“Stacy?” Logan’s crying too.
“Stace babe, who did this to you?” Gavin asks.
“I’m sorry.” She buries her face in her hands.
Standing, I pick her up again and carry us to the couch on shaking legs. I need to hold her. I need to have her keep me rooted or I might just kill a motherfucker. I still will, as soon as I know she’s okay and I find out who put his hands on her.
I pull her as close to me as I can get her, bury my face in her neck, and breathe her in.
“Cole,” she sobs.
I have to know who did this. I have to fix it. My girl is broken, and it feels like a knife to the gut.
“Baby, I need you to tell me. Whatever it is, you don’t need to be sorry. I just need you to tell me,” I beg her.
“We’re all here, Stacy. Nothing is going to happen,” Logan soothes her.
“I . . . I was trying to protect you. He said he would ruin the band.”
Finally! She’s talking. Now I just need to keep my cool until she finishes her story.
“Who did, Stacy? Who did this to you?”
“I lied. I’m so sorry I lied. Please, I can’t lose you.”
That loud noise? That was my heart breaking open for her. For the anguish she’s feeling. I feel it too.
“Start at the beginning, beautiful. I’m not going anywhere.” I tighten my arms around her to reinforce my words.
“Wilson, he caught me in the hall last night when I went to the bar,” she begins her story.
With every word, my anger rises. If she were not a crying mess in my arms, I would have already been out looking for that bastard. He touched her, her soft skin that I’ve traced with my lips. Her thighs, the ones that hold me tight every fucking time I slide home, deep inside her.
He’s a fucking dead man.
The earlier conversation with him after the show now makes sense.
“He said that if I told you, he would end the band. I didn’t want to lie to you, I swear, I didn’t. Cole, you have to believe me. I couldn’t be the reason you four lost everything you’ve worked for.”
Again, I bury my face in her neck. I can’t speak through the emotion clogging my throat. This entire time, she did this for me. She let him get away with putting his hands on her, these marks on her, because she was protecting me.
She fucking owns me.
“Never,” I mumble the words. “You will never lose me,” I assure her. “I need you to tell me you understand what I’m telling you. I need to know that you understand that I’m not me without you.”
“I love you,” she cries.
Not gonna lie, I can feel the burn behind my eyes. Yep, he’s a dead man. I stand and set her on the couch, looking over at Tristan and Gavin. “I need one of you to stay here with her, and one of you to help me hide the fucking body.”
“Cole! No.” Stacy stands and grabs my arm. “You can’t! I need you here.”
“Stacy, babe, he has to pay for what he did to you.” Stepping back, I gently push both of her sleeves up her arms. “Look,” I croak out. “Look at his mark on you. I can’t let him get away with that.”
“Cole,” Kacen warns.
“You stay with your wife.” I turn to Tristan and Gavin. “Which one of you is staying and which one of you is digging?”
“C-man, there’s another way,” Tristan says.
“The fuck there is!” I roar. “Do you see this? Do you see what he did to her? I can’t fucking breathe knowing he’s getting off scot-free. I will never let anyone hurt her again. I fucking let him. I took her there. She was there for me and then he put his damn hands all over her. She kept this inside to protect me. I fucking failed her, but I won’t do it again.”
I head toward the door, but Stacy runs to jump in front of me. Tristan and Gavin move back in the already tight space of the tour bus.
“Please,” she begs.
“Stace, I need you to move.” I refuse to put my hands on her to move her. I won’t be like him.
She backs up and, just when I think I’ve won, she leaps into my arms. I have no choice but to catch her, placing my hands on her ass, holding her up. She wraps her arms and legs around me.
“Please, hear them out. There has to be another way. You go to him and he presses charges, I lose you. They lose you. Everything you’ve worked for is washed down the drain. Please,” she reasons.
With the grip she has on me, I no longer fear that she will fall. I remove my hands from her ass and bind them around her, crushing her against me. “He hurt you,” I say against her neck. “I’m so fucking sorry.” My voice breaks.
“Just hear them out. For me?”
I will never deny this girl anything. “I don’t like it.”
“He’s gone, man.” Gavin holds up his phone. “I just texted Cassidy. He’s on a fight back to Nashville as we speak.”
At his words, I deflate. I can’t hop on a plane and leave her, not with her begging me to stay.