Page 70 of Believe In Us

“Let go of me you fucking bastard!” I shout, but he does nothing to heed my pleas. Instead he wraps his arms around me, cradling me against his body, rocking me back and forth like a damn child.

We sit together in that position for what feels like hours, but I know it’s not more than a few minutes. His breathing turns heavy, as my sobs begin to settle down, no longer burning my throat as they leave me. That’s when we hear a door downstairs slam shut. Startled, I sit up but Bass tightens his hold on me.

“It’s just Ace and Scar,” he whispers against my ear, “he has a key.”

Of course he does. I nod, standing up as he releases me, walking over to the balcony with him following closely behind. “You’re not alone Jade,” he whispers into my neck, kissing me softly.

“I know, I just, I need a moment,” I murmur, staring down at the beach below. The sun is starting to set, nearing six o’clock, and it is absolutely breathtaking as it transcends into the ocean. I turn as I hear him move around the room behind me. “Oh and put some fucking pants on Sebastian, you’ll scare the shit out of my sister.”

He chuckles wholeheartedly, grabbing a pair of boxers out of his drawer chest, “I’ll be right outside,” he mutters, before walking away and leaving me alone in his bedroom.

I take the opportunity to walk over to where three more halfempty bottles of liquor sit neatly upon the dresser, grabbing the gin, I bring it to my lips, inhaling the pungent aroma, my stomach churning as the smell coats the inside of my nostrils. Fuck, it’s true what they say about your sense of smell being heightened when you’re pregnant, I can smell everything.

I close my eyes, tilting my head back as the bitter liquor coats my tongue.What the fuck am I doing?

Quickly I spit out the gin, spraying it all over the floor before me, burning my nostrils as it leaves me. Turning, I slam the bottle against the wall, shattering it in my palms. “Fuck,” I curse out, the glass cutting me in the center of my palm. I can’t believe I almost swallowed that, I’m fucking pregnant what the fuck was I thinking.

That’s the thing, I wasn’t thinking. I rarely do anymore.

Chapter

Thirty-Three

JADE

Silence.

To some it can be calming while for others it’s anxiety inducing, although to me, it’s fucking endless. To sit in silence is to hear one's demons screaming in high volume, one hundred miles an hour, begging to be set free, to erupt in a wave of violent cries or run wild like an ardent blaze of fury. However, I’ve succumbed to sitting helpless on the floor, tear stains down my cheeks, tasting the saltiness of my tears along my tongue as they fall upon my lips, a shard of glass held tightly in my hand as thick red blood drips down my leg.

The half empty bottle of gin I held firmly in my hand is shattered to pieces against the wall beside me. God how I wish I would have swallowed the liquor I poured in my mouth, letting the bitter taste of juniper and pine coat my esophagus in a blanket of heat as it coursed through. I long to drink myself into oblivion, as I have so many times before whenfeelingsthreatened to peek through the fortified tungsten wall I’ve built around my heart. Made out of thestrongest of metals, built to last and withstand everything I’ve been through, but in the end I came to discover it’s brittle, shattering the moment it’s impacted with the simplest of emotions. Love.

To love is to be vulnerable. To be vulnerable is to live defenseless, becoming an easy target, and being an easy target allows others to take advantage of you. To exploit you for their own gain, and in the end you are left broken and forgotten.

I’ve been broken my entire life, forgotten by everyone I ever once cared about. I refuse to let that be my destined fate.

So I’ve come to a terrifying, earth-shattering, hair-raising decision, a mistake I'm sure I'll one day soon regret, but can’t convince myself not to make. I’m taking a chance onlove, I’m forgiving those who have wronged me, and I will fight for what I’ve lived my whole life believing I will never achieve. A chance to become more than what I ever thought possible. A fearless daughter, a selfless sister, a trusting lover, and the hardest of them all, a devoted mother.

I hear a soft knock upon the door of Sebastian’s bedroom, creaking quietly as it’s pushed open. I’m sitting on the floor at the far right of the room, my back against the frigid wall, with my knees held closely to my chest. The room reeks of alcohol and sex, given the fiasco that happened here just moments ago, and I’m almost positive the metallic stench of blood lingers in the air as well.

I know it’s her, she needs not to be announced nor make her presence known. We have this inexplicable connection, quite like something I imagine twins have where they can feel each other's presence, hear each other’s thoughts, experience each other's pain, and we aren’t even blood. Although, given all we’ve been through together, the similarities in the hardships we’ve endured, we’ve been bonded for life. Tied together with an invisible umbilical cord which at the moment is wrapped around my throat cutting off my air supply as I realize how much of a bitch I’vebeen to my one and only sister. My best friend, my onlyrealfamily.

The moment she steps forward, I’m ready to take her lecture, to hear an apology, to hear anything, but what I’m not expecting is for her to drop down on the floor beside me, not caring there is a pile of broken glass, coated with my blood, in a puddle of gin on the hardwood floor. We sit in silence, a mountain of unspoken words floating between us but not one single thing said out loud. Not until her hand reaches out to me, wordlessly asking me to take it in mine, do I crack.

I turn abruptly to her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and stuffing my face in the crook of her neck. I hear nothing but the loud ringing of my sobs as I cry uncontrollably against her, letting out all the anger, frustration, and fear I’ve felt and kept in for the past months. She holds me closely, her arms wrapping around me as she meets every one of my sobs with one of her own. Our bodies tremble against each other, our breaths in sync as we hyperventilate huffing and puffing in between cries.

“I’m so, sorry,” I mumble, my words barely understandable, snot dripping out of my nose.

“It’s me who’s sorry,” Scarlett mutters, against my shoulder equally inaudibly. I push away for a moment, her clear blue eyes, red rimmed and glossy coated with a pain only someone who’s witnessed all we have, can understand. “I should have never lied to you, should have never kept such a horrible truth from you no matter the consequences. I let my pride get the best of me, let my pussy cloud my judgment, and allowed a dick to take precedence over my sister.”

Suddenly I’m not only nervous but scared, scared that there is yet something she’s keeping from me. According to Sebastian, they’ve known Roman has been back since last November, and I am fearful to find out Scar’s known for that long as well. “Please Jade, just listen to me I promise I’ll tell you absolutely everything, I just need a chance to explain, I’m begging you Jade.”

I stand with my back to her, blankly staring at the wall across from us. I won’t be the first one to speak,I’ve said all I needed to say, it’s her who needs to come clean and tell me everything she knows.

“Last year, for Thanksgiving break, Ace took me to his house for a dinner his uncle had invited us to. It wasn't anything like I imagined, honestly I didn’t know what I expected.” I turn to face her as she continues to tell me all about how her mother showed up and confessed she and my father killed the Mayor of Hillcrest, Silas Smoak, but her mother managed to blame the whole thing on my father. “Ace stood beside my mother and Wesley, Chaz kneeled before him, and this other person, I couldn’t tell who it was, was standing beside Ace. Ace had a gun in his hand pointed at your father, and then…” She stops, her words dying on her lips, but I know what she was going to say.

“You thought Ace shot him?” I ask, knowing that is the reason for her reluctance.

She nods her head, tears springing from her eyes as she steps forward. “I thought I was in love with a murderer, Jade. I was so hurt, scared, but most of all disgusted with the person I had become. I lost all sense of morality because despite what I saw, despite the fact that I blamed my silence on the threats that came after from Wesley, I knew deep down I would never have said a word. I knew then that I loved Ace despite it all and that scared me more than anything that’s ever happened to me.” Her words ring so close to home, mirroring what I’m feeling deep down inside. I know Sebastian hasn’t killed anyone, but I also know that his connection to The Order and Kane Dalton is graver than just some measly security business.

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