Say It's Forever, page 34
Dread curled through her body, but still, she held onto me, girl wrapping me in this silent support. In this feeling of wholeness that I’d never thought I’d experience again.
“There was a family in a house…they wanted…this boy.” I could barely force the words out. “I was supposed to take out the officers there to protect the family so they could get in and take the baby.”
Shame carved through the confession. Grief and agony that I couldn’t contain. It bounded out into the room from my spirit and echoed back, amplified in the swimming rays of muted light.
I choked on a breath as I forced myself to continue. “Turned out the plan was to set the house on fire to trap the mother inside. Get rid of her. I didn’t know it at the time, until the news reported it the next day, but there were two children in there, Salem. A baby boy and girl. A mom and her children.”
Grief constricted the words, a guttural cry lanced in the middle of them.
“They wanted the boy…but they didn’t want the woman or the girl child to leave that house.”
Her arms stiffened, and she inhaled a sharp, biting breath.
I held her hands tighter to me as I let the confession free. “I tried to stop it. Tried to stop them from taking the boy. From hurting the rest. But no one made it out of there alive. Not one of them survived because I tried to intervene, and I made it even worse.”
She started to jerk away, but I held her closer as the words scraped like fire from my tongue, rushed and pleading, like I could rearrange them into something else even when I knew there was no chance of ever erasing this truth.
“I tried, Salem. When they realized I was going to fight them, it became a battle. I managed to take out all the men who came to end them, but not before the house was set on fire. I tried to get them out—to find them—to help them.”
It left me on a haggard moan.
Or maybe it was just Salem’s.
“Where?” she demanded.
“Los Angeles. Four years ago.”
A choked sob ripped up her throat as she struggled to break free of my hold.
I let her go as realization slammed me.
When I realized she saw me then.
The real me.
And she was going to leave me, too.
I didn’t want to even look at her, to see the fear and loathing that would no doubt be written on her face. But I couldn’t stop myself. Not when she scrambled away like she was the one being burned, choking and gasping and heaving out for the breaths that wheezed from her lungs.
“No,” she begged.
“I told you, Salem. Told you it was bad.” I forced myself to look back at her.
I nearly died right there when I saw her expression.
The horror.
The terror.
Tears streamed hot down her gorgeous face, and her mouth was trembling everywhere.
She slipped off the opposite edge of the bed. “No. No, Jud, no.”
Torment clotted my throat. “Would never hurt you.”
She backed away, her hands clutched to her chest, clawing at her heart like she was going to rip it out.
“Darlin’?” I was such a fuckin’ fool because I pushed to my feet and started around the bed like I could be worthy of holding some of her fear when I was the one who’d caused it.
“He…he…f-f-found us.” The words tripped from her tongue.
A frown curled my brow. “What?”
“He found us. No. He found us.” Frantic, she spun in a circle. She suddenly lurched forward, scrambling around on the floor until she found her shoes.
She jerked them on, hopping around to try to keep her balance.
I rounded the end of the bed, approaching her like she was a wild animal that’d been backed into a corner. “What are you saying? Who found you?”
A distressed sob raked from her throat and ricocheted against the walls. “He found us, Jud. Carlo. He found us.”
She may as well have bashed me with a sledgehammer. The way pain splintered through my head. I stumbled and my knees locked.
Sickness, hatred, and dread coiled through the room. A vortex that would suck us in and consume.
“Did you say Carlo? What are you saying, Salem? Tell me you’re not saying what I think you are.” The demand cracked through the heated air.
Carlo.
Marcello’s piece of shit older brother.
He was the family head. The one who’d called the shots. Gave the orders. He was the one I’d thought I’d have to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for, sure he’d be back for revenge. Thinking one day he’d come for me. Instead, the coward had up and disappeared after it’d all gone down.
The bastard who’d had his wife and babies killed. The one who was responsible for the deaths of the two officers posted to guard them. Not to mention his brother and two of his men who had been found on the scene—only those three had been compliments of me.
Carlo was one of LA’s most wanted. As far as I knew, he’d become dust. Vapor. There had been no sign of him for the last four years.
She backed away. “Did you do this? Oh my god, did you do this? Trap us?”
A disorder blustered through her words, and my brow pinched in pained confusion. “What the fuck are you talking about, Salem? Tell me what the hell you are saying. I would never hurt you. I love you. I fucking love you. Please, tell me what is happening.”
She gasped against my words then rushed for her purse, and she tossed out the words like they made perfect sense. “Not everyone died in that house, Jud.”
“What? Fuck, Salem, tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.”
She flew around to look at me, her face soaked. “The news reported that we all died, Jud. My son…Lucas…he was in his crib. I lost him. Oh god. I lost him.” Her knees nearly buckled when she said it, and her hand darted to the table to steady herself. Her grief was so thick I could taste it. “But Juni and I…we got out.”
Sorrow trapped her in that dark, dark storm.
She squeezed her eyes shut before a rush of words tumbled from her mouth. “I was rocking Juni in the other room. We heard noises, and I went to go for him…I begged to go for him, Jud, but the officer…she forced us out the side door and said she would get him. She promised she would get him.”
The words broke on the last because she hadn’t.
She hadn’t.
Dread sank through my spirit.
Because I had.
I had found him.
Had found him too late.
And there was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do.
The walls spun.
It had been Salem in that house.
Salem and Juni.
And her son. Her son.
Gripping my head, I bent in two.
“Oh, fuck. Salem. No.” Agony clawed through my being. Enough to drop me to my knees.
I managed to stay standing so I could move for her. The only thing I wanted was to wrap her in my arms. Hold her and protect her.
On a yelp, she put her hands out in front of her. “Stay away from me, Jud. Don’t you understand? If you didn’t do this? It was him. It’s a set up. He found us. He’s going to kill us both.”
“No. Won’t let that happen.”
“You killed his brother, Jud.” The plea spilled from her mouth. The truth of what all this really meant.
“I did.”
Terror filled the void between us.
Rippling and shivering.
“I was a fool for coming here. For losing sight of my purpose. I have to go. We have to get out of here before it’s too late.”
“Let me—”
She shrieked when I reached for her, and I felt it then. The blame. The hate. The truth of what I’d caused. What I should’ve stopped but had been too blind to see.
She backed out of the doorway. “Stay away from me.”
“Salem, please.”
“Stay away. I mean it.”
THIRTY-FOUR
SALEM
Panic flooded my bloodstream.
A surge of terror that rose high and swept me under, but it was the heartbreak that would do me in.
Jud.
It seared me in two.
Cleaved me in half.
Jud had been there that night. He’d been there, and he’d tried to stop it.
As soon as I’d accused him of working with Carlo, of tricking me into falling for him, I’d known it was wrong. I felt Jud’s agony just as sure as I felt my own.
Those aching pieces of myself that were barely held together were obliterated in his pain.
In this torment that I couldn’t fathom.
Couldn’t process.
It was gutting.
Shattering.
It only spiked the anxiety farther. The rush of adrenaline—of awareness—that promised I had to get out of there.
Leave it behind.
That for me and Juni, there was no such thing as home.
Jud couldn’t fix this. It was only going to destroy us all.
My mind spun with every horrible possibility. There had to be a bigger reason I was there in Redemption Hills. A bigger reason I had found Jud. A reason we had come together.
It spiraled with every gut-wrenching scenario of how Carlo had found us.
I knew it. I knew he had. I knew he was there.
Watching.
Waiting.
Sickness clawed and crept and seeped all the way to my bones.
A cold dread that shivered and froze.
This time when I pressed down on the accelerator, I forced myself to ignore everything else around me.
Every call and every claim.
I couldn’t give thought or reason or purpose to Jud’s pleas as he chased behind us. As he tried to break through the disorder the same way as he’d done last night, although right then, I knew we’d already ended before we’d ever really begun.
Our destinies had already been carved in stone.
“Salem…just listen…you can’t leave like this. Fuck, please, don’t do this.”
Juni whimpered from the backseat, more afraid than I thought she’d ever been, while I mashed the accelerator to the floor. The SUV fishtailed as I skidded out of the Iron Ride parking lot and onto the street.
My hands cinched around the steering wheel as I prayed. As I prayed for a moment. For a break in time. For a fighting chance.
For escape.
Tears blurred my eyes as I sped down the street, barely slowing as I took a sharp right.
I flew past Absolution then took a left at the next intersection.
Prayed these wings would give us flight.
I barreled down the roads of the small town, spinning it into chaos, the brightening sky ominous as the sun lifted on the mountain.
As the glimmering rays gave way to a new day that I was terrified would be our end.
How could this happen? How could I let this happen? I’d known not to come here. Not to become complacent. Not to fall.
I took the few quick turns before I made the last left onto the sleeping neighborhood street. My aching heart was lodged in my throat, and my stomach was twisted in knots of terror as I quickly approached the narrow driveway of the small house that had come to mean so much.
I knew Darius and Mimi had wanted to give us this home, while home had begun to feel like it was in the arms of a man who I’d left behind on the other side of this city.
This sweet, hopeful town that now felt like a trap.
An ambush.
I rammed on the brakes and came to a jarring stop.
Juni cried out through the bottled fear. “Mommy.”
“I know, sweetheart, I know.”
My entire being shook uncontrollably as I rushed out of my seat and yanked open the back-passenger door. I fumbled to remove my daughter from the straps—my reason, my purpose, my life—knowing I’d only have to put her right back in them.
I hated it.
Hated it.
I guarded myself against the pain, against the coming hurt and loneliness, and focused on what I had to do.
Run.
With my daughter in my arms, I jogged up the sidewalk. I was barely able to get the key into the lock. When I finally managed it, I tossed it open. The wood slammed against the interior wall, shaking the little house like an earthquake had come to toss it from its foundation.
I wondered if it had.
The door banged shut behind us, and I bolted toward the suitcase I’d shoved in the corner. One I had believed I would never have to use again.
A fool.
A fool.
I set Juni onto her feet and began to stuff our necessities inside.
“Mommy, no, I don’t wants to go on another adventures. We like it rights here, remember? We gotta stay here forever, and the bads man can never come here because it’s the bestest place we ever gots.”
For a beat, my eyes squeezed shut, wishing it were true. That I could offer it to my daughter.
Give her the life that she deserved.
“We’re going to go someplace extra fun, Juni. I promise. Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.”
“Mommy, no.” She pressed her little fists to her eyes.
God.
How could I keep doing this?
But I had no other choice.
We’d left that night under the cover of darkness. Amid the agony of leaving half myself behind. The cutting away of life that had scourged me to the soul.
My son lost to a battle he never should have had to fight.
I’d been helpless to change it.
Helpless to do anything but fight for my daughter.
I’d been running ever since. Unsure if Carlo was one step behind me. My gut had told me he’d never believed the reports that we’d all perished that night, even while I’d prayed that he was gone himself. That when he’d disappeared, he’d disappeared from this earth.
He’d never stood trial.
Had never been held accountable.
Had never paid for the sins that he’d perpetuated because the only choice I’d had left was to run. To protect my daughter.
Trust no one.
I grabbed Juni’s shot records and the few documents that I had, my sight blurring over as the hope dimmed from my sight.
The hope of her going to school.
Of living a normal life.
Of having a home.
A family.
For the joy I could feel fading away.
“What are you doing?”
A tiny scream got free when the voice caught me unaware, and I was on my feet and swinging my attention toward the hall.
Darius stood at the end of it. His arms were stretched across the length, and he hung onto either side, like he was holding himself back, like he’d been caught up in the turmoil, too.
“Leaving,” I told him.
I hated that it was true.
“What? No. You don’t have to be afraid, Salem. Told you that you were safe. That you don’t have to run anymore.”
My head shook as grief fell down my face in hot streams of despair. “He found us.”
Darius’ brow curled and he roughed a hand over the top of his hair. “What?
What are you talking about? You’re fine, Salem. Just calm down.”
“I…” I trailed off, unable to form the words. The trust Jud had given me, the truth he’d confided in me.
I’d had to stomp all of it under my feet.
“Tell me what the fuck is goin’ on, Salem.”
“Jud…he knows Carlo.”
Darius blanched before awareness raced in to take over his expression. Groaning, he scrubbed both palms over his face. “Shit. Knew this was gonna happen.”
Ice froze me to the spot, and I blinked through the stupor. “What?”
Darius let go of a harsh sigh. “Warned you to stay away from him. Told you he was trouble.”
There was something in the way he said it.
As if he were annoyed rather than panicked.
Dread slithered down my spine, a slow awareness that I didn’t want to take hold. “What do you mean? Tell me what you’re talking about, Darius.”
Darius shook his head and took a lumbering step forward. “I told you I was gonna make it right for you.”
My brow twisted, and I took a step back. “I don’t understand. You’re scaring me.”
Darius slowly approached. The words dropping from his tongue were daggers that pierced me through. “Carlo found me, Salem. He promised he wasn’t after you. He only wanted the man who killed his brother. The one responsible for him losing his son.”
“No.” I stumbled a step back farther. Dull blades sliced through my middle. Pierced me to the core.
Darius wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.
“It was time, Salem. I had to do it for you. For Juni.”
“Oh my god.” Horror gusted from my lungs, and I pressed my hands against the cavern carved in my chest like I could hold myself together as the panic multiplied tenfold.
There was no question then.
Carlo was there.
He’d been watching.
The car.
It was him.
It was him.
Darius kept coming my way. “All I had to do was get in with Jud. Find his weaknesses, Salem. See what was gonna hurt Jud most, and you’d be free. But first, I had to prove my loyalty. That’s why I brought you here. To convince Carlo that you and Juni were still alive but no longer a threat to him. In exchange, you and Juni are free to live your lives in safety.”
“You’re lying. You’re lying. You wouldn’t do that to me. To us.” I begged it.
“Do it to you? I did it for you.”
“No, Darius.”
“You were supposed to stay away from him, Salem. I’d hoped last night…that the fire would remind you of what was important. That you’d realize you didn’t belong there. That you’d come to your senses.”
“I can’t believe you’d—”
The words clipped off when I felt the commotion at the end of the hall, and my attention whipped to the right to find Mimi shuffling into the living room. Confusion was written on her face, her aged eyes darting between us, though hurt was written there as she caught up to Darius’ confession.
She hadn’t known.
Darius had done it.
He had set us up, and I wasn’t sure we would be able to get out.
