Page 41 of Save Me

"She just left, brother."

I wheel around to face him, my hand falling heavily to my side. "What?"

The look on his face makes my blood run cold.

"She heard us," he says. "I don't know how much she heard or what she heard, but judgin' by the look on her face, she heard enough to break her heart."

"Fuck." I start across the room, my heart in my throat. She heard us. Oh, Christ. I didn't intend for her to find out like this. I meant to tell her. After I dealt with the problem and guaranteed Bella's safety, I intended to tell her everything. I just needed to fix it first, needed time to prove that I never meant for any of this shit to happen. I didn't fucking know they were there to kill my father. I didn't know Bella was going to get caught in the middle.I didn't fucking know.

But now she does. And she doesn't know everything. She doesn't know that part. All she knows is…what? How much did she hear? Enough to hate me, I'm guessing. Enough to think the worst.

"I've got to find her," I mutter, my mind racing a million miles a minute. "I have to explain."

"Maybe you should let her go for right now," Daniel says, stepping between me and the door. "Give her time to cool off before you try to explain."

"Get out of the way, Daniel."

"You know I can't do that," he says quietly. "She ran out of here because she doesn't want to talk to you about it. And the last thing you need before you go meet the motherfucker who ordered your father's death is a fuckin' gut-wrenchin' conversation. You need your head on straight for that."

"You think it is right now?" I growl, glaring at him.

"I think you love her, and you have a tendency to self-destruct. So there's a better possibility of you comin' home alive right now when you've still got hope that you can fix things with her than there will be if she tells you to fuck off," he says bluntly. "Right now, you need a reason to make it through that meetin' without self-destructing. Knowin' things are unresolved between the two of you is a damn good reason."

Goddamn him. It pisses me off that he knows me so well. And it pisses me off that he's right. If I talk to her right now and she tells me she never wants to see me again, odds are I won't give a fuck if I make it out of that meeting alive. I've been breathing for her since I met her. If I fucked it up… Christ, this can't be the end.

I stride back to my desk and snatch my phone from the top, scrolling to my conversation with her. My hands shake as I send her a message.

Me: It isn't what you think, little bird. I swear to you, what you heard isn't the whole story. When you're ready to hear it, come to me. I'll be waiting. I love you.

I wait for a long moment, hoping for a response even though I know one isn't coming. When it doesn't, I sigh regretfully and shove the phone into my pocket before turning back to Daniel.

"You aren't going with me," I mutter. "If this shit ends badly…"

He scowls daggers at me. "It better fuckin' not, Brantley. I haven't kept you alive this goddamn long just for a bunch of drug dealers to murder your miserable ass. You do what you need to do, and you bring your sorry ass back here, you hear me? You and I have work to do."

"I keep telling you, you're shit at this job, man."

"And I keep tellin' you, that ain't the goddamn job I'm doin'," he growls. "It's never been the job. Makin' sure you aren't here alone with that prick is the job."

"He's dead, Daniel. Mission accomplished."

"Not yet," he mutters. "When his fuckin' ghost stops hauntin' you, it'll be mission accomplished. We ain't there yet."

I don't argue because he's not fucking wrong. But I do shake my head as I stride toward the door. "One of these days, you're going to tell me where the fuck my mother found you."

"Why? Want to send a thank you note for creatin' me?"

"Hell no." I bark laughter. "I'm sending a goddamn restraining order so they never send anyone else like you."

My laughter fades as I step out into the hall, imagining Isla standing out here, listening to us just on the other side of the door. Christ, that must have broken her heart. She probably thinks I'm a monster just like the prick who raised me. Can I really blame her if she does? Everything he touched, he poisoned. He did it to my mother. He did to me. Even this company slowly started rotting under his leadership, infected by him and his evil. Contracts slowly got less and less generous, less fair. The last few he tried to get artists to sign were fucking awful.

He was spiraling out of control. He lost control when he lost control over my mother. I don't think he knew how the fuck to handle the stress without someone to torment. The high wasn't as fun for him when he couldn't use it to make her miserable. It took more and more drugs to give him the same rush, the same thrill. And he never managed to find it because it was never thedrugs that excited him. It was the power that came with being a violent fucking bully to his wife and son. That was the real drug for him. And no matter how much money he spent or how much cocaine he snorted, he couldn't recreate that feeling when I wrested it away from him.

I hope the loss of control ate at him every goddamn day until the end. It's what he deserved. But he kept his word, so I'm trying to keep mine. He kept his hands off her. I'm trying to keep his goddamn secret. He doesn't deserve it. But I owe it to him, as fucked up as that is.

I don't want to owe him a damn thing. I want to never think about him again, in fact. But I've never been able to accomplish that. Like Daniel said, his goddamn ghost still haunts me. And the bastard is probably laughing his ass off about it, enjoying every second of my misery. He always did.

An hour later, I'm sitting at the long bar at the Devil's Run with Memphis when Alton Jackson, head of the Dixie Mafia in Tennessee, strolls in, dressed in a pinstripe suit and matching tie. From where I'm sitting, he could be anyone. He certainly doesn't look like the leader of fucking criminal syndicate. But looks are deceiving. And he's one big piece of shit in a suit.

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