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“You guys, you don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t even know what I’m planning to do.” I cry.
“Doubt it’ll change anything,” Jaya finally responds with a smile.
“You don’t get it. I don’t plan on surviving this. There are a lot of people who want to kill me. I don’t expect to walk out of this alive,” I respond.
“So why are you doing this?” a recruit asks from far in the back.
I take a deep breath, trying to choose my words carefully. There’s just this heavy weight on my body and breathing itself is exhausting as I think about a suitable answer. I can’t find any other words, except, “I’ve just had enough.” I exhale.
There are murmurs of understanding within the crowd before someone else speaks up. “Listen, it’s up to you. But I think I can speak for almost everyone here that if you stay, we’ll stay but if you go, we’re coming with you. So, the choice is yours.”
I have no more words. The past day has been such a whirlwind and nothing’s really gone how I’ve expected it to. I find myself standing here, speechless. And with nothing more to say, the crowd disperses.
I’m still standing here wondering what to do from here since they’ve now basically told me that their life is in my hands and my life is in theirs. My choice affects them. I’m stumped and incapable of moving from this spot. All I can think about is how tired I am and how much I just want this to be over with. I don’t want to do life anymore.
I lift my head that feels like it weighs a ton and I think I’ve just stepped into some alternate reality when I notice the people walking toward me are Axel, Mikhail and Calder. I gasp and open my mouth to speak but no words come, only tears. A lot of it. My breathing becomes shorter as my body begins to shake with emotion. I can’t believe my fucking eyes.
Chapter 41
Mikhail
Mystridesarelongand fast as I make my way across the room flooded with the need to magnetize myself to her. It’s like the guys and I are in a race to see who will get to her first. I can’t think straight and when I reach her first, I don’t think, I just scoop her off the floor, holding her close to me, planting so many kisses on her face and head. “You’ve got so much to live for, J. So much.” She wraps her arms around my shoulders, burying her head into my neck as she sobs.
When she raises her head again, she looks at me and wipes tears from my face that I didn’t even know were there. She presses her lips to mine and I don’t stop her. I can’t stop her. It feels too right. We’re swapping spit and tears as our mouths take time comforting each other. When I put her down, she’s staring at me, dazed and I’m just as fucking dazed as this moment seems surreal. She’s soon pulled into a hug by Calder whose grip is just as tight as he says, “I know how you feel, baby. It’ll be okay. Please.” He breaks his own speech when she kisses him on his cheek, right next to his lips. He turns his mouth into her kiss and they grab at each other with desperation.
Axel stands off to the side, his feet tapping on the floor in anticipation as he tries so hard to control himself, I can see his veins bulging from his neck as he tries to appear neutral. When she turns to him, his resolve begins to crumble. He gives up on his fight with himself as he falls into her hold. “Julissa.” That’s all he says as he cradles her head and stands there hugging her with his eyes closed, pain reddening his face.
Calder rubs her back as Axel hugs her and I caress her shoulder. I feel guilty thinking about how natural this feels for me, how meant to be. Before Julissa, I could’ve never imagined sharing the woman I love with someone else and with Daisy, that is not our dynamic at all. She believes in monogamy and it suited us fine. Things have been nice with Daisy but this right here, it feels like home. And maybe there’s something toxic about that, something sadistic. Maybe I love putting myself through emotional turmoil. No one holds a candle to Julissa in my heart and it feels sick to say that because even if Julissa were okay with sharing, I doubt Daisy would be. And I could never muddy Daisy with the mess of us.
“What are you guys doing here?” Julissa speaks, her voice hoarse from crying. “How did you know where to find me? Why did you mess up your lives to come after me?” She pounds each of us lightly against our arms and chests.
“We got a call that you were in trouble,” I tell her.
“Who called you? Was it Jaya?” she asks, looking around in confusion.
“It didn’t sound like Jaya. The voice sounded a lot more heavy, rougher,” I say, not wanting to say masculine, just in case it was in fact one of her recruits, all of which seem to be female as far as I can tell but then again, who knows.
She furrows her brows as if in deep thought. I break her concentration. “What happened?” I ask her.
She’s always beautiful to me. Always sexy. But it doesn’t mean I don’t notice some changes in her. She’s got some muscle definition but somehow even with that, she seems a lot skinnier than normal when she was already pretty slim to begin with. Her pupils are dilated and the white part of her eyes is completely red.
She looks away from my gaze but my past life as an officer has trained me to take notice. “You’re using again?” I whisper close to her ear. She doesn’t answer me. The other guys try not to react but I can tell that they’re just as shocked and concerned as I am.
She shivers, scratching her brow as she twists her head around, resting her cheek against her shoulder. “I just needed something to cope.” Her face melts into a frown and wreckage. “Everything’s a mess,” she says.
“Is there somewhere we can go to talk?” I ask her.
“Oh, yeah. Sure,” she responds as if glad to be given a task that she can handle, a distraction from our questions.
All four of us make our way to an elevator. I follow behind her as she leads us down a hallway and opens a door that leads us into a pretty impressive suite. I look around in amazement. “What is this place?”
She looks at me, pressing her tongue to her top teeth. She turns her gaze at Cal and Axe as well before resting her forehead in the palm of her hand and moving to press her mouth against her knuckles as she seems to think for quite a bit.
“J?” Axel asks.
She shakes her head before bringing her eyes to face us. “After you hear what I’ve done, you’re going to wish you didn’t come back. You’re going to wish you stayed far away from here.” Her eyes grow wide.
“How bad is it?” I ask.
