Page 68 of Don't Lie To Me

I shake my head, disappointed. “Thought so. I got this, Onyx. I don’t need you assholes protecting me. Take a night off for once, I can’t be near you right now. I have everything I need to protect myself if this psycho comes for me.” I pat my gun at my side.

In one swift move with an enraged snarl, his hands grip my wrists, forcing them above my head. He flips us so I’m shoved into the wall, his face a mask of deadly anger. “You don’t leave this place without me, I don’t care how pissed you are.”

My jaw tightens. “Get your hands off me.”

“No.” He stares me down with just as much determination. “I care about you too much to let you walk out of here unprotected all because you’re annoyed.”

I shove at him, wanting him off me. “I’m not that helpless little girl anymore.”

“And this guy isn’t playing games. You want to know where he called you from this morning? Your fucking apartment, Sloane.”

A cold shiver runs down my spine. “What?” I blink back at him, confused as to why this is the first I’m hearing about it. “He couldn’t have, that place has the best security system in the country.”

“He disabled it. Your room is totaled, another message left for you. That was where Malachi tracked him to. The phone he used to call you was right there on your bed. Jagger is raging about it, blaming himself for not being there, but he spent the night at his bar.”

My chest heaves. Nowhere is safe from him. “That’s what you three were all talking about without me?”

“We were trying to work out a plan to tackle this. Find somewhere safe for you to go until we track him down.”

They don’t trust me. It hurts more than it should because right now, I don’t trust them very much either. They have all been keeping shit from me, and now they have decided to blatantly leave me out of the decision-making in my own life. I fix my stare on Onyx. “If you won’t leave me alone like I want you to, take me to my apartment. I want to see the damage. I’m not hiding out. If this guy wants me, let him come for me and I will deal with him.”

“Sloane…” Onyx growls in warning.

“Onyx,” I cut him off. “I have a right to see my own place.”

“Come on then.” He releases my arms but not before taking the keys out of my pocket.

I stride off in front of him, heading for the back exit to avoid bumping into Romeo who thinks I’m leaving here with him. For a date! My body is so tight with tension it feels like something is going to snap. How fucking dare they discuss my life without me. I should have been the first to know about all of this, and when I see my brothers next, I’ll be having words with all of them.

A disturbing thought occurs to me; the power I believed I had all this time is all an illusion carefully crafted by my brothers. And now that my secret’s out, I’m starting to see the sad reality. I only hold as much power as they will let me have. That’s why I have a man watching my every move. I shake my head as I push open the back door and head out into the cold of the night. It can’t be true, can it?

Chapter 26

Aswedrivethroughthe streets of Ravens Hollow, I stare out the windshield, trying to get my spiraling thoughts under control. Onyx is broody. I know this is fucking him up just as much as it is me. He takes immense pride in knowing he is doing everything he can to keep me safe, but now he has lost just as much control as I have.

He flicks on his turn signal, and I sit up a little straighter, suddenly paying more attention to where he is driving. “Onyx, what the fuck? This isn’t the way to my apartment.”

He keeps staring out the windshield, his eyes fixated on the gloomy road out of town. The combination of the rain pouring down and the darkness at this time of night blurs out what’s in front of us.

I squint, trying to make out the scenery, wishing I wasn’t so trapped in my own thoughts and that I was actually paying attention. I’m not sure where we are now. I don’t know what possesses me to do it, but I try to open the door handle—it doesn’t budge. Just like I thought, I’m kid locked in the car. A flash of red-hot rage courses through my body. “Where the fuck are you taking me?” I demand, my voice filled with poison, my eyes narrowed in on him in a way they never have been before. He’s crossed a line with me tonight.

Still ignoring me, he checks over his shoulder before he makes the next turn, the tires screeching as he rounds the corner. Oversized shipping containers line both sides of the street, and the air fills withthe scent of salt, nostalgia hitting me like a fucking freight train. My heart leaps into my throat. Why is history haunting me? I know exactly where we are, the docks. Jagger owns half of this land, using it to move whatever product he and my brothers are dealing. He also has a number of rental apartments down here. But I haven’t visited in years, not since the night my mom died.

Onyx abruptly takes a left then a quick right, and before I know it, the car is being swallowed by a massive garage door lowering down right in front of us, stealing the night sky and the rain and trapping us in the large, dark space. He kills the engine, tension heightening between us.

“Onyx, start talking,” I demand, but still nothing.

As he opens his door, lights flicker on to show the industrial garage space that surrounds us. Two other cars line the garage spaces beside us; my brother must be storing his car collection at this place now as well, or I guess they could also be for the other apartments in this lot.

Onyx gets out on his side then moves around to mine, opening my door for me, as I was locked in. With a stony face, he offers me his hand, not even a hint of remorse hitting his features.

Angrily I decline his gesture, stepping out and shoving past him with a deliberate elbow to the ribs. As I wander around the space, he pops the trunk and takes out two well-stuffed overnight bags. “Don’t have to be a genius to work out who they’re for,” I mutter mostly to myself; he’s not communicating with me anyway. Fucking Jagger must be behind this shit. He’s packed up my stuff and shipped me off, knowing I would refuse to go to a safe house. And yet again, Onyx sided with him and followed his rules like a good boy. That’s why he can’t even talk to me. He knows going behind my back like this is a fucking betrayal.

He moves over to an elevator and presses the button to go up. When the doors open, he dumps our bags inside and turns back to me, with a look that says hurry the hell up. “If I have to, I’ll carry you,” he growls likehe’spissed off withme.

“You’re already on my shit list. I wouldn’t fucking try it,” I spit back at him. He knows how I feel about this place and how much I don’t want to go up there. Up there is where I fell apart at the lowest point of my life. I swore to myself I would never be that pathetic girl again. Then I built myself a protective suit of armor, metaphorically of course, and hardened the fuck up. Now look at me. I’m back here because they think I need protection.

He presses one of the buttons on the elevator then stalks toward me, his face contorting in anger. What the hell has he got to be so pissed about? I’m the one being lied to and dragged out of the city against my will. I straighten my shoulders, ready for another fight. But he doesn’t give me the chance. In one quick move, he tosses me over his shoulder, my face coming dangerously close to his ass as the impact of his shoulder squeezes all the air out of my lungs.

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