Breathe, page 22
Her mom narrowed her eyes. “That’s not my fault.”
“Oh, really?” Eva asked, clenching the frame of the car. “Then whose is it?”
“I can’t help that I’m sick or that your father died.”
“No,” Eva said. “Which is why I didn’t care about helping, why I was happy to do it! But do you even know what I do?”
A pause. “Always on that phone of yours.”
That. Right. There.
“Yeah, I’m always on my phone, researching, making videos, working my ass off to get a contract to do what I wanted. Something I told you about and you sniffed at because it was only for three years.” She threw up her hands. “Three years is amazing! Three years of consistent pay and stability and doing what I fucking love! And you couldn’t even say congratulations.”
“I—”
“And you know what? I don’t fucking care!” She bent again, jabbed a finger in her mother’s direction. “Because you’re the old, bitter, pathetic crone who looks down on her daughter, on me”—another slam of her fist to her chest—“the woman who has paid your mortgage and utilities too many times to count over the last years, who has filled your fridge at the expense of my own so my siblings could eat. Meanwhile, you’ve slowly and surely turned into an awful person who doesn’t give a shit that you’re hurting your kids over and over again and”—Eva tossed up her hands—“I’m done. Eat whatever the fuck you want. Don’t take your medicine. Stop going to work and lose the house. I don’t care.”
“But Jeremy—”
She shrugged. “Can come live with me.”
Her mom’s eyes narrowed. “You ungrateful little bitch.”
Eva leaned in until she was less than an inch away from her mother. “You horrible, hateful, piece of shit.”
Her mother gasped.
Eva leaned back again. “Even with all of this”—she waved a hand between them—“you don’t get it, do you? I’ve done every-fucking-thing to help us survive. Cook. Clean. Parent. Worry. Not eat. Not sleep. Live on pennies so my siblings didn’t go without! I even sold myself!”
Her mom clamped a hand to her chest. Then she shoved open the door, staggered out. “I’m leaving.”
Honestly, that had a blip of worry sliding through Eva, cooling her temper.
It wasn’t always easy to turn off love.
Even the unhealthy variety.
But then her mom spun around, words a whiplike lash. “You’re a terrible person. Talking to your mother that way.”
And Eva’s temper boiled over again. And she knew she wasn’t going to go back to the person she’d been before.
That she wasn’t going to continue catering to this woman.
And, sure as shit, she wasn’t going to let Dommie or Gabe or Jer do the same.
They all had lives to live.
No longer would she allow them to be held back by the past.
“You’re not even going to question what I mean, are you?” she asked, rounding the hood and stepping close. “You don’t even give a fuck that I sold myself, sold my body for views and likes and cash, that I did things that made me feel like shit about myself just so you could stream your favorite show or Jer could play lacrosse or Gabe could pay for the supplies he needed for school or Dommie didn’t have to cripple herself with loans like I had to do.”
Her mom just turned away, muscle in her jaw flexing.
But she hadn’t forgotten her fries, was still clutching the greasy bag like it was a goddamned security blanket.
Eva wanted to rip it out of her mother’s hands, to toss it to the ground and jump up and down on it. Had actually taken a step forward to do just that when she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye.
Slowly, her stomach filling with dread, she turned her head.
And saw Theo standing there, his expression thunderous.
“I-I—” Her temper was gone in an instant, horror searing through her. Her stomach twisted and her eyes filled with tears.
He crossed over to her, face harder than she’d ever seen it.
“I-I was going to tell you,” she whispered.
He shook his head, started to reach for her, and she couldn’t. She just…couldn’t—
See his expression change. Watch the love leave his face. Witness the hate and disappointment and disgust take its place.
She stumbled back a step.
His eyes widened. “Eva—”
“I-I—” Her mind blanked.
And she took another step backward.
“Sweetheart—”
That broke something inside and…she turned on her heel and took off.
Running through the parking lot, sticking to the shadows.
Doing it for long enough—weaving without sense, without thinking about direction, running through streets and alleys, down sidewalks and up between big buildings with darkness clinging to their eves—that her lungs were sawing by the time her panic and anger, shame and horror had faded enough for her to really process what she was doing.
And how stupid it was.
But she’d no sooner realized her mistake than a hand gripped her arm in a bruising grip and yanked her down a narrow alley.
She fought against the hold.
Screamed and clawed and hit.
But the blackness still surrounded her anyway.
Forty-Four
Theo
He took off running a heartbeat after Eva had, but then her mom wavered, looked like she was going to pass out, and he knew that as pissed and hurt as Eva was, she’d never forgive herself if something happened to her mom.
If she got hurt because of Eva.
A quick step brought him close enough to catch Carmen’s arm, to steady her when she wavered.
She leaned heavily against him instead of fighting his hold, and he sighed, gaze going to where Eva was just disappearing behind the rink, taking note of her direction.
“My baby,” her mom whispered. “My—”
Yeah, considering all he’d learned through Eva about this woman, what he’d witnessed in the hospital and while helping his woman at her mother’s house, and he wasn’t buying the remorse in her tone.
Maybe it was real.
Likely, it was bullshit he didn’t have time for.
“Come on,” he muttered, scooping her up and carrying her back toward the rink, toward the door that was the team’s private entrance to the practice facility, and was just reaching it—and pondering how he’d use his badge to unlock it with an armful of Carmen—when it swung open to reveal Walker.
Who paused, but only for a second, his eyes widening.
Then narrowing.
“What happened?” he asked.
“What do you think?” Theo muttered, widening his eyes at the man who’d been spending time—and trying to do it on the sly—with Dommie and thus, had to know exactly what was going on with the snake of a woman he was schlepping across the parking lot. “I need to go after Eva. Can you keep an eye on her?”
Walker didn’t hesitate, just nodded, steadying Carmen when Theo set her down. “I’ll call Dommie.”
Theo nodded, said a quick “Thanks,” then turned and took off in the direction Eva had run, searching the shadows as he sprinted, unease growing in his belly as the distance from the rink increased.
She’d been panicked and not thinking and the neighborhood around the rink wasn’t always great.
And it was getting dark.
And—
A shriek rent the air.
“Fuck.”
He searched, tilting his head, trying to figure out what direction the sound had come from.
Then the scream came again. And again. And a-fucking-gain. He moved even faster, sprinting along sidewalks, cutting through alleys, cursing when he had to backtrack, closing in on the voice that was growing hoarser and quieter by the moment.
The voice that then cut off completely.
“Fuck,” he hissed, eyes searching the shadows as he pulled his phone out and turned on the flashlight.
Nothing.
Nothing.
No—
A scuffle to the right, toward a narrow gap in the buildings he hadn’t noticed.
He lurched forward, turned to look down the opening—
And saw fucking red.
Illuminated in the flashlight of his phone was a man.
On top.
Of Eva.
He didn’t remember moving. One second, he was at the mouth of the alley and the next he was right there, shoving the man off, getting Eva to her feet and propelling her behind him. Words literally wouldn’t come as he moved again, gripping the man’s shirt and shaking him, losing his phone in the process, distantly hearing it clatter to the concrete, the light disappearing as he dropped it.
That was okay.
He had the man by the collar, and tightly, by the sounds of the man’s gurgling, and that had his throat loosening.
“Eva?” he rasped.
“I-I—” He heard footsteps, saw her shadow move as his eyes began to adjust, watched as she picked up his phone, the flashlight arrowing in on him and the man.
“Can you walk to the end of the alley, sweetheart?” he asked, not wanting to let go of the man, trying to keep his tone as gentle as possible.
“Ye-yeah.”
“Okay, go first, sweetheart.” The phone bounced as she nodded and started walking.
“Can’t. Breathe,” the man wheezed.
“I don’t give one fuck,” he snapped, tightening his hold, dragging the man forward, every single cell in his body demanding he just start pummeling the man, turning his face to pulp.
Maybe he would have.
But Eva needed him calm first.
Something that was a goddamned struggle when they reached the end of the gap between the buildings and walked into the alley, and he caught sight of her face. Something that was harder when they made it out onto the sidewalk and he saw the rest of her—face already bruising, clothes torn, one shoe missing, lip split.
“Theo!” Smitty appeared out of nowhere, voice booming down the sidewalk and making Eva jump.
“Call 9-1-1,” Theo ordered.
Smitty pulled out his phone, dialed, and seconds later was talking to a dispatcher.
“Hang in there with me, sweetheart,” Theo said softly.
She nodded, but she was shaking, and he didn’t know how much longer she would be able to keep it together. Luckily, Walker pulled up in his car then, screeching up to the curb and throwing open the door.
He jumped out, halted, looking between all of them.
“Take this,” Theo muttered, shoving the man at him.
Thankfully, Walker had quick hands, and he caught the fucker, yanking him to a halt when he tried to run off, holding him tight, and considering the yelp of pain the man made, Walker had clocked what had happened—or almost happened—or—
He turned to Eva, who was shaking violently now.
He made it to her just as she collapsed, catching her before she hit the sidewalk.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, holding her tightly. “You’re safe now.” And he repeated the words as sirens closed in and the cops came, and the man was put into cuffs.
“It’s him,” she whispered as the officers shoved the man into the back of a squad car.
“Who, sweetheart?” he asked.
“The man from my apartment complex,” she said, still whispering and he didn’t miss the other officer pulling out a notebook and writing furiously. “I’ve seen him there.”
“Okay,” he said, smoothing his hand up and down her back. “Okay.”
Yeah, no, she wasn’t ever going back to that apartment without him.
Hell, she was moving in with him.
And he was getting a security system. Or maybe he was moving into a gated community and she was going to live there with him—
“And I saw him that night you helped me with my tire. Remember I was freaked out when you pulled over?”
He did remember that.
“He was in the shadows, but I couldn’t make out his face. I just…well, it creeped me out, but I guess I convinced myself it was just my imagination and—”
The man started shouting.
She jumped.
The officer by the car ordered the man to quiet down while the other asked Eva if she was okay to answer some further questions about what the man had done and what he’d said.
And as she recited the sequence of events, what the man had hissed in her ear as he tried to tear off her clothes, the names he’d called her, Theo realized that the guy was some creep who’d watch her on her socials.
Her hockey socials.
Christ.
Maybe the anonymous OnlyFans account was better.
At least then she wouldn’t have deal with creepy fuckers tracking her down.
“And then he said I was a whore because I let my boyfriend sleep over and—” Her voice broke and she shuddered.
He rubbed her arm. “We don’t have to do this right now.”
But she just lifted her chin and straightened, releasing a long slow breath. “I’m okay,” she whispered. “Then”—her voice grew stronger—“he hit me and put his hands around my throat, choking me, and I screamed, but then I couldn’t a-and then he tried to rip off my clothes, but Theo got there before he could—”
He held her tighter. “And we came out here, my teammate found us, called you guys, and now we’re here,” he said when she broke off on a hitching breath. “I think you have enough for now,” he told the officer. “If you need more, we can come down to the station later.”
The officer nodded, pocketed her pen and notebook, and passed him a card. “We just need to take some pictures.”
Eva stilled.
Theo wanted to protest, wanted to protect her from that. But he knew the pictures would be important.
So, when she was ready, he stepped back, let them take the pictures, and held her close when they were done.
“I’d recommend taking her to the hospital to get her checked out before you take her home,” the officer said. “That’s quite a bump on her head.”
“I’m fine,” Eva protested.
“I’ll take her,” Theo promised, overruling her and earning an approving nod from the officer.
“We’ll be in contact,” she said before she disappeared and moved into the alley to continue taking pictures.
“I’m—”
“Don’t even try it, Evie,” Walker said, moving to his car and opening the back door.
“Yeah, babe.” Smitty lightly touched her cheek. “Don’t bother protesting. You’re not winning on this one.”
Theo chuckled, even though he shouldn’t be the least bit amused.
But the mutinous look on Eva’s face was just so…Eva.
She sighed but got in the back seat.
And she let three annoying—her words, not his, but he couldn’t disagree—hockey players take her to the hospital to get checked out.
He tucked her into his bed, resisting the urge to go through the house and check the windows and doors again.
Security system was happening fucking yesterday.
And maybe he’d hire a big ass bodyguard for her and—
“Theo?” she whispered.
He glanced up, saw that she was clenching at the blankets so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. “Yeah, sweetheart?”
Her throat worked. “You’re probably wondering about what I said in the parking lot.”
His lungs froze, but he moved to the bed, sat on the edge of the mattress, forced his voice to be casual. “I heard a lot of stuff.”
She sighed, looked down at her hands.
But didn’t speak.
“Just so you know,” he told her gently, “Raph and Cas dropped your car off at your apartment for you. I have the keys in the kitchen, so don’t worry about either of those things.”
“That was nice of them,” she said quietly.
“And Dommie came and picked your mom up,” he told her carefully. “She’s fine.”
Eva sighed again, her eyes coming up to his, a flash of fire in the deep brown depths. “I’m done with her, done with the way she treats all of us, done with how she talks to me and done with putting my life on hold for her.” She sucked in a breath, released it in a rush. “I’m done with doing things that make me feel like shit. Done with allowing her to sacrifice everyone else for her own benefit.”
“When you say you’re done with doing things that make you feel like shit, what do you mean?”
She stiffened, throat working.
“Do you mean things like cake-smashing videos?” he asked, keeping his voice completely even.
She still jerked like he’d smacked her. “I was going to tell you.” Words barely above a whisper.
“Eva—”
“And, more importantly, I deleted it weeks ago,” she said, louder, the words coming in a hurry. “With the new contract, I have steady money if my siblings need help and I don’t have to do that—” A sob. “I don’t have to do that any longer,” she said in a hurry. “And I know that you’re probably worried with everything that happened with your dad and us going viral with the whole Squishy thing, but I never showed my face on those videos and it’s deleted now and—and there shouldn’t be anything connecting you to it.”
“I don’t care.”
“And I didn’t like doing it,” she went on like she hadn’t heard him. And maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she just needed to get this all out. “So, deleted it wasn’t all about you—though I am sorry I potentially put you at risk—”
“Eva—”
“But, more importantly, it made me feel yucky to do it and sick when I’d pull out my camera or the bikinis, and I think if I’d made the choice initially, things might have been different but because I had to make the videos or I wouldn’t be able to pay rent or Jer wouldn’t have food or water or power, or my mom would lose the house, and I—”
