Page 23 of Queen Of Clubs

“Jade,” Everett whispers, his brown eyes wide like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. He looks different now, all grown up. His baby face has hardened a little bit, but he still has the shaggy black hair. Only now, he’s covered in tattoos.

I continue to blink, screaming at myself within my head to move, to run, to get the fuck out of here, but all I’m able to fucking do is gape at them like a fish.

“Holy fuck, it’s really her,” Griffin chokes, getting to his feet. My eyes go to his. He’s changed, too. His skin is covered in tattoos just like Everett’s, but his hair is shorter on the sides and longer at the top.

As he steps forward, my body kickstarts and allows me to step back.

“W-what...” is all I can get out. I was going to ask what they’re doing here, but it doesn’t matter.

I need to get out of here. I don’t want to see them. Not now, not ever. Not after what they did to me.

“Jade, wait!” This voice is lower, huskier. Zane. The boy who said he loved me and then never came back for me.

I don’t stop. I run through the club, heart racing fast, head dizzy. I feel like I’m going to be sick. The back of my eyes sting, tears threatening to break free.

This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. They’re not here. Anyone but them.

“Jade, please, talk to us!” Zane wraps his hand around my arm, pulling me to a stop. I gasp as he spins me toward him and into his arms.

Wide, frantic eyes find his hazel ones as he stares down at me, chest heaving. “Trouble...” he whispers like he’s just realizing what he’s seeing is real. “It really is you.”

Zane has changed the most, even though he has the same dark brown hair, styled the same way as it was before. But that’s all that is the same. Now, he has tattoos on his face. Normally, I don’t like the look of them, but on him? Fucking hell, he looks good.

No. No, he doesn’t. I hate him. I hate all of them.

“Let go of me,” I snarl, my body ready to go into survival mode.

“Please,” he pleas desperately. “Talk to us.”

“Get your hands off the omega.” I could cry with relief as Roger grabs Zane’s hand, gripping it hard enough to make Zane shout out in pain, forcing him to let go of me. I stumble back behind Roger as I suck in shuddering breaths.

“Thank you,” I tell him as he shoves Zane back.

“I got this, Jade. You go upstairs.”

“O-okay.” I nod, on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Somehow, I’m able to stagger my way over to the stairs. When I get to the first step, I look one last time, needing to make sure they’re really here.

When I do, I see three broken faces, three sets of eyes begging me. And my heart shatters again, three times over.

Ripping my eyes away from them, I run upstairs and down the hall to the break room. When I burst into the room, Leisha jumps up from the couch where she was taking her break.

“Jade, what's wrong?”

I stumble over to the couch and collapse onto it. Everything I’ve been holding in comes shooting to the surface. Years of suppressing my feelings for the guys, years of pretending they’re not these famous rock stars, fucking and drinking their way through life. Years of telling myself they never loved me, never wanted me, and I was better off without them.

I made myself hate them, told myself I didn’t care.

But if I don’t, then why are deep, gut-wrenching sobs spilling from me right now?

“Jade, you’re freaking me out,” Leisha comments.

“It’s them,” I cry out.

“Them who?”

“The guys I told you about,” I sob. “It’s them.”

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