The Broken Puppet (The Elite King's Club 2)

I don’t say anything, watching how the dark night dances between the tree branches and leaves.

“Answer me.”

“Yes,” I reply. “I’ll tell you everything I remember.”

He floors it forward as we leave the cabin in the distance.

“Why?” I croak out once we hit the highway.

“Why, what?” He looks to me every couple of seconds while still keeping his eyes ahead on the road.

“Why did you have to do it this way. Why scare me?”

He pauses briefly until the silence stretches out. “Fear is your patch, babe. We all have our patches. Those little spaces that could bring us to our knees if dabbled with.”

The answer surprises me. “Oh, and what’s yours?”

He pauses again, long enough for me to guess he’s not going to answer, so I lean my forehead on the cool window and close my eyes, suddenly feeling tired and drained.

“You.”

My eyes snap open. Not wanting to be overly obvious about how surprised I am, I keep my eyes locked on the dark road ahead. “What?”

“I didn’t have one,” Bishop confesses. “It’s how my father raised me, why I am who I am. Our blood, I mean, who we are, we can’t afford to have a patch. My dad doesn’t have one either. He married my mom for a cover, not for love—not that I’m talking about love.” He looks toward me to enhance his point then focuses back on the road. “But I’m just saying, I can’t have one. The fucking feelings I get when I think someone is fucking with you, though?” He breathes out a gush of air. “I’d kill them in an instant and not think twice about doing it. That may not be because I caught feelings for you or anything like that. It could just be because we’re sort of… friends. In a fucked way.”

“Friends?” I mimic, trying that word on my tongue. So he’s overprotective of me and has some sort of feelings for me. If not, then why would he kill someone over me? He sounds confused, about as confused as I am about him. I get where he’s coming from, Bishop has always been different for me too, regardless of whatever fucked shit he put me through. Is that really dangerous for him though? To feel that strongly about a “friend?”

“Why is that a bad thing?” I quickly ask before I can stop myself. “I mean, why is having a patch a bad thing?”

“It’s a weakness. I had nothing to lose until I met you. I can’t afford to have a weakness, not in this lifetime.”

“Well maybe we’ll meet each other in another lifetime, and I can be more than a patch to you.” I glance at him, and his eyes lock onto mine. The dark depths sink into mine, clinging like a flame does to embers.

“And what would that be?” he asks, his brows pulling in as he looks from my mouth to my eyes.

“Yours.”

Pulling up to my house, Bishop gets out of the driver side and opens my door.

“I can walk, Bishop.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, scooping his arms under my legs and lifting me from my seat. “But you don’t have to.” After our brief talk on the way home, I’ve realized I need to let him go. I can’t keep holding on to whatever it is I think we could have together, because it’s not going to happen. He’s Bishop Vincent Hayes, and I’m me. A fucking mess.

I turn my face to him just as we reach the front door. The front door that is showing no display of the house party that was raging earlier. I guess someone—or some King—shut it down. “Can I ask you something?”

He opens the door wide. “Yeah.”

“If I ask you something… will you tell me the truth?”

“That depends,” he answers, walking inside and closing the door behind us. “If it’s about me, then yes, but if it’s about the club, then no.”

“Loyalty?” He puts me down and I make my way upstairs with him following behind.

“Something like that,” he mutters under his breath. It’s so quiet I almost miss it. Walking into my room, I stretch out on my bed, blowing my hair out of my face. The mattress dips where Bishop takes a seat. “I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me,” he begins.

I swallow down any nerves those words raised, and nod. I know what he’s going to ask, and I’ve been mentally preparing myself for it the whole way home, but it’s still unsettling me. I’ve never said the words out loud. I’ve never told anyone my darkest secret, let alone a guy I have feelings for.

“Did someone do something to you when you were little?”

Turning toward him, I prop my head up onto the palm of my hand. The shadows from the dim lamp cast sharp lines over his jaw and perfect nose. He has the profile of a GQ model, but the twisted mind of Michael Myers. Ahh, charming. Exhaling, I close my eyes. “Yes.”