Page 87 of Fracture

“What do you mean?” Dylan is right in front of me, hands gripping my upper arms and staring me down. “What do you mean, what you gave up?”

“The fucking plea bargain, Dylan.” I push him away, my chest pounding and my hands shaking. “The plea bargain. The one you two agreed to. I had to agree to it too.”

Levi and Dylan glance at each other, confusion furrowing their brows.

“What do you-”

I cut Dylan off with a wave of my hand. “You really think I wouldn’t have come to see you? You really think all I wanted to send you was those stupid nothing letters? Neither of you ever stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, something else was going on?”

Dylan’s face crumples, and he cradles my jaw in his hands. “Stella, what did they do?”

I’ve gone too far. I shouldn’t have said anything. This is going to make it worse. This is going to fuel the vengeance I can feel simmering within them both just beneath the surface. But it’s too late. A scalding hot tear runs down my cheek, and I shake my head, wishing I could rewind time and be back in bed with the both of them, love-drunk and warm, and miles away from the reality that’s just going to tear us apart again.

“Gloria made me do it.” I whisper, trying to shield Levi from more pain, from more distance from his family. “Her, and Oswald. They came to me and said if I cared about the two of you, I’d agree to it. I wasn’t allowed to come and see you, and I had to let them read all my letters first. It wasn’t until… Until I fought it, and got to you when your parole was announced, that I was able to… To…”

“But why?” Levi’s voice is drenched with pain, and when I gaze over Dylan’s shoulder at him, his face is dark and filled with grief, shoulders sagging. “Why would they do that?”

“Your grandfather said it would help us all forget.” I want to run away, but instead I sag into Dylan’s arms, and he holds me to his chest, hands threading into my hair. “As if I could ever forget. As if I could ever stop loving you.”

“Guera, I’m so sorry.” Dylan’s lips caress my forehead, and Levi is at my back, fingers running down my bare arms.

“Baby girl, we’re not going back to prison.” Levi’s voice is warm against my ear. “You hear me? We’re not going back to prison. Ever.”

“Levi, please.”

“No.” Levi presses me between them. “Baby girl, no matter what happens, we’re not going back there.”

“If you do this, I’ll lose you again.” I gesture to the phone. “And they’re watching us. They’re threatening some innocent woman and her fuckingchild. You have to stop. We have to warn her.”

Dylan shakes his head, dark eyes gazing down at me. “No, that will place her in more danger. I’ll have eyes on her, make sure she’s safe, I promise.”

“Dylan, you cannot burn the world down for this.”

“Yes, we can.” Levi’s voice is heavy, and he strokes a hand down my arm. “And those men will pay.”

I feel weak between them, weak and helpless and part of a plan that I once again have no control over, one I can only stand by and watch play out in front of me. My head falls against Dylan’s chest, and I sigh heavily, trying not to cry, because that won’t make anything better.

“I need you both to promise me you won’t do anything stupid,” I murmur, knowing full well my pleas are falling on unhearing ears.

“Everything’s going to be just fine,” Dylan assures me, kissing my forehead again and again.

His words don’t make me feel any better.

Going back to work is the last thing I want to do.

I procrastinate way too long on getting dressed and ready, the house quiet since Dylan and Levi have already left for the garage early in the morning. We didn’t talk any more about their plans for revenge, because there isn’t any point.

And maybe, just maybe, deep down I want the men who hurt me to pay.

I hate admitting it to myself, struggling to meet my own eyes in the mirror as I apply make-up. But maybe some small part of me wishes the woman looking back at me could take that gun in hand herself. I don’t think I could ever kill somebody, but the thought of getting revenge, hearing someone beg for their own life while I’m completely in control of it, someone who hurt me and left me with trauma so deep it almost drowned me for years…

My phone rings, jerking me from my thoughts. My heart leaps into my throat when I see it’s the office, and I panic for a second that I mooched around forwaytoo long, and am, in fact,now late for my first day back. I surely didn’t lose track of time that badly?

My eyes flash to the time on the screen. It’s only 8.10AM. I’m nowhere near late.

“Hello?” I say, pressing the phone to my ear. “This is Stella.”

“Hi Stella, it’s Clark here.” My boss’s voice is stern, and I instantly feel as though I’m in trouble. My boss calling me this early on a Monday? Something is definitely wrong.

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