Damaged (Boys of Winter 2)

I take slow, deep breaths, trying to calm my thundering heart before nodding and raising my head. I drop my ass to the cold concrete and fall back against the wall of my cell. “I thought you might have been Carver coming to finish the job.”

“Fuck,” he curses, rushing down to my end of the cell and reaching through the bars to take my hand. I latch onto it with everything I have, hating how desperate I must look. The guys have always seen me as a strong woman who doesn’t take shit from anyone, but right now, I feel like a fraud. “You’re safe down here, babe. I know you don’t feel it, but you are. There’s a fucking code on the door and the keys are locked away. No one can get to you down here.”

I raise my head and look him in the eyes, knowing his words are only there to appease me. “You got in,” I point out. “Carver’s not fucking stupid, nor are the other dickheads who’ve been after me. If you could get the code for the door, so can they. I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but you and I both know that I’m fucked.”

Cruz lets out a sigh and drops his forehead to the bars before tugging on my hand and pulling me close enough that he can pull me into a tight hug. “I’m not going to leave you, Winter. You’ll be safe with me. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

I breathe him in, loving his words but hating that I can’t trust them. There’s not a single doubt in my mind that Cruz believes every word he’s telling me. He truly thinks he can keep me safe in this world, and that’s a huge part of why I love having him in my life. He’s always so optimistic. He’s my ray of sunshine against a black, stormy sky. The rest of the guys, even me, all see the negatives, we see the world as a horrible, dark place, and without Cruz keeping our chins raised to the sky, we’d all be buying a one-way ticket to hell.

Not wanting to crush his spirit, I simply nod and drop my head into my hand, focusing on the softness of Cruz’s thumb as it travels back and forth over my other hand. “What’s going to happen?” I ask him. “You know, assuming they’re not going to vote that I be sentenced to death for killing an asshole.”

Cruz shakes his head. “That’s not going to happen,” he tells me, his tone soft and soothing. “They can’t ignore that you’re Elodie Ravenwood. You’re our natural-born leader, and there are eight families who are going to take your side.”

“But there are also eight families who won’t.”

“Not necessarily,” he says.

My brows furrow as I raise my head from my hand and look him in the eye. “What do you mean?” I ask, studying every little line of his face.

Cruz’s lips pull into a tight line as he shakes his head, deep in thought. “I don’t want you getting your hopes up or anything like that, but Carver … I don’t know. He wouldn’t just side with his family like that. I think it was all for show.”

“No,” I tell him. “I know you want to see the best in everyone, but I felt his hand on my throat. I couldn’t fucking breathe, Cruz. That’s not a man who was putting on a show. He wanted to kill me, and he would have if Grayson didn’t beat the shit out of him.”

“That’s not … no. Carver wouldn’t have done it. He’s … he was just angry.”

I squeeze his hand, staring into his eyes as I lower my voice to a soft whisper. “He was going to kill me, Cruz. I saw it in his eyes. He wanted to end me just like I ended his father.”

Cruz releases me and drops back against the wall, watching me closely as he rests his hands over his knees, his head tilted back against the hard concrete. “They’ll put you on trial,” he explains, moving on from the topic of his best friend wanting to possibly murder his part-time fuck buddy. “It’ll be hard. The eight families who stand against you will make it nearly impossible for you to get a word in. They’ll drill you, examine every little word you say, and try to turn it back on you until you’re found guilty.”

“And the other eight families?”

“They’ll advocate for you. To them, you’re innocent until proven guilty.”

“They all watched me kill him. I am guilty.”

“Yes, but they will argue that he had it coming. You said so yourself. He boasted about killing your parents and if that’s true, which we all already assumed, then it was the rightful punishment, just carried out in the wrong way.”