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  “Yeah…”

  “Never would have guessed that.”

  Not one time did I ever tell her what Niall did to make his living, but I’d felt so secure talking to her about just how much of a prick he really was. She was the only person I ever truly confided in, the only person I could ever trust completely. Somehow, she still felt like that person to me, even after so much time had passed.

  “You said there was a garage close?”

  Giving her a ride was what I’d offered when I hadn’t recognized her, but I decided it best to call for the tow truck to come out instead. She would’ve looked spectacular on the back of my bike, but I couldn’t have her there with her body pressed against mine. I knew I’d never let her go this time if it went any further than that conversation.

  “I’m headed to a meeting,” I said, glancing at my watch. “I’m running a little late, but I can call the guy for you and send him your way.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  I took out my phone and called my best friend, Big Michaels. His real name wasn’t Big, it was Oliver, but he was a big kid who’d grown into a big man. He easily stood at six-foot-five or so and was built like a fucking statue. The nickname was fitting. He worked on my bike sometimes, and he had helped me out more than a time or two. I was always happy to throw some business his way.

  “What’s up, J?” he asked.

  “Got a car broke down out here off nineteen headed north toward downtown Oakton. Can you come and tow her in?”

  “Yeah, sure. I can be there in about ten minutes.”

  “That’s fine. She’s an old friend. Take good care of her, okay?” Code for don’t try to fuck this one. I had no claim to her anymore, but it didn’t mean I wanted to think about that behemoth of a man plowing her, and I definitely had no fucking desire to hear about it either.

  “Yep,” he said and ended the call.

  I tucked my phone back in my pocket and said, “He should be here soon. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes…”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I better get going. It was good seeing you, Evie.”

  The urge to prolong the goodbye made it hard to walk away, but I had a fucking job to do, and my life was no different now than it had been when I was seventeen. Worse, actually, and unfortunately, I hadn’t forgotten why I broke it off with her in the first place. I glanced at her one last time before getting back on my bike, leaving her behind once again.

  If only I didn’t have such a need to turn around, I could’ve kept on my way and prevented the shitstorm coming for both of us.

  CHAPTER 5 – EVIE

  As he started the bike up, the memories I’d tried to forget slammed into my mind, transporting me back in time to relive every miserable second of the moment my heart was torn to bits.

  “Engaged?” My heart dropped into my stomach as the news Sophie had given me ripped through my insides. He meant the world to me, so how could he act as if I were nothing to him? He wasn’t just my first love. He was my best friend, too. Though I knew we were young and the odds of us being together forever were stacked against us, the betrayal cut deep. I couldn’t imagine a life without him in it in some capacity.

  “I’m sorry, Evie.” Sophie threw her arms around me, pulling me close. “I really didn’t want to tell you, but I couldn’t keep it from you either. You deserved to know the truth.”

  “How did you find out?” I asked, my voice wavering. The walls felt as if they were closing in on me as the news she’d given me crushed my soul. Freeing myself from her embrace, I walked over to the window to alleviate the claustrophobic feeling and peered out at the backyard. Tears stung my eyes, blurring my vision in the process.

  “I ran into him this afternoon when I was with my sister at the mall in Oakton. He tried to avoid me, but I wasn’t letting him get away,” she said, crossing her arms. “Not without asking him what his deal was and how he could be so awful to you.”

  “Was his fiancé with him? Did he seem happy?” I didn’t truly want to know the answer to that question, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking anyway. Deep down, I wanted him to be happy… I just thought his happiness looked like mine—the two of us together.

  “He was alone.” Sophie shook her head and crinkled her brows as the corner of her mouth turned up. “But he really didn’t act like he was all that happy, and I swear I’m not just saying that because you’re my best friend. What do you think that was about?”

  “I don’t know… I don’t even know him anymore,” I whispered.

  For two months after the last time I saw him and he cut off communication between us, I tried hard to convince myself that there was some valid reason why he stopped calling—why he’d stopped coming around. It’d only be a matter of time before he would show up at my house and explain it all. I came up with every rational reason I could think of to explain his absence because I had to. I couldn’t let myself think the worst had happened to him, even though it managed to creep in during the quiet times, especially when my seventeenth and his eighteenth birthdays passed without so much as a whisper from him.

  I tried to convince myself that maybe he’d fallen ill and was unable to let me know, or maybe he moved unexpectedly. Could be that he’d just gotten incredibly busy and forgot to check in. Or maybe he’d gotten himself into some kind of trouble and was unable to reach me. Being engaged to another girl never crossed my mind… not once.

  I’d like to say that my love for him dimmed as the years went by, and in ways, it did, but he’d never completely left my heart. He had been the one I compared others to, even without realizing that was what I was doing—the one no one could ever quite replace.

  My heart pounded even after he’d driven away on the back of that beautiful bike of his. At least I got to see him leave this time. I glanced at the clock on my phone and wished the tow truck guy would hurry up. The day had taken a shitty turn. Instead of meeting up with Sophie, what I really wanted to do was go home so I could have a glass of wine and soak in a hot bath. Too bad that wasn’t what fate had in store for me.

  CHAPTER 6 – JET

  “It’ll have to wait until later,” I said into my phone. “The guy’s got a wife and kids at home with him. I’m not doing it with his family there.”

  Silence on the other end wasn’t unexpected. I could picture the anger raging on Niall’s face and the vein in his forehead thumping. “You lying to me, son?” he finally asked.

  “No.”

  Yes. I hadn’t even gone to the guy’s house. He could have ten kids or zero for all I knew. Hell, he could’ve been completely single or had a passel of sister wives, and I couldn’t have said one way or the other with any certainty.

  “You and your fucking rules. You know I could send any number of my guys over there to pick the fucker up. Get it done tonight. I don’t give a good goddamn who’s there. Understood?”

  “Yep,” I said and ended the call.

  I couldn’t get Evie or my time with her out of my head and had been forced to pull over to try and clear my mind. My focus was gone completely, and I had to buy myself some time or else I might end up dead. Distractions were not good in my line of work.

  She had been my escape—a bright spot severely lacking in the dark trenches of my life. I tried to replace her with one-night stands and the occasional short-lived relationship, but they could never fill the void. No one compared to her.

  I felt like such a pussy. Still hung up on my high school girlfriend when I was a hell of a lot closer to thirty than I was seventeen. I sat there in a grocery store parking lot on the back of my bike thinking of my life when she was still in it, all the good and the bad—which brought a particular altercation with my father to the forefront of my mind.

  I could almost feel my body hitting the floor as the force of Niall’s fist made contact with my gut. Gasping for air, I opened my eyes to look at him. His face had turned a deep crimson, and his eyes bulged, like they might pop completely out of his head any second. He’d m
et me in the hallway outside of his office—much smaller and less flashy than the one in the house we’d lived in for the last few years—so calmly and quietly that I’d barely noticed him. Not until his fist connected with my abdomen.

  “How many times have I fucking told you to never go into my office, you little piece of shit?” Niall asked, the vein in his forehead growing by the second. The whites of his eyes reddened with rage as he stood over my crumpled body.

  “Georgia ran in there. I was just getting her,” I said between gulps of air.

  “Don’t worry; she’ll get it next,” he said and turned to where Georgia stood, wide-eyed and frozen against the wall.

  “No,” I screamed. A burst of adrenaline compelled me to jump to my feet. “Don’t you dare touch her, you son of a bitch. I swear to God, I’ll kill you… I swear to God.”

  “I ain’t afraid of ya, ya know. You might be growing, but I’m your da. You don’t have the balls to kill me, son.”

  “You raise one hand to her,” I said narrowing my eyes at him. I was bigger than him now by at least a head and had been lifting weights to bulk myself up for nearly a year. His outbursts had grown less frequent since I started fighting back, though they hadn’t stopped completely. He usually chose to catch me off guard when he wanted to beat on me, which forced me to be on high alert all the time. Still, he was determined to catch me off guard every now and then.

  “Well, I suppose it was you who let her out of your sight. No fault of hers. From here on, when she messes up, I’ll mess you up. How’s that sound?”

  He could beat me nearly to death as long as he didn’t hurt her. She was only a toddler, and one of the only two people I really cared about. Sure, I had friends, but none I couldn’t live without.

  “Get your ass ready for school,” he said and retreated into his office, closing the door behind him.

  School was one of my only escapes. Georgia went to daycare, so at least I didn’t have to worry about her while I was out of the house. If I were lucky, I’d get a couple of hours after school to dick around before she came home.

  On the surface, we were just your average single-parent household on a limited income. That was before Niall dragged himself out of poverty by building up both of our reputations and reaping the benefits of his criminal enterprises. Behind closed doors, we were far from average or normal. Truth be told, the only reason he forced me to go to school was because he didn’t want the heat that would come from the school board if I missed too much. They might dig a little too deep into our lives, and that wasn’t good for anyone… except for Georgia and me. Maybe if someone had taken notice, we could’ve gotten out and eventually had a normal life where I didn’t have to worry so much about my baby sister all the time.

  If just one teacher along the way had noticed the bruises or questioned why I was withdrawn from most of the other kids, and done something about it, my life could’ve been drastically different. Maybe I’d have a legitimate career and a family with the one person who’d ever managed to capture my heart. She’d been the only person I ever trusted to tell the truth to, but, unfortunately, she was in no position to help.

  I didn’t really fit in with most of my classmates, but at least I knew I was safe in that building, even when some of the punk bitches trying to make a name for themselves picked a fight with me. Little did they know I was forced to learn how to fight in order to defend myself. Claiming to be a badass and actually being one were two completely different things and a lesson I’d taught to all who fucked with me. I channeled the rage I had for my old man when I fought, and I hadn’t lost once during my time in school. I was smart enough to never beat someone’s ass at school, though. I never admitted it out loud, but I didn’t want to risk being expelled.

  I trudged my way through the school day until it was time for the only class I really looked forward to—study hall. It was the best sixty minutes of the day because we were expected to do fuck all in there, but it was also where I got to see Evie Adams. I watched her day after day, week after week, doodling in her notebook or reading. She had light brown hair with bright red streaked throughout it. I would look at her, studying how she absent-mindedly separated some of the red strands from the rest and twirled them between her fingers. I watched her paint her nails black or silver from time to time, and I saw her sneaking a text on her phone and wished it were me she was sending a message to. Everything she did was right in my book.

  Once I’d found the balls to talk to her, things had taken off fast between us. Sure, we were just friends at first, but that soon started to grow into something more once I realized she liked me the same way I liked her.

  She was the only really good thing in my life. Georgia was my responsibility, but Evie wasn’t. I didn’t have to worry about anyone hurting her, and I could just be a normal teenager when I was with her. She made me forget, if only temporarily, about the hell I lived through each day.

  Part of me loved the way she trembled and tried to hide it when I talked to her. To know I had that effect on a girl blew my fucking mind. The way I dressed and wore my hair back then scared most girls away, but not Evie. She looked at me like I was some kind of exotic treasure instead of a lowlife from the wrong side of town. She made me feel like I was worth something. She made me feel loved, which was something that I’d never felt in my life up to that point, and hadn’t really felt anything as pure and passionate as her love since I left her all those years before.

  To know she was only a few miles away from me was un-fucking-bearable. The craving I had to feel her love again grew by the second. She drew me in like a lost ship to a beacon of light in the darkness, and before I knew it, I found myself headed to Big’s garage. I hadn’t quite figured out what I hoped to accomplish by tracking her down, but I’d have to work it out soon enough.

  CHAPTER 7 – JET

  I pulled to a stop in front the off-white building that had four garage stalls at its front and an office to the side a few minutes later. Big leaned against the side of the garage, the butt of a cigarette hanging from his mouth. His meaty hand reached up and tossed it to the ground, stamping it out with his foot before he walked over to greet me.

  “Just sent your friend on her way.”

  “You fixed her car that fast?”

  “Hell, no. I paid her a grand for parts,” he said, pulling out another cigarette and bringing it to his lips just before he lit up and took a long drawl. A cloud of smoke escaped his lips a beat later. “You’re welcome, by the way. I usually only offer a couple hundred, but once I realized it was Evie, I cut her a deal. She grew into a nice piece of ass, my friend.”

  “Shut your fuckin’ nicotine hole, Big,” I said. It shouldn’t have pissed me off so much to hear him say something like that about her since she was pretty much a stranger to me now. But it did.

  “Just calling it like I see it,” he said and crossed his arms.

  “Where did she go if she didn’t have a ride?”

  “Took off walking down that way,” he said, pointing toward the main road. “Couldn’t have gotten too far. She was headed to some restaurant to meet a friend. You better go get her if you don’t want someone snatching that up before she gets there.”

  I glared at him for a second before saying, “Thanks for helping her,” before I took off on my bike in the direction she’d gone. He was right. It wasn’t the best area of the city anyway. I knew this because it was where my father sent his girls and his dealers to work most of the time.

  I found her shortly after in an almost-empty parking lot next to Louise’s Steak House. Pulling up next to her, I caught her attention without really trying. She turned to look at me, and I flashed a quick smile at her. She didn’t return the sentiment. In fact, she looked like she’d rather see the angel of death than me in front of her.

  “That meeting fell through. Did you need a ride somewhere? I’ve got nowhere to be, so it’s no problem.”

  “No, I’m meeting Sophie and her roommate here for dinner
. They should be here soon.”

  “Really? Here?” I asked, cocking my eyebrow. The food was decent, but the clientele was anything but.

  “Yeah, what’s wrong with it?”

  “I guess it’s alright, but this is kind of a shitty area.”

  “Well, Sophie has eaten here before and liked it, so…” she said. She glanced at a couple walking by us.

  “Can we talk for a few minutes?”

  She hesitated, pushing some of her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I guess,” she said as her dark eyes settled on mine.

  “Should we get a table or just stay out here?” I asked, dragging my hand through my hair. I wasn’t sure why I was so nervous. She clearly didn’t feel the same about me as she used to. In fact, she acted as if she couldn’t stand the sight of me, and who could blame her? It was probably best to apologize for the way I’d left her and move on.

  “We can go in, I guess. Might as well grab a table before it gets too busy.”

  A few minutes later, I slid into a corner booth beside her, leaving ample space on the other side for the friends she was supposed to meet up with. The booth was in a semi-circle shape, and I placed myself a little closer to her than I meant to, but I couldn’t help myself. We had a magnetic attraction that hadn’t really dulled at all. I could still feel it, mostly in the form of a burgeoning erection. I just wondered if she felt anything at all being so close to me.

  After telling the waitress we were waiting on two more people to show up, she left us alone.

  “I’m just going to cut the bullshit, okay? I owe you a huge—”

  “Stop right there,” she said, throwing her hand up, palm facing me. “I don’t want to hear it. If you want to have a nice chat, maybe catch up on life, have a quick meal, that’s fine, but I’m not going back to that place.”

  “What place?” I asked, confused.