Page 77 of Stitches

I leaned in and gave him a gentle kiss.

“Hell, heaven, I don’t want to leave you,” he murmured, moving to cradle my face. “I love you. I’ll text, OK? Or video call you. We’ll talk soon.” He kissed my forehead and backed away from me and went to the door.

“Cadence. Please, keep her safe,” Ashes said thickly.

“You know I will,” she answered.

He nodded at her and cast me one last look before leaving me alone with my sister.

“What happened, Rina?” she asked the moment Ashes was gone.

I bit my bottom lips, my throat tight.

“Did Church hurt you? Because if he did, I swear I’ll go there right now and hack his dick off and shove it up his ass so far his father will taste it.”

I gave her a sad smile and moved past her and went to one of the chairs facing the window and sat in it and stared outside. I could see Ashes walking down the trail with his head down, his hands buried deep in his pockets.

I was still wearing his leather jacket. He hadn’t taken it from me, and I felt bad that he was out there in the cold. I’d be sure to give it to him when he came back though, but until then, I was going to curl up in it and breathe in the smell of his smoke and fire, counting down the minutes until I saw him again.

ASHES

“Explain yourself,” I snapped at Church the moment I stepped back into the house after dropping Sirena off with Cady.

He sat on the couch staring at the blank TV screen, his blond hair a mess.

“I love her,” he said as I sat on the loveseat and studied him.

“I know. I love her too.”

“I can’t live without her, but if I keep her, she’ll die.”

I froze. “What’s going on?”

He continued to stare straight ahead for a long time before he answered. “I met with my father last week.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell us? What happened?” He always told us when he was going to meet with him. Granted, sometimes his old man would just show up here, but Church was always fairly quick to let us know right after.

“Stitches hasn’t been telling us everything. I knew it was something huge. I hate the way things have been around here, so instead of waiting for Stitches to tell us, I asked my father.” His Adam’s apple bobbed.

“Tell me,” I said, my heart racing.

Please don’t be bad. Please don’t be bad…

“He bought her contract from her stepfather,” he said thickly. “Her fucking prick of a stepfather sold her to him.”

My blood ran cold. “What?”

I didn’t want to believe what I was hearing.

Church finally looked over at me, his green eyes wavering. “He had her raped in the facility. Stitches held her while it happened. It’s the story he told me. I don’t know who did it, but it happened. It’s why Stitches is so troubled.” He looked back at the blank TV and went silent.

“Dante. What are we going to do?” It was taking everything I had not to throw up on the floor. Hearing Sirena had been hurt. That Stitches had been forced to help. It was no wonder he was behaving the way he was.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “He wants me to fall in line. Do his bidding when he calls upon me. I agreed. To keep her safe, I agreed.”

“Fuck.” I opened and closed my lighter on repeat, my legs bouncing. I was going to lose my mind. I could feel the panic rising from my toes all the way to the top of my head. “What are we going to do? How do we keep her safe? She can’t just be with Cady. It puts her in danger too.”

“I know.” He ran his fingers through his hair before giving it a tug and letting out a frustrated snarl. “I know we talked about letting her go, but I don’t think that’ll do shit for good. He owns her. If she ran, he’d find her. Hell, he’d make me find her and then I don’t even know what would happen. Nothing good.”

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