The words I’d been holding on to since the gun went off eased their way out of me. “I just wanted him to stop. He wouldn’t get off me. He wouldn’t stop touching me. Feeling me. I couldn’t let him take it.”
Nate’s eyes fixed on mine—an emotion behind them I couldn’t decipher. “Then what happened?”
I kept my voice even, void of any and all emotion. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I just felt for the gun, found the trigger, and I used it. I didn’t—”
“Didn’t what?” Nate cut in.
“I didn’t know the gun was pointed at him. I was aiming for me.”
9
Nate
Bailey excused herself to the guest bedroom shortly after her admission. Tiny waited until she was out of earshot before he turned to me. “You notice she hasn’t cried? Not once. Even when you held the gun to her head.”
I shrugged. It was all I could do. Of course I had noticed. It just made me more curious about her.
When Tiny had said that we had a problem—he wasn’t kidding. We did. And it was a huge one. Apparently PJ had taken pictures of him and Pauly’s act and sent them to everyone. Including Tiny. When he’d shown me the pictures, I’d wanted to puke. It must have been before they smacked her around because her face was clean. Not a trace of blood. Which made it worse because you could see her face clearly.
“He’s trying to send a message,” Tiny had said.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s showing people because he wants them to see the girl who killed Pauly. He’s put a bounty on her head. Two grand.”
I’d scoffed at the amount.
“Two grand’s not much to you, but to drug pushers and takers, it’s a lot of fuckin’ money.”
“Why would he do that? I made it clear I’d take care of it.”
Tiny had given me a look that told me he thought I was stupid. “Obviously, he doesn’t believe you.”
I’d rolled my eyes.
“There’s more. He’s taken his opinions to Benny. Benny wants to talk to you.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. That’s not all, though. Think about it. You let everyone believe that you’d take care of it. Regardless of the circumstances, she killed someone the men consider family. They find out she’s still breathing, and there’s going to be a bounty on your head. A much higher one.”
I’d sat back in my seat, my head spinning with every verbal blow he had just delivered. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ.”
“They see her out there, she’s dead, and you—you’ll have a lot more to deal with than just an innocent girl living under your roof.”
“So she has to die?”
“No,” he’d said quickly. “That’s the last thing we both want.” He’d paused for a beat as if gathering his thoughts. “We just need to be smart about it, that’s all.”
“I don’t know what’s easier right now.”
Tiny had glanced up at me from the laptop he’d just opened. “Do you want the easy way? Or the right way? Your call.”
*
Tiny and I spent a good hour discussing our game plan before he left for the hardware store. He re-coded the home security for the silent alarm to initiate when the external doors opened, rather than if it sensed movement in the house. As much as I hated having to do what we were doing—we had to find a way to permanently keep the windows shut so Bailey couldn’t escape. It wasn’t just her life on the line anymore, it was mine too, and I had to find a way to make her understand that.
I knocked on the guest bedroom door and waited.
There was shuffling at her end before the handle moved and the door opened, just enough for her to peek out.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
She nodded and opened the door wider, then took a seat on the edge of the bed.
I sat down next to her. “How’s your hand?”
“Sore.”
“We’ll get some ice on it in a bit.”
“Okay.”
We sat in silence while my mind tried to form words.
“Whatever you need to tell me. I can handle it,” she said.
I turned to her, but her eyes were downcast, watching her bare feet swinging back and forth. I hadn’t wanted to admit it before, and I’d never admit it out loud, but even through the cuts and the bruises, she was stupidly beautiful. How the hell she found herself in last night’s situation, I had no idea. “PJ took pictures of you while it was happening. He’s sent the pictures to everyone.”
Her brow pinched as she faced me, pinning me with her glare.
With a nervous swallow, I continued, “He’s doing it because he suspects the truth… that I didn’t follow through on my promise.” I sighed. “Things are tricky now. You and I—we’re kind of in the same boat. They want you dead, and they can make it happen. And if they find out I didn’t… well, the same can happen to me.”
She exhaled a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Nate, I didn’t mean…”
“Don’t be sorry,” I told her, ignoring the flip of my stomach when she said my name.
“It’s my fault.”
“Don’t say that.” My hand twitched, itching to touch her, to hold her, to do something to take away the fear in her eyes—eyes that I got lost in every time I looked into them. I stood up and started to pace. “I’m telling you because Tiny and me—we need to take certain precautions for your safety. Which means keeping you here.”