Page 21 of Judgment Day

Her hands were on my chest, shoving and pushing. She’d pulled herself away from my body. Her eyes were wild with fury, and her chest heaved. I was still processing the last thirty seconds—hell, the last thirteen hours—when Sadie said something. I had no idea what. I only heard her voice break through the pulse pounding in my ears.

“What the hell, Grey? What was all that about?”

I turned to face her, swallowing. How did I explain it?They were going to kill you, didn’t seem like the right words to someone who had no idea whotheywere.

She dashed back out the door.

I ran after her, stopping—breath frozen and heart stilled—as I watched her wave goodbye to the girl she’d been talking to earlier. The girl climbed into the van, and the van drove away.

The sun was still shining. Birds were still singing. There was no flash of fire or gunshot ringing in the air.

Nothing happened.

Sadie was still here.

We were both still here.

“Who was that?” I asked, my voice hard as stone. My heart thrashed around in my chest while I waited for her answer.

“The laundry service,” she said as though the weight of death didn’t lie in my question. “They come once a week for towels and sheets. Why?”

Because someone in a van just like that one killed Liam.

“Where did you find them?”

“Winston hired them. I just run interference when a stain doesn’t come out.” She smiled, but it was weak.She was afraid of me.

Why wouldn’t she be? In her eyes, I was acting like I belonged in a mental hospital right next to Winston.

“What happened just now? What was that?” she asked softly, a wrinkle between her brows.

She wanted answers, and she deserved them. But those answers didn’t matter. Not anymore. It was a false alarm. She was safe. I would explain everything to her. Eventually. Right now, I needed answers of my own.

I schooled my features. “Tell me who they are, and I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all.”

Her face dropped, and the air between us changed. It thickened. “It’s just a laundry service, Grey.”

“I’m not talking about them.”

She looked away. I fucking hated it. I didn’t want her shame. None of this was her fault.

“I never saw their faces.”

Not a day went by in the last twelve years that I didn’t think about that night on my nineteenth birthday, that I didn’t regret taking her into the woods. I wondered how different things would have been if I hadn’t been so careless with her.Would she have been safe then? Would I have stayed out of prison? Would my parents still be alive?At night, in the quiet and the darkness, the ghosts of my decisions haunted me. The demons of what I’d done—or hadn’t done—seeped inside of me and burned in my blood. I wasn’t a good man. But I wanted to be good forher.

I wanted to fix this.

Ineededto fix this.

She deserved to be happy. Even if it wasn’t with me.

“It’s over now. No one is ever going to hurt you again.”

She lifted her gaze, a dark mix of pain and anger. “Don’t make promises that aren’t yours to keep.”

She was hurt. I’d earned that.

“You don’t trust me.”

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