Page 70 of The Rush

“Tell them who Jeremy is, Cedar,” Fin growls. “Tell them why your dad’s hanging around.”

“No, I—”

“You mean the one that was just outside?” Ian asks with a firm brow and a floating gaze.

“Which one?” Fin’s attention snaps to the bodyguard with a feral growl that makes me grimace.

“The crack-headed gutter rat?” Rex asks and my head begins to spin with the conversation that’s going on over my head.

The voices filter in around me and jumble together into incoherent sentences I can’t even begin to understand, though I know they’re asking me questions and expecting answers.

“Please stop.” My voice is barely a whisper as my heart races, my breath running right along with it.

“Cedar, tell me what the hell happened.” Rex’s desperation leaks out of his words.

“C’mon,” Fin pushes.

“C, please.”

“Stop,”I roar with a heaving chest and push up from the chair they crowd to plant my ass right on the concrete and throw my legs up the length of my toolbox. It’s steady enough to hold my heavy boots up in the air as I flatten my spine to the cool ground.

On your back again,I hear Jeremy’s sneer in my head as the tears break free and roll down the side of my face. Pushing my palms into the sockets, I can’t hold back the sob that rakes from my stuttering chest.

Because of course I’d have a panic attack. In front of everyone.

It feels like chaos erupts around me, the chattering and static of noise that my brain refuses to register assaulting my ears and assisting in the flow of tears from my eyes.

“I fucking lied, okay?”I’m blubbering, a hot fucking mess on the floor of what was supposed to be the best weekend I’ve ever had.

Poetic, I guess.

Certainly, heavy therapy material.

“I lied and said I could walk. I lied about knowing Jeremy. Ilied.”

The moment the words are off my lips, I’m ripped from the floor with such force that the air whooshes from my lungs and the stuck sobs intensify. Shaking and numb, and so fucking angry, I barely feel the warmth wrap around me as my ass is settled against muscular legs. My hair fills my mouth, wet from the shit that leaks from my face, and leaves me with a level of shame I’ve never felt before.

They all deserve better.

“Sweetness.” Fin’s voice fills my ear and adds to the tension built up in my chest, enough that I feel like it might actually snap. “You’re okay.”

It feels like I shake my head, but I’m so fucked that I can’t tell.

“You’re okay,” Fin almost coos—if an angry man can—and cradles my head to his hard chest. “You’re safe, I promise.”

He cups my jaw gently, his callused fingertips grazing my skin and pulling another incontrollable sob from deep in my gut.

I cling to his shirt—different that the one he wore earlier—with tight fists and cry into his pec as he holds me close and speaks softly in my ear.

“You’re safe, Cedar. I’ve got you.” His voice is deep and scratchy and easy to focus on when it’s whispering over the shell of my ear in repeated affirmations. “No one’s gonna hurt you.”

My breath stutters in my throat, catching up on the emotions that spill out of me like a cathartic purge and I suck in the first breath in what feels like hours.

Pulling back just enough to breathe fresh air, Fin tilts my face up with a thumb under my chin and his fingers curled into the back of my neck.

“Sweet, you’re safe with me. Always,” he whispers with shining eyes and a firmed jaw. A jaw that reminds me that there’s other people around me and another level of panic arises.

With wide eyes, I glance around my setup, only to find it empty.

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