Isaiah
I’d learnedfrom a very young age that emotions were fleeting. They were transient. Interchangeable within the blink of an eye. And the range of emotions I’d seen on Gemma’s face in the last few seconds were just that. I watched as they shifted behind her jade eyes. Fear turned to relief. Confusion turned to hurt. Heartbreak turned to betrayal.
As I glanced down at the watery mixture of anger and shock, both masking the pain I’d just caused, I knew that I had made a grave fucking mistake seeking her out that first day at St. Mary’s Boarding School. And this? This look she was giving as she crouched down below my feet with my two best friends beside me, her knees scraping against the damp asphalt, likely cutting into her perfect soft skin? This was my fucking punishment.
I knew I was playing with fire.
I knew I was inevitably going to hurt her in the end.
I knew that she and I would crash and burn.
Good girls like her weren’t made for guys like me. And bad boys never fell for girls like her.
“I hate you,” she whispered through clenched teeth, wet tears still glistening over the curve of her cheeks.
It was that exact moment that I hated myself the most. For letting her in. For allowing myself to kiss her and touch her. I had been an empty shell before she walked into my world, and the only thing inside that shell was anger. That was how I wanted it to be because I knew anger was the only thing that would keep me breathing with my future on the horizon. But again, emotions were interchangeable. One brush of her lips against mine, and it was like the floodgate had been unlocked. Possessive, protective, crazed, lust-driven, fearful. I felt everything at once.
I became unhinged when I’d learned that she wasn’t in her room earlier.
When the bus came to a complete stop in front of St. Mary’s after we’d crushed Temple on the lacrosse field, I got an alert on my phone. My gaze sliced to Cade and Brantley, and we all popped up out of our seats with Shiner following closely behind. In fact, I was pretty sure our lacrosse gear was still on the bus, but at that moment, it didn’t matter. What mattered was how Bain, the guy who stirred the very pot of my life, had managed to leave St. Mary’s without the keys to his G-wagon.
When we’d met Mica, Bain’s roommate, in the hall, he confirmed that Bain was asleep in his bed.
Confusion sat on top of my shoulders as I watched the little red dot move across the screen of my phone, showing that Bain’s car was moving to a location that I didn’t even want to think about. That was when Sloane came flying down the hallway, well after curfew.
Gemma. What the fuck was she thinking?
“So, who’s going to go at it first?” my father asked with the same amount of distaste as excitement evident in his tone. My eyes burned to see red, to let my guard down and kill him right here. I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and watch as he fought for life like he’d done to so many other men before him. But I couldn’t. I needed to be rational. There were too many things at play. Too many things in the way.
I wasn’t him.
I wasn’t a replica of Carlisle Underwood even if, at this moment, he thought I was. My father was beaming with pride. He thought I was on his side. He thought that I was going to pass Gemma around like a goddamn whore and let him touch her. He was so blinded by his own misogynistic traits and thirst for power that he couldn’t see the way my hands shook with blinding anger. I was fucking trembling. My fists clenched by my sides, my nails digging into the flesh along my bloody palms.
He would never fucking touch her again.
And neither would I.
Not now. Not after this. I didn’t deserve her, and she didn’t deserve this.
“Cade? Brantley? I always went first and gave your old men the next go around,” my father laughed. “I mean, sorry to tell you, Cade, but your father isn’t as faithful as your mother thinks.”
Gravel crunched beneath Cade’s shoe, but I didn’t look over at him. This was a good test for our friendship. This moment right here would determine if Cade and Brantley, my two best friends, who knew just how fucked our futures were, trusted me as much as they said they did, just like it would determine if I let them stay by my side in the long run.
Cade’s wide shoulder brushed mine as he looked down at Gemma. Her chest was rising and falling, but she kept her teeth bared and her eyes full of lethal determination. My lips ticked upward, and it wasn’t for the reason my father thought. I was proud. I was so fucking proud—even knowing that she was full of hatred for me right now—that she wasn’t cowering away. Gemma was brave. I’d always known she was. Whatever she’d lived through in the past had hardened her, and that was good.
“I’ve already had her,” I said, swooping down and gripping her arms tightly. Her delicate chin jutted upward, and a flash of fear crossed over her features only to be replaced with a burning fire. I shoved her toward Brantley who was standing a few yards away. She stumbled over her shoes, the loose rocks and gravel kicking up in her wake, landing in a nearby puddle. “Maybe Brantley would like a go?”
He pulled her against his chest and wrapped his forearm around her upper body. Her little hands came up as she clawed at his skin, and the pink scars around her wrists peeked out as her jacket sleeves fell back.
“No!” The tiny word echoed around us, as did my father’s maniacal laughter.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Do you hear that, Bain? We have your little plaything! Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Cade managed to chuckle, but I couldn’t force it out. I was too focused on the fear seeping into Gemma’s eyes as her resolve fell. She caught my gaze from across the space, and her brows crowded as her mouth drew a straight line. “Fuck you.”
There it was. That burn of rage. I was glad she was angry, because that meant she had adrenaline, and she was going to need that rush in a second.
“You already have, little one.” I winked, and Brantley flung her forward again, as if we were playing hot potato with her. She landed in Cade’s arms, and I looked to my father who was watching her with bated breath. If I killed him, I’d be just like him. I was smarter than he was. And I wasn’t a murderer.
Stepping forward, I tipped my chin. “So, what’s the plan? We all fuck her, beat her up real good, and send her back to Bain? He’ll know it was me who touched his little whore. It might cause some issues for the future. He’ll be even more guarded.”
My father took his lingering gaze off Gemma and placed it on me. “There’s already an issue, son. Bain knows who you are. They’re slowly trying to take each and every last one of my clients.” He gestured to the building behind him. The Covens. “This one is our biggest consumer. I need Bain to run back to his father and let him know that he can’t fucking have it. The Covens buys guns from me and no one else. Bain and his fuck-up of a father touch my shit, then I touch his. Bain’s mother is next on my list if they keep it up.”
Gemma was struggling in Cade’s arms, the muscles along his arm twisting back and forth as he kept her still as my father glared. “Did you hear that, you little whore?” Gemma’s mouth clamped shut as she stared at him. The ground behind my feet began to shake. I was going to strangle him. “When we’re done with you...” He crooked a smile. “If you survive, you tell Bain exactly what I just said. You got it? You can be a warning.”
Her lip lifted, and her white teeth bared again as her head came down. Her eyebrows were crowded above her eyes as she seethed, “I am fucking done with men like you demanding things.” Then, her head flung back with all her might, and she blasted Cade right in the nose before taking off running into the forest, just like I’d hoped.
Before my father had a chance to grab a hold of the situation and start demanding shit, I stepped forward, taking charge and likely filling him with even more pride. “Time for a game, boys. Go fetch.”
Brantley spun around quickly with a devilish smirk on his face, jogging down the hill, and once Cade recovered, he descended too.
My father stood back and lazily placed his hands in his pockets, smiling at me.
“Don’t worry, Dad. You’ve taught me well.” I began walking toward the hill that Gemma had disappeared over. “But now that you can see I’m doing what you asked and keeping up with the job you’ve given me…I expect you to do the same. Leave Jack out of this.” I gazed out into the tall trees and foggy air, feeling the bitter taste of deceit in my mouth. “It’s not like you’ll create a better version of you anyway.”
He gave me a curt nod with a glimmer of hope in his eye and started to walk off toward the parking lot. Before he made it to his car, he shot over his shoulder, “Make me proud, Isaiah. Get the point across to Bain...and have some fun. She’s a beauty.”
Yeah. Fuck you, Dad.