Page 73 of Break for Me

She was the difference it made for me.

Memphis had been terrified from the very beginning of this job that it would be the thing that separated us. And every choice I’d made since having it assigned to us seemed to be pushing us in that direction. Memphis was where my loyalty was these days. Not to this job or the President who none of us even knew. It was always Memphis. I’d spent a lifetime failing the people who cared deeply for me. Somewhere over the last few years, she became my only remaining connection to this world, the sole thing on the planet who gave me the sense that I was still human. Risking her was not something I could just choose to do. I couldn’t bring myself to say that to Trista though. She might as well have punched me right in the dick with how little I liked hearing her words.

Save me.

I was not a saving kind of man.

People needed saved from me. I was the common denominator between an endless list of lives lost.

I squeezed her another time. “I need you to get in the car, Triss,” I whispered into the top of her head. Her body shook one last time before I felt her try to breathe in as deeply as she could, despite the way that I was crushing her against me.

“I hate you,” she said into my chest.

I hate me too, baby.

fifty-one

TRISTA

I was surprised that he really didn’t put me in the trunk after that. He locked me in the car and paced around just outside the door while he was on the phone again. I couldn’t hear him, but his movements were more frantic than I’d ever seen them. The man never spoke with his hands but he looked like he was trying to karate chop the air for this conversation.

The rest of the drive into Philadelphia was a silent one. The thought of having to face Nate again after all these years made me want to throw up everywhere. Now that I’d have to face him with the possibility of his second son’s death on my hands? God. Jersey could even stand there and tell Nate that he was the one who shot Bryce, and Nate would still say it never would’ve happened if I hadn’t started all this years ago. Maybe they didn’t speak anymore. That would be my only saving grace from that aspect. Nate wanted me back “home” to deal with me himself. Bryson just wanted my death by his own hands. They’d never agreed on how to handle it. That was why Bryce was out here after me on his own, while Nate sent person after person out hunting. I hadn’t seen my mother in the same amount of time. I couldn’t imagine they’d bring her in on their fun, but Nate was a special kind of cruel. He wouldn’t have her there to cause her any pain, but he absolutely would have her there to let me see one last time that she was still on his side, rather than her daughter’s.

I’d accepted how this was going to play out by the time Jersey was pulling the car into an empty, dark parking lot next to an equally dark and rundown building. I didn’t recognize it, but I also hadn’t been here for the last five years. I was never involved in Nate’s business endeavors anyway. He could own property, buildings, businesses all across this country that I’d never know about in any lifetime.

I had no hand left to play. Even if I ran for it the moment he opened the car door, Jersey would catch me. While some tiny part of him might’ve wanted to keep me as his personal plaything, he wasn’t going to help me. He wasn’t going to just change his mind. I didn’t particularly enjoy thinking about it, but there was a good chance that this was how all of his jobs went. That would make sense as to why he couldn’t be swayed by some broken girl begging him for even a sliver of mercy. This was normal for him. He did this often enough that he had no heart left with which I could plead.

He sat perfectly still, staring at the building in front of us for a few minutes. Even that pissed me off. Why bother dragging it out? Why make it last even longer than it already had to? I reached for my door handle just to find myself thoroughly enraged that he still had it locked. He was glaring at me when I looked back at him. I watched him put the little radio in his ear and attach the camera to the front of his jacket.

“You with me?” He asked. His eyes closed when he squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“Don’t start with me, Memphis. I’m not in the mood and this isn’t the time.”

“It’s not her fault you’re a dick. Open the fucking door. Let me out,” I said and shook the door handle. He laid his head back against the seat and breathed in deeply through his nose. He chuckled and shook his head. He leaned forward again when he opened his eyes to stare out the front windshield.

“What do you mean you can’t see us?” He asked. “I’m looking right at a camera over the front door.”

“My fucking God. What does it matter? Let me out of the car, Jersey. You don’t even have to go in with me. Stay out here if you’re afraid,” I hissed every word at him. I flipped my shit when he only stared at me. I reached across the car for his keys, but he snatched my wrist right out of the air. He used his hold on my arm to jerk me across the center console closer to him.

“Don’t test me right now, girl.”

Everything in me wanted to find out if I could push every button he had in under nine seconds. Maybe that would be enough to convince him to kill me quickly and just shove my body out into the parking lot. That would still be more merciful than what was about to happen to me inside this building. He had a point where rage consumed him and turned him into something that couldn’t even see straight, but his body reacted to threats automatically and brutally once it happened. If I could find a way to draw that kind of anger out of him, it might solve my problems. He released my arm and unlocked the doors. He was out of the car before I could even consider what I might use to start stabbing at the interior to make him want to hurt me. My door was open the next moment and he was holding his hand out to help me from the car.

“How kind of you to want to escort me right into Hell.”

He didn’t let go of my hand once I was standing in front of him. In fact, when I tried to withdraw it, his grip tightened. He pulled me the rest of the way into him and held my hand against his chest with his own. Even in the dark, his stare burned right through me. He leaned down to kiss me so softly that it took my brain a full three or four seconds to really grasp that it was happening. It wasn’t punishing or possessive. It wasn’t dominating.

It was so tender that it hurt.

It was the most painful goodbye I’d ever experienced, and I didn’t even know the man.

fifty-two

JERSEY

“Jersey,” Memphis said in my ear the moment that I’d turned to lead Triss toward the building.

“Don’t,” I said quietly. “Please.”

---