Damaged (Boys of Winter 2)

Grayson pulls on the bars as though he could tear them free. “What the fuck are you talking about? What did he do?”

“During the vote,” I tell them, glancing at each of them to see their heavy, confused stares boring into my eyes, silently begging me not to say what they’re already dreading. “Carver had the deciding vote. Everyone else had already raised their hands and it was down to him. All he had to do was keep his fucking hand down and I would have walked free.”

“No,” Cruz says, shaking his head. “He wouldn’t do that to you. It’s one thing to put on a fucking show for his family, but he wouldn’t condemn you here.”

“Well, he fucking did. He looked me right in the eyes and raised his goddamn hand, making it clear that he was the one doing this. He had the power to set me free, but he raised his fucking hand.” Angry hot tears spring from my eyes, and I tear my hand out of Cruz’s to hastily wipe them away. “He put me in here. It was an even vote. Carver could have saved me.”

Grayson pushes away from the bars with an angry grunt as I sink to my knees, feeling more defeated than ever. Carver was the one who put me in here, but he’s also the only one I can count on to get me out.

I’m fucked.

Grayson’s hands ball into fists and I watch him pacing up and down the narrow hallway, his hands pulsing exactly the same way that mine do when I’m pissed off. “How could he fucking do that?” Grayson demands, not looking at anyone in particular, but openly speaking to us all. “It doesn’t make sense. You guys didn’t hear the way he’d talk about her in private. That fucking … FUCK.”

Just like that, Grayson storms right back the way he came with a look on his face that would have even the strongest of men crumbling. “Shit,” Cruz sighs, pulling away and walking after him.

“Where are they going?” I ask, looking up at King who shakes his head, his jaw clenched in anger.

“Grayson is about to beat the living shit out of Carver,” he says as though he knows Grayson’s exact intention, “and Cruz is going to make sure he doesn’t fucking kill him.”

“Shit,” I groan, dropping my head forward as the fierce jealousy cuts through me like a knife. I’d give anything to go in Grayson’s place, to feel my knuckles busting his lip, my foot slamming into the side of his ribs. I’ve given my all on Carver before and I hardly made a dent. While it felt great at the time, he deserves so much worse than what little damage I could do, so hopefully, Grayson’s right swing comes with a little more force than mine ever could.

King takes a few calming breaths before taking a step forward and placing himself right in front of the bars again. He grabs them with both hands, keeping his eyes locked on mine for an intense moment, saying everything he needs to say with that one look—he wants me out of here, he wants me lying in his bed with his arms curled tightly around me where he can keep me safe from the horrors of the world, and fuck it, I want that too.

I want to forget all of this. I want to go back to the shitty life I had jumping from home to home before I found out any of the Dynasty bullshit. It was a hard life full of horrors and the unknown, but I was content with what I had. I was going to finish school and somehow make my way through college. I was going to get a job that paid enough to keep a roof over my head, and I was going to live. I might never have thrived, but I would have lived by my rule and on my own schedule.

How is this the life that my parents had mapped out for me? Surely they would have wanted better for their only daughter.

King dips his head forward against the bars, covering his face in a dark shadow. “I’m going to make this right,” he says, his voice so low and filled with a raw honesty that it has my heart racing. “I don’t care who I have to betray, who I have to cut, I will get you out of here. I will make this right.”

I slowly get to my feet, knowing just how fucking hard that would have been for him to say out loud. I walk across the cell and put myself right in front of him, gripping the bars right below each of his hands, and basking in the feel of his skin pressing against mine. I meet his eyes, hating just how haunted they look. “You can’t,” I tell him. “No one can fix this, only Carver, and even if he does, I’ll never be able to forgive him.”