Page 75 of The Final Deal

The realization makes the world around me fall until my knees hit brick.

If I can’t find a way out, this really will be the end. No more Zak, no more Adrian, no more Timeless—only three hundred and sixty-five days of New Year’s Ball and Ty.

I might as well have died on the bridge in Zak’s arms.

Hands rest on my shoulders. “You promise you’re not willingly bringin’ him back here?

“Shannon, I swear… I’d never…”

My swear turns into nonsensical babbling, but every bit of it makes sense in my mind:I’d never bring Ty’s bitch ass back here—I’d never go into business with him even if it was to keep myself alive.

“C’mon. It’s empty in this house without a menacing woman.”

Shannon helps me up, letting me lean against his thin frame as he hobbles inside the house with me clinging to his side. Heshuffles us through the living room, down the hallway, and into the guest room across from Andrea’s bedroom.

He’s depressed about Kris leaving, but he lasted only three days at his mom’s before coming home. It might be empty for him without his wife, but his daughter sure can fill up a room with her personality alone.

He leads me to the bed and coaxes me to lie down, promising he’ll be back in a second. When he returns, he sits on the edge of the bed with cotton swabs, peroxide, and bandages. It stings when he cleans the abrasions on my face, and it worsens when tears trickle down into them.

“I’ve lost them for good, haven’t I?” I whisper.

He doesn’t say anything as he gingerly applies gauze and tapes it down, careful to avoid excessive pressure when I wince. We stare at one another unsurely until my vision blurs.

“You’ll find a way. You always do.”

Chapter 29

Cut Me Open

–Of Virtue

My eyes are gluedto the house as Shannon parks behind the Hellcat and Tacoma. He set the radio to 99.5 KISS, so Smashing Pumpkin’s “1979” is playing for the billionth time.

I punch the radio off and grumble. “I don’t know why you still listen to that shit station. KISS sucks.”

“Nostalgia,” he brushes off as he cuts the engine. “You sure about this?”

“No.” I swallow the unsurety thickening in my throat. “But I have to try.”

Walking up to the house I’ve come to call my own is like trudging through leaden mud. My hand automatically reaches for the key in my purse, but I pause. This house is my home, but even it warns me to tread carefully as I reach the door.

The familiar swirl of dark grain is hypnotic and soothes the quell of nerves that tug at me, telling me to storm inside, spill my guts, and make them see that I’ve been set up.

This is what he wants, and we can’t give in now.

Tentatively, I ring the doorbell.

You have to understand, I rehearse in my mind as the loud music blaring in the house cuts off.I’m not willingly doing this. Ty forced this on me; the devil forced this on me.

I’m doing this for you. Both of you. All of us.

The door swings open. Adrian is shirtless and stands in the middle of the threshold, and he contains his surprise by crossing his arms over his ribs.

The words escape me, and the lump in my throat grows ten sizes and chokes me at the glint of a ring on his left hand.

“Who is it?”

My vision blurs as Zak appears. He stops in his tracks behind Adrian; the hurt renews all over again, and he lifts his hand up slightly to rub his fingers together.

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