waiting at my door.
“I thought it was finally over.” I croaked over the words.
“I’m going to see to it that it is. This guy is not going to get to you.” The promise rumbled like thunder from Trevan’s mouth.
Then he slowed, and regret filled the air that churned between us. “But there will always be danger in this life.”
“That’s why you wanted me to go away.”
Espresso eyes toiled. “I just want you to live a good life.”
Maybe I was a total freaking masochist, but I inched forward and tucked myself into his side.
Trevan flinched, but he still opened to me. Curling his bottom arm around me so I could snuggle into the crook of his shoulder and chest.
Warmth sped through my body.
“I am living a good life. I’m surrounded by people who care for me and love me. That’s the most important thing to me, Trevan. My family.”
Him included.
Trevan released a heavy sigh that fluttered the hair at the top of my head and slowly started to drag just the tips of his fingers up and down my spine.
“Wouldn’t have been able to let you go, anyway,” he grumbled. “I would have chased you down wherever you went.”
“Because you need me?” I struggled to find a tease as I snuggled closer, though my spirit stuttered with the volatility that filled the room.
Heat blistered in electric pulses from his masculine body.
My ear pressed to the rough, steady thrum of his heart.
His fingers ran up to play in the locks of my hair, soothing as he dragged them down my skull and to the nape of my neck.
Over and over again.
A lulling caress that quickly lured me toward sleep.
But as I drifted there, I heard him mumble, “You have no idea, Lena. No fucking idea how much.”
SIXTEEN
ELENA
I held tight to Trevan’s waist as he pulled out from the gravel lot in front of The Crimson Apple Boutique and angled us in the direction of the club’s compound.
His motorcycle growled and grumbled as he hit the two-lane road, and my heart rate accelerated as quickly as the bike as he pulled away from the picturesque plaza that felt like it’d been immortalized in time.
The old dive bar that Silas had purchased on the left side, neon lights glowing from the windows. The café that was across the lot from my store and the small mercantile next to it.
