Page 112 of Collide

Chapter 29

Riley

Thepreviousthreedayswere an emotional roller coaster ride,leaving me feeling exhausted and all out of tears. One minute I would sob my heart out over the cold-blooded murder of Toby, and then the tears would turn to furious anger at Kai for being the one to pull the trigger.

It was like I had a devil and an angel sitting on my shoulder,whispering things into each ear and confusing the hell out of me.

One side said Kai was deserving of my anger, he had unnecessarilykilled Toby because he was a jealous asshole and was punishing me for hugging Toby. The other side, the devil, whispered Toby deserved what was coming, he had lied to me and betrayed me and if he hadn’t been caught, bad things would have happened to me.

I would have moments where I listened more to the devil than theangel and then times when I would listen more to the angel than the devil, resulting in my head being completely and utterly confused.

In between the moments of grieving for Toby or being angry at theworld, the comment Kai made about manipulating me popped into my head. It was almost as though my brain had found a way of causing me more pain when I was already suffering.

Once again the angel and devil would whisper their conflictingcomments and I didn’t know who to believe. The angel told me Kaihadmanipulated me, that he was only interested in me because I was a trophy he could show off as a result of winning a deal, that he was all about image and reputation.

The devil, who Ireallywanted to listen to, told me Kai had saidsomething nasty in the heat of the moment and that his feelings for me were genuine. But self-doubt overruled heart and head, and I was back to thinking Kai saw me as nothing more than a hole to fuck for the next six months.

Or five months,

I wasn’t quite sure how long was left in our agreement.

It didn’t help that Kai had somehow been sneaking into my roomwhen I slept at night. I didn’t know how he had been getting in as each night I barricaded the door with the chest of drawers, but each morning when I woke to find his scent lingering on the pillows, I knew without a shadow of a doubt he had slept next to me.I had zero memories of him actually being there with me thoughwhich led me to one conclusion, he’d been drugging me so that I slept. I didn’t know whether to be mad at him for that, but then with just how exhausted I was, I was quite grateful for the dreamless sleep, and as much as I hated to admit it, I found comfort in waking up surrounded by his scent.

I would need some serious therapy when this shit was all over.

By day four, I decided it was time to pull myself together and face upto reality. The hard truth of it was Tobyhadlied to me,haddeceived me.

The more I thought about it, the more I came to the realization thatToby had intended to trick me, otherwise, why wouldn’t he have warned me the second he met me in the club instead of making out like he accidentally bumped into me and feeding me the line about his daughter? Whether he would have warned me about the threat at some point,who knew. Maybe he was genuine when he said as soon as he saw me, he couldn’t go through with it, but I’d never be able to talk to him again so there was no way I’d ever know, and torturing myself over it was only sending me cuckoo.

As for Kai, we needed to have a long hard talk.

Deep down, I didn’t think he had manipulated me, he never once triedto hide the psycho-killer part of him. I just allowed myself to forget that part of him when he was treating me to spa days, showering me with attention, and giving me orgasm after orgasm. But I didn’t like the way he hurt me with his comment. Ironically, I could stomach him killing people, but I wouldn’t stand for him taking his anger out on me.

I blamed my fucked up teenage years for my weird morals.

Aside from creeping into my room when I was passed out, Kai hadmade no attempt to talk to me. He’d kept his distance these last few days so maybe he wasn’t interested in sorting things out with me after all….

Arghhhhhh!

Why did this have to be so hard?

I was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and replayingeverything over again in my head and trying to summon up the courage to leave my room and find Kai when a knock on the door drew me from my thoughts.A little pang of hope shot through me, hope that it might have beenKai coming to make amends, but hope was quickly followed by disappointment when Danny’s gruff voice called out.

“Riles, I need to talk to you.”

Danny had tried once before to talk to me but I wasn’t ready to talk toanyone. I’d heard him mutter an apology outside my door when I had told him to fuck off before he stomped away, and that was the last anyone tried to talk to me.Even Jacqueline had barely squeaked at me when she brought mefood on a daily basis. I really had been a grumpy bitch.

Biting the bullet, I slid the chest of drawers away from the door whichI had placed to stop Kai from barging in unannounced, and pulled the door open to find a confused look on Danny’s face, probably because I’d actually opened the door this time. He shook the look from his face and gave me a half smile.

“You okay?” he asked, which in my opinion was a stupid fuckingquestion.

“Wonderful,” I replied dryly. He looked tired like he hadn’t had muchsleep these last few nights, and I couldn’t help feeling a pang of guilt for him.

“Riles, I’m sorry but I need you to pack a bag,” he said, grimacing.

I raised an eyebrow, wondering what the hell he was talking about.Why would I need to pack a bag? Unless Kai had officially had enough of my sulking and was kicking me out.That notion sat heavy in my gut.

When I didn’t ask or make a move to jump at his command, he sighedand rubbed a hand down his jaw.“It’s an order that has come from Kai. He wants to move you andAngel to a safe house. It’s too risky keeping you in the city,” he explained.

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