Page 49 of Crossed By the Stars
My heart was tangled into a knot as painful as my bruised ribs, worry and regret filling me.
“Please be safe,” I managed to get out. “I love you both. I don’t know what I’d do…”
I couldn’t even finish it.
“Same, Jada. We feel the same. Please listen to Dax and Cillian. Please let them protect you,” Violet said, tears in her voice.
I glanced up at Dax who couldn’t hear the conversation but was waiting patiently to help me escape the hands of those coming after me. Listening while others told me what to do would never come easy to me. Dax’s conversation with me two seconds before was the clear evidence of that fact.
“I’ll try,” I told her.
“Is Dax there?” Dawson asked.
“Yes, hold on.” I stood, wincing at the motion, and gave Dax the phone.
Then, I left the room. I didn’t want to hear them talk about me. I wouldn’t be able to keep my shit together if anyone used more tender words.
Cillian was at the front door, but the luggage had disappeared. I glanced back at the bedroom and stepped closer to the giant of a man. He was huge—two of Dax in muscle and width and at least two inches above Dax’s already tall frame. Cillian made me feel like an elf.
“Promise me something,” I said.
Cillian just stared.
“Promise me you’ll protect him first and me second.”
“My job is to protect you both,” he said. “There isn’t an either-or to the situation.”
“If you don’t promise me that he’ll be your first priority, I’m not coming with you. I’ll just stay here and wait for them to show up.”
“That would be ridiculous and rash,” he grunted. Both were things I’d told Dax I wasn’t, but this was nonnegotiable.
“He’s… He doesn’t deserve to get dragged into my mess. He’s avoided the Moris and our fucked-up world his whole life. I won’t let it be the reason he gets hurt.”
“Then listen to what we say and stay alert. That’s the best thing you can do for him.”
“Promise me,” I demanded, hands on my hips, eyes narrowing.
He stared at me for a long moment and then gave a curt nod.
I had a feeling it was as close as I was going to get to a promise from him. I’d take it. I’d use it against him if I had to, but I was hoping there wouldn’t be a need.
Dax came out of the bedroom with a grimness to his face that spoke of the seriousness of the conversation he’d just had with Dawson. His gaze flew between Cillian and me, mere inches from each other, and his jaw clenched, but he didn’t say anything, and we didn’t offer.
Instead, we left the apartment and made our way down to the first set of vehicles that would take us to Vanya’s hidden cottage along the coast.
???
At some point, after we’d changed cars for the third time to shake any tails, I’d fallen asleep. When I woke, I was leaning against Dax with his arm around me like a shield. I sat up, pushing away slightly, but his arm lingered. Outside the window, the ocean crashed against a steep cliff with the late afternoon sunshine bouncing off the water. The road we were on was skinny and crooked, but it soon gave way to wider streets and a handful of buildings that felt like more of a pitstop than an actual town. The stores and restaurants all had a seaside, touristy feel in both their names and their appearance.
We blew past the businesses and up another tiny road that crawled up the cliff overlooking the shoreline. Cillian turned off onto a driveway shrouded with trees and shrubs. If you didn’t know it was there, the drive would have been difficult to find.
Dax had said it was Vanya’s cottage, but I probably should have known that the house wouldn’t really be cottage-like because Vanya did splashy better than old Jada ever had. This house looked like it might have been transported from England—an old manor home with ivy and brick along with shutters painted blue. It was two stories and big enough that I was sure Dax and I could put a comfortable distance between us.
We had Cillian and Terrence in the car with us and six more security guards in the vehicle behind us—a team of eight that would protect us for however long we decided to hide out. I wasn’t sure I could handle the thought of eight more people dying to keep me safe, but hopefully, we’d lost any tail we might have had leaving the city.
Whoever had sent the note had given me a week to take care of things. Maybe that meant they’d stay away for that long and give us time to figure out who they were.
Cillian turned to us as he put the car in park. “Stay here while we clear the house.”
