Page 253 of Deceit

I can’t stand the way his tone sounds like he wants to perish right now. That I caused him more pain somehow. That he might think of me differently, that I’m too much.

I am too much.

I’m really nothing but a pain in his ass really.

I always have been.

“It was to buy time,” I blurt before he stops me. “It was to keep him preoccupied so he didn’t have a bullet put in the back of your brain.”

“You know damn fucking well that—“

“You don’t come back from those.” I shake my head and gaze up at him with a million apologies. “I won’t let you die on my watch.”

“You done?”

I release a defeated sigh. “No.”

“Be done for a minute then because we need to get out of here.” He guides me out of my shitty apartment, where Kyson is waiting for us by the front outside.

Everyone else is gone.

The men, Alexander, the rest of B723, like nothing happened.

“I told Lucien where to be.” Kyson won’t look at me, stiff as a board, and his jaw ticks. “I’ll meet you there.”

My brows furrow when he pivots and walks down the street but Bishop wastes no time, putting me into the front seat of Mill’s car. Police sirens blare a mile or two away and we dip out of this crummy neighborhood.

We don’t speak.

He actually puts the radio on to keep me from doing so.

He’s shutting me out again.

Lucien leaves the bedroom after cleaning our wounds and bitches on his way out. I don’t hear what he says—don’t care—all I can do is sit idly by as Emmy gingerly puts another clean t-shirt on.

I watch her white hair hit the sun, and it reminds me that we could be anywhere else but here. We could leave everything behind.

She turns her neck to look at me, worry frowned in her features as she takes a few slow steps forward.

I can’t stand to look at her lips.

My stomach has been knotting just remembering that vision of Alexander with her on her knees.

We’re not done, not by a long shot, but not only do they have unfinished business but, he shoved his dick in her mouth.

I’m surprised she didn’t bite it off, but I guess that was to save my ass.

“Bishop,” she starts, but my hand is already up and demanding that she stop. We have shit to talk about before we walk in that front room and kill Alexander together. We need everything, and I meaneverythingout in the open.

“I was raped when I was ten,” I tell her, watching her face pale and widen in shock. “By a man who used to deal cocaine to my mother. It went on again with his buddies, but Kyson saved me from most of them that time. It never happened again, but it didn’t mean that Hardy and Scarlett weren’t in danger. I guess you can say I shut down for everyone that wasn’t in my life at that moment. Camilla became my everything when Scar and Hardy were taken back by their dad. I needed…a crutch, I suppose, someone to look after. She was pretty and smart and wanted to get out of the trailer park as much as I did.”

Emmy closes some distance between us, but she remains silent and doesn’t make a move to touch me. She just waits for me to get my past off my chest for her to know, deal with and understand.

“She got into drugs, as you know, and I…tried to save her. Kyson tried to save her. She was deadweight, someone that just didn’t want to be free of her vices. So, I left. I never looked back. I loved her, and I abandoned her for my own well-being. Then you came along…and I could notnotpay attention to you. You were incredibly gorgeous and headstrong, and something Camilla never was.”

“What was that?” she whispers softly, tears forming in her honey browns.

“Courage. You dealt with four asshole dudes and didn’t become one of them. You stood for your own identity and strengths. You loved even though it wasn’t welcomed sometimes and annoyed the shit out of us, but you kept doing it anyway. You wore everyone down, especially me…I swear to God you chipped away at me every day until we were in Vegas.”

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