His nose gushed with blood on the first strike, the skin above his cheekbone split on the second, his hands came up to weakly defend himself on the third, and his lip burst open on the fourth. Anger made my blood boil. I drew in ragged breaths as I threw my bloodied fist into his face a fifth time. His body had gone limp now, wobbling on his knees as his arms dropped to his sides and his eyes fell vacant. I untwisted my hand from his hair, and his body slid to the ground with a dull thud, blood running from his face and dripping onto the hardwood floor I’d had installed only a couple of months ago.
All around me, people had stopped moving. Shocked faces looked on, watching the scene with morbid interest. The rage was subsiding a little as I glared down at the guy’s battered, unconscious body. A shiver of unease ran up my spine as I looked past the blood on his face. I recognized him: one of the men who had come here with the Salazars. My gaze flicked to his bare forearm for confirmation, and sure enough, there was his crew ink: the snake wrapped around a dagger with the letter S carved into the hilt of it.
My eyes darted to the table I’d vacated. Dodger was standing, his expression wary as he looked over at me; Alberto was on his feet too, eyes wide and shocked, but Mateo—Mateo was watching the scene before him with his arms folded across his chest and a shit-eating grin plastered on his smug face.
That was when it hit me. Mateo had been on his cell phone, obviously telling this guy to come and harass Ellie to see if he could get a rise out of me. He hadn’t believed me when I said I didn’t know her. Mateo had orchestrated this whole thing, and I had played right into his hands.
I’d fucked up. Badly.
I turned back to Ellie, noting she was still on the podium, her body now perfectly still as she stared down at me, her face ashen, her mouth agape. She looked as though she’d seen a ghost.
“Get down. Now!” I barked.
She gulped, her eyes locked onto mine. “Jamie?” she whispered.
CHAPTER 10
ELLIE
BLOOD, FISTS FLYING, grunts of pain, shrieks from people around me as the guy who seconds before had pushed money into the waist of my jeans and called me a puta, which I was pretty sure was Spanish for “whore,” slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Stacey’s fingers bit into my arm, trying to tug me backward, closer to her, but my body was fused to the spot as my eyes took in every detail about him. And it definitely was him, even though I’d doubted myself for a couple of heartbeats. But no, I’d recognize that face anywhere, despite the fact that his beautiful features were still twisted with rage, like some sort of wrathful avenging angel come to save me in my hour of need.
He was breathing rapidly, staring down at the guy he’d just beaten with such contempt it practically rippled from his body. Then his head snapped up, and he turned to face me.
The second my eyes met his I forgot how to breathe.
Jamie Cole.
In that moment, everything else seemed to stop. I no longer heard the music that had been thrumming around us; all I could see was him and those eyes, the ones I’d stared into for hours on end, the ones I knew every fleck of color in, that rich chocolate brown that drew me in and melted my heart all those years ago. My lips parted, my throat suddenly tight as I let my gaze wander quickly over him.
His hair was different from the last time I saw him; it was kind of messy, curling out around his ears and the nape of his neck as if it needed a trim. He had scruff on his jaw. Fading bruises were visible on his cheek and the side of his neck. A three-inch scar sliced just above his eyebrow—another to add to his extensive collection. My finger twitched; even after all this time, after all the hurt he’d caused me, I still wanted to reach out and touch that scar, to trace my finger across it and ask him how it happened.
But the thing that was most apparent as I looked at him was that he’d changed.
This man standing before me in his white-collared shirt and black dress pants, with his knuckles dripping someone else’s blood onto the hardwood floor, wasn’t the boy I once knew. Something had altered him, hardened him, ruined him.
His posture was stiff, imposing, aggressive, furious even. An unconscious man lay at his feet, beaten and broken, and I didn’t see one inch of regret on Jamie’s face. I’d never seen him like that. The darkness swirling in his eyes made my stomach clench.
“Get down. Now!” he growled.
I gulped, trying to swallow around the lump in my throat. “Jamie?” My voice barely worked and it came out as more of a whisper, but he heard. His jaw twitched again; he shifted his stance slightly, but his eyes never left mine.
My body was numb, my brain struggling to catch up. He was here. I was face-to-face with the boy I’d cried myself to sleep over for months on end. Seeing him now, so unexpectedly, I had all of those feelings come crashing back at once, swallowing me up and spitting me back out again. Crushing me, throwing me right back into that sea of hurt that I’d struggled to drag myself out of.
This man in front of me was the reason I hadn’t come back home. I never wanted this meeting to take place, I never wanted to look into those eyes again because then I’d have to find the strength to be without him all over again, and I wasn’t sure I could do it twice.
“Get down now!” he repeated, his tone sharp and commanding.
My eyes began to sting with tears and I fought them as memories of us and our good times surrounded me like a smack in the face. I’d loved this boy unconditionally; I’d loved everything about him, even the bad parts that I didn’t understand. He had me, body and soul, and he threw us away because of a stupid mistake. My heart squeezed painfully in my chest.
His posture was tense as he flicked a quick glance over his shoulder. “Ellie, get down from there, will you? Jesus fucking Christ, will you just do as I say?” he demanded, thrusting his hand toward me so he could help me down from the podium Stacey had made me climb.
But as I stared down at him, my feelings suddenly changed. My shock at seeing him suddenly morphed into intense anger. He’s just beaten a guy to a pulp even though I was handling it perfectly fine on my own, and now he has the audacity to make demands of me...after what he did to me?
My hands clenched into fists, and I opened my mouth to say some of the witty things I’d concocted over the years, comebacks I should have said to him on the phone that day instead of begging him to give me another chance, but before I could speak, he stepped forward and grabbed me, pulling me to him effortlessly. And then I was tipping upside down, my body draped over his shoulder, my ass in the air as his arm wrapped around my thighs, holding me in place as my face bumped against the small of his back.
I squealed from the shock, blood instantly rushing to my head, and all I could see were shoes and the injured guy who lay on the floor. I gasped, feeling my face glow with embarrassed heat.
“Hey!” Stacey shouted from the podium.
The surrounding crowds of feet parted as Jamie turned, walking through them with me draped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, my body bumping against him with each step he took.
Anger rippled inside me with a ferocity I wasn’t even aware I still possessed. “Put me the hell down, asshole!” I screamed, wriggling, kicking my legs and banging my fists against his back. “Get off me! Jamie Cole, put me the fuck down right now!” I demanded, grasping at anything I could, digging my nails into his back in a bid to get his attention.
He’d made it less than ten steps when one of my flailing legs connected with something, possibly the side of his face, and he stopped walking. I took that as my opportunity and wriggled harder, pushing against his back, futilely trying to get myself upright again so I could shimmy down.
“Take your hands off me!” I pinched the skin at his side, still bucking like a horse trying to get free.
“Ugh, fine! Fucking calm down!” He bent his knees, tugging on my legs so I shifted on his shoulder. His grip on me loosened as my feet touched the floor. I gripped his shoulders, using them for leverage as I pushed myself upright, taking a second to adjust to being back the right way up. His hands were still on my hips, holding me steady as he straightened, standing full height, looking down at me with hardened features and blazing eyes.
He’s pissed right now, seriously pissed.
I pulled back my shoulders, shoving his hands off me and taking a step back to get some personal space. My head was all over the place as I absentmindedly attempted to fix my hair, which was sure to be an absolute mess after that ruckus.
I glared at him. I was pissed, too. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you? You just storm over and start fighting in the middle of a club like a freaking delinquent, and then you have the audacity to touch me? You don’t get to touch me, not anymore. You have no right!” My words came out harsher than I’d even intended. Years of hurt pooled into them, making them acidic and bitchy.
“Ellie,” he said, his eyebrows pulling together in concentration. His lips moved, but nothing else came out as he huffed out a breath and raked a hand through his hair. The soft