Alex. Alex. Alex.
Lord, that fucker’s lucky he’s no longer with us.
The more Hailey remembers about him, the more questions she poses in the margins, the more potent my hatred grows.
It’s good that Broadway’s already dug him up for parts, or I’d join him to put a bullet in the dead man’s skull.
Hailey’s added a few flashbacks while I was in Chicago. Nothing that’d lead me to the evidence, unfortunately, but enough to start painting a picture of their relationship.
A fucked-up picture that doesn’t fit anything I’ve imagined since Rhett told me they were an item. Alex swooped in while Hailey was grieving her mother and manipulated her vulnerable mind.
He made her dependent on him.
A few gifts, cheap compliments, minimum conversation, and Hailey danced to his tune like a circus monkey.
She was hungry for affection. Hungry for attention. A shred of human contact. Vaughn dragged her away from the life she knew in Florida, then promptly escaped into his work, leaving his daughter alone in a new reality.
That’s when Alex sensed an opportunity.
It’s still unclear why he swooped in, whether he found her attractive, enjoyed breaking and putting her back together the way he wanted, or if he had an agenda. One thing is clear, though: he exploited her weaknesses while she was at her weakest.
That’s a sin he’d be skinned alive for had he survived Babyface.
Though I imagine if Hailey were honest in her diary, I’d find more reasons to inflict the most heinous death on the fucker. She scribbles new bits in every day, but some memories seem incomplete. Specifically the most recently added ones.
I think she redacts certain parts, more focused on the surroundings and her feelings than the actual events.
The roar of my Pontiac’s engine fills the air while Hailey and I fly down narrow country roads. She’s hungry and the cafeteria’s closed for the night, so we’re taking a road trip.
I’ve learned over the past week that the easiest way to ensure she eats three meals is sex three times a day. Making her orgasm until she begs for a break and a sandwich is my new mission.
She’s lost too much weight while I’ve known her.
The windows are down, the warm fall wind ruffling Hailey’s hair. Blonde locks dance around her face as she rests against the seat, one arm out the window, her fingers dancing on the wind.
I keep stealing glances at her, drawn to her blissful features, pursed lips, and long eyelashes. All those creams and serums she massages into her scars every evening have worked miracles on her cheeks. It’s been a week, but the scratches have almost healed, just a few deeper ones still fading.
She’s a feast for the senses. The perfect blend of feminine and fierce. Delicate and strong. Cautious and fucking reckless. Her skin’s soft, nose a cute little button, cheeks round and mostly blushing faint pink, but those deep steel-blue eyes give off a different vibe. So do her scars. She’s not as dainty as she looks. There’s a fire in this girl, one that has blinding potential.
And it’s tempting…
I want to unleash that fire, break through her defenses, and watch her set the world alight.
Save for the music, we ride in silence. A comfortable silence I’ve only ever experienced with people I trust. Whoever restored this car swapped out the old eight-track for a CD player. I’d have preferred something more modern, but I’ll take what I can get.
“Everlong” by Foo Fighters seeps from the old speakers, apparently not hitting Hailey’s mood.
“Can we change the music?” she asks as we pull up at a set of traffic lights in town.
“There’s a stack of CDs in the glove box.”
With a nod, she leans over, creaking the compartment open just as I remember what else is stashed in there.
The serene atmosphere evaporates, replaced by thick, suffocating tension once the dim light from the streetlamps reaches the inside of the glove box, illuminating the CDs and… the 9mm Glock inches from Hailey’s fingers.
She loses color faster than I can shut the glove box. Her bright eyes darken, widen, and fear shadows her features.
It’s instantaneous.
A dark memory pulls her under, drowning her in its grip while another piece of the puzzle rushes to the surface.
A flashback triggered by the sight of a gun.
The girl I was admiring seconds ago disappears in a flash, replaced by a fragile, haunted version. The fierceness is gone, and so is her strength.
She crumbles before me. Her delicacy and vulnerability take center stage, amplified tenfold by her pale skin and those unseeing, hazy eyes never leaving the gun.
Every instinct I have demands that I tuck her against my chest and pull her out of her own mind so she doesn’t have to relive whatever horror she went through.
But I can’t. This might be the key. It might be crucial. It’s her past. It already happened. It can’t hurt her. She’s safe with me.
The arguments hit a wall inside my head because Hailey starts shaking, her cheeks whiter than kneaded dough.
“Hailey,” I rasp, my throat tight. Fuck the key. I can’t watch this fear warping her features. “Hailey, snap out of it. Focus on me. You’re okay, it’s just a memory.”
She doesn’t react. She’s miles deep, her breaths fast and shallow, each inhale like the gasp of a drowning person.
I reach over to run my knuckles down her face, but before I touch her, the light ahead flickers to green.
“Hold on,” I say, pulling away toward a gas station. “Come back, Hailey. Snap out of it.”
My pulse thumps so hard I feel the pressure in my ears. I don’t think she can hear me. She’s in too deep and the five hundred yards to the gas station stretches into fucking miles. I floor the pedal to close the gap.
She swallows a gulp of air like she’s been under a lake for three minutes and just broke the surface. A choked-back sob follows and my head whips toward her.
She’s not alarmed. Not scared. Not anxious or nervous. She’s fucking terrified, shaking like a kitten snatched from the litter. Her eyes meet mine and the depth of her fear will haunt me till the day I die.
I want to round the hood and yank her out, but I remember what happened last time she went under so deep, she—
Time slows to a crawl as she reaches for the door handle, still in a frenzy, still shaking, still in the past.
I don’t immediately realize what she’s about to do. It doesn’t click until my mind connects the dots and a cold chill seizes my muscles.
“Hailey, don’t!” I reach for her but it’s too late.
She yanks the door open, tucks her body and throws herself out of the moving car.
—she did just that.
Fuck!
My world splinters apart at the sickening sound of her body hitting the road. It takes me less than a second to batter the steering wheel and hit the brake, but civilizations could have risen and fallen during that one second.
My heart triphammers in my chest, banging so hard it’s not far off busting ribs. My ears ring as screeching tires and blaring horns fill the street.
In a daze, I jump out, slamming both hands on the roof, eyes jumping left and right, searching for her body…
A part of my brain is convinced she’s dead.
Everything inside me stills until I spot her darting between moving vehicles at full speed, bouncing off hoods.
Relief doesn’t last long. It hits like the burn of a vodka shot, then dies as more blasting horns and squealing tires fill the air, the drivers stamping their brakes before they run her over.
Each near miss damn near stops my heart, panic surging in my veins. It’s a foreign feeling. Bizarre. Infuriating.
I’ve never felt as raw and unnerved as I do right now, watching Hailey running away from me.
Traffic comes to a grinding halt and people either scramble out or roll their windows, yelling incomprehensibly. Almost everyone’s staying away, but one brave guy jumps in front of me, arms outstretched.
I barely fucking notice him, my world reduced to the frightened blonde desperate to put distance between us. She’s not checking the road’s safe. She’s not thinking. She runs straight ahead like a startled deer, disappearing into an alleyway.
“Leave her alone!” the guy booms, eyes narrowed into slits.
I don’t stop, winding my elbow back mid-run, the momentum only making my fist connect harder with his jaw. It sends him stumbling back, his hands flying to clutch his bleeding nose.
“Grab him!” someone else yells.
I should’ve snagged my gun from the glove box. One look at the steel would stop the bravest of men chasing after me.
Thundering steps echo in the dead-end alley as I round the corner. Hailey’s at the end, pressed against the wet, grimy brick wall, tears sliding down her porcelain cheeks.
I’m there before she can look for another way out. I grip her waist, one hand cradling her face to tilt her head my way. Her tears wet my fingertips, glistening under the flickering streetlights from the main street.
“Look at me, Hailey. You’re okay, I’m here.”
“Leave her alone!” a voice cries out behind.
The panicked haze clears now Hailey’s with me, and reality seeps in, letting me see the whole situation as a passive observer. I’m part of a scene straight from a thriller. A young girl—clearly scared—tucked and rolled out of a moving car and ran away from a man who came sprinting after her.
No wonder the crowd got the wrong idea. They don’t know the story. They don’t understand I’m not the villain.
I ignored the stop right there! and leave her alone! coming from all sides while I zigzagged around the cars. I ignored the scared, shocked faces whizzing past and the men trying to stop me.
It’s admirable, truly.
Nowadays, not many people have the guts to intervene, most stay on the sidelines turning a blind eye, pretending they can’t see something bad happening.
The thudding steps halt behind me and a heavy hand grips my shoulder, yanking me back. Another guy jumps toward Hailey, keeping a three-foot distance, his arms raised.
“Are you okay, miss?” he asks, full of caution. “Are you hurt?”
He’s too close.
He’s way too fucking close to my girl.
The noise from a nearby bar, the chatter of onlookers, the hum of running engines: all blurs into a dissonant background noise while my muscles wind up tighter.
“Get the fuck away from her,” I snap, jumping away from the guy gripping my shoulder.
He lunges at me, elbow cocked, but he’s too slow. I dodge, immediately driving my fist into his face. With a pained gasp, he folds like a house of cards, sputtering blood and spit onto the slick cobblestones.
It rained for four days, making the search for Jensen much harder on the cops, but that cleared up two days ago… why are the cobblestones wet?
The stench aggravating my nostrils reveals the guy’s kneeling in a puddle of piss.
For a split second, save for the ever-present murmur of the small town, silence blankets the alleyway.
Until another man tries his luck, rushing at me. There’s three here now. Three on one. Not fair, but I’ve beat worse odds.
I don’t offer him a sliver of attention, gripping the man in front of Hailey by his collar. Killing two birds with one stone, I hurl him at the approaching daredevil, sending them both tumbling onto the piss-slick ground.
A distant wail of police sirens works like sobering salts on Hailey. She finally looks past the memories, her eyes snapping to mine. And she sees me, a mix of emotions clouding her tear-stained face.
I glance over my shoulder as the men scramble to their feet, wondering whether I should take them down or grab Hailey and make a run for it.
“Nash,” she breathes.
Relief shakes me from head to toe. Just hearing her voice loosens the coil of fear cinching my chest.
“Where…? What—” Her voice breaks.
The other men hesitate, exchanging confused looks, their aggressive postures melting away when Hailey rushes right at me. I open my arms in time to catch her as she burrows into my chest. The familiar, sweet scent of her fills my lungs, grounding me faster than a shot of whiskey ever could.
“Shh, you’re okay, I’m here.”
Grasping the lapels of my jacket, she pulls herself closer. “I… I don’t know what happened, I had a flashback and then…”
“You scared the hell out of me,” I admit, deftly tangling my fingers in her blonde locks. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”
“Miss… are you okay? Do you know this man?” One guy asks, his stance rigid, face no longer murderous, but puzzled instead. “Do you need help?”
She peers up, and my muscles relax further. She’s pale, still scared, still clinging to me like she can’t stand not to, but that spark in her eyes is back.
“I’m fine.” She sounds stronger than before. Stronger than she looks. “I… I had a panic attack.”
Sirens grow louder making the cobblestones beneath our feet vibrate. I pull Hailey closer. Her warm, shaky breath whispers against my neck.
A sense of clarity fills my mind, quickly reminding me what’s at stake: my mission, my fake identity and, by extension, Rhett’s freedom. Maybe his life.
Hailey’s life.
I grab my phone from my back pocket, sending Ryder a short text.
Me: Pull my location and send it to Andres. Cops are coming. Make sure he handles it.
It’s a good thing Andres’ business is dependent on Dante, or my cover would be blown before the night ends.
