Beneath the Stars (Falling Stars 4)

I was determined to make it better for her.

Dude was gonna kick my ass all over again.

Anxiety skidded through my limbs. Words barely bitten out. “Royce…fuck, man, she got ahold of some money your stepfather had hidden. She’s tryin’ to get it to some of the women who were affected. She organized it through Lily and Kade. She was supposed to let me do it, but I woke up, and she was gone.”

Confession came out haggard.

Knew my expression verged on grim when I looked up at him. Only thing it did was send the color draining from his face.

“What?” he demanded. “What are you saying?”

“She brought it here with her. It’s a fuck ton of cash, Royce. And Maggie thinks it’s your mother who’s been after her, tryin’ to scare her into giving it back. She promised me…” I rammed a fist against my aching chest. “Promised she’d let me do it. That she’d let me keep her safe. We need to get to her before your mother does.”

I started into my room with the intention of doin’ just that. I went for my phone, hoping to God I could catch her. Talk some sense into this girl. Understand why she’d make such a rash decision.

“How much?” The question was a jagged spike that pierced me from behind.

“Five million,” I mumbled.

Knew he was ripping at his hair when I told him.

“What the hell is she thinking?” His voice cracked on his worry.

On disbelief.

I flipped into my phone so I could call her. Tell her to pull into a public spot and I would be there just as fast as my car would carry me, which was pretty fuckin’ fast.

In an instant, the dread switched.

Flipped.

Pitched me straight into a vat of horror.

Rage flash fired.

Strokes of hate and disgust and guilt and shame.

I stumbled back, holding my phone like it might burn right through skin and bone when I caught sight of the text.

I blinked through the haze of red and agony.

I should have known.

Should have known.

Only thing I was good at was ruinin’ the ones I loved most.

I’d known this was coming from the beginning, hadn’t I? Had I been such a fool to think a thing had changed? That I’d outrun what I’d done?

Because Noah had sent a picture, that sick, twisted motherfucker who’d sought to crush me. It was clear he was finally dead set on finishing it.

Picture was this gutting portrayal of the two women I loved most.

My mama and my Maggie.

It was a dark, grainy image, night all around. Two of them were tied up somewhere in the forest. Tears streamed in dirty streaks from my mama’s face, a gag in her mouth and her arms behind her back.

But Maggie’s face—it was bloody. So fuckin’ bloody. A gash was busted wide open on the side of her head. Clearly, it’d gushed, though it’d dried and matted, and a little still dripped from her chin.

The walls spun.

Spun and spun.

Faster and faster.

I couldn’t breathe.

And I knew I was a beat from succumbin’ to the pain that splintered through my body.

Rending me into a million fuckin’ pieces.

“What’s going on?” Royce rasped from behind, dude tapping into the illness that seethed.

This manic crux between crumbling and goin’ on a rampage.

The urge for a rampage was definitely gonna win out.

“It’s not your mom. She’s not the one responsible for hurtin’ Maggie.”

Instantly, knew it as fact.

“What?” Confusion boomed from Royce.

“He has them,” I croaked.

“Who?”

“Noah.” I heaved it out like a stone.

“Who the fuck is Noah? What the hell is going on, man?”

He rushed me and grabbed my phone, a shout of fury coming from him when he saw the picture.

His sister bound and bloody.

“My past finally caught up to me, and I got your sister trapped in the middle of it.”

I’d known better.

Known better.

After the crash, Genny had gone back to her parents’. She told me to stay away. That she didn’t want me anymore. That, I got. Respected. But it was the stayin’ away part that I couldn’t do.

The promise I’d made her that I’d forever take care of her holding fast. So, I’d snuck there again and again, inevitably knowing I’d get a death threat from Noah when I did. All fuckin’ talk because the only thing that bastard wanted was the money I sent on a monthly basis. More and more of it as the years went by. Genny’d beg me to stay away, all while relief would flood from her when she’d see me slink through her window.

Thing was, the guilt would never allow me to turn a blind eye. Could never end the worry I’d had for her. For her life I’d derailed. For the happiness I’d stolen. For the love we’d shared for a flash of time that’d been real.

Love that’d been crushed under my heel.

That shit had brought me back time and again. Just to check. To see that she was whole and fine.