Page 66 of Broken Promises

Declan flips us so that I’m collapsed against his side, our sweaty bodies fused together, chests heaving. I look up at him, my hair a mess against his chest. He kisses me softly, his fingers gently caressing between my legs before they still when they find the mess he left. He breaks the kiss to look down. After less than a minute of hesitation, he scoops his come with his fingers and pushes it back inside of me.

“Do you have a breeding kink?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “I didn’t. It might just be you.” He meets my eyes. “We didn’t use a condom.”

I nod. “I’m on the pill.” He looks at my stomach, splaying his large hand across it, seeming lost in thought. “Dec?”

“I’m in love with you, Willa,” he says when he looks up at me. “I know you’re not ready and that’s okay, but I couldn’t let another moment go by without you knowing how I feel about you.”

I can’t do anything except gape at him, my heart racing. I so badly want to give him those words, but they’re stuck in my throat. He takes my hand, gently kissing my palm.

“It’s okay, Princess. I can wait until you’re ready to tell me.”

I snuggle into him, letting his warmth, his love, wrap me up and lull me to sleep.

I’ve been pouting on Belle’s couch for the better part of three days. Declan still has two more games to play before he can come home. I’ve never missed him the way I do now. He tells me he loves me every day when we talk, but I still can’t get the words out. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t love him like that yet or if I’m too broken to love him at all.

Part of me wants to be selfless and let him go. Tell him to run far away from the broken girl with only shattered remains for a heart. But it’s well established that when it comes to Declan, I’m selfish. I won’t give him up for anything or anyone.

He’s mine.

“What time does Declan’s game start?” Harlow asks, sitting next to me.

“In an hour. You like hockey?” I ask, pretending I knew she was here and didn’t startle me.

She smiles at me like she knows I’m trying to play it cool but doesn’t mention it. “Nope. Well, I might. I’ve never watched it.”

I laugh and shake my head. “You’re escaping Cal, aren’t you?”

“I love that man, but if I spend one more minute with him hovering over me, Iwillkill him.”

“Have you or your dad found anything?” I ask her. The cameras around the gate were wiped. When Belle and I pulled up to the gate that night, we assumed Dean was on break and just used our code to open it. All the residents have a unique one in case we need to get in when a guard isn’t there. The police pulled the log, and Belle used her code four minutes after the gate was opened using Dean’s button. Which lines up with Maverick’s mom showing up. But that’s all they have right now.

“He’s following a money trail that doesn’t add up. The ports the drugs were funneled through were purchased under a fake name. The police are aware and investigating, but they have to do it legally.” Harrison knows a guy that can hack into almost any system, so he’s able to find things the police either can’t or have to jump over a bunch of red tape to find. “He thinks he can connect the movement of some money from the Wolfes’ account around the time of purchase, but the problem is it’s a joint account.”

“So it could still be either or both of them.”

She sighs. “Pretty much. My dad is hoping he can trace the money to whoever sold it and get answers from them. That name was false in the purchase agreement too, though. So who knows?”

“Pizza!” Kai yells.

“You left to get pizza?” Cal asks, following him inside with Cora on his hip. “We agreed to stay behind locked doors!”

Harlow sighs loudly next to me. “Sorry,” she mutters.

“I did. It was curbside. I only had to open my window,” Kai says.

“We let a viper into our den! You can’t just leave!” Cal exclaims. Belle takes Cora from him, allowing his arms to fly into the air in exasperation.

“You’re being dramatic,” Jo says, walking around him with Maverick on her heels. We’re all watching Dec’s game together tonight since Cal won’t let us go anywhere without this very thing happening.

“I’m being the exact right amount of dramatic!” Cal screams. Cora starts laughing at her dad’s antics.

“Don’t encourage him, Cora girl,” Harlow says, trying to hide her own laughter.

“So, how did your day of research go?” I ask Jo. She texted the group chat this morning saying she was spending the day going through professional sports teams websites trying to find someone who could be Ezra. Our only real lead on him is Jasper, but he swears he hasn’t heard anything from Ezra in over two years. That leaves us with someone who worked for an MLB team in social media who also likes to pick first names that start with ‘e’ and last names that could be first names. Which seems better than nothing, but somehow also feels like nothing.

“There’s an Easton Derrek who works in marketing for a team in Seattle, and an Eli Frank working in public relations for a team in Colorado, but neither panned out. Easton is in his fifties, and Eli’s picture was on the website.” She turns her phone so we can see. Eli has a sweet smile, but he also looks nothing like Ezra.

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