Page 25 of Blaze
“A haul like this is easily worth a million on the streets outside of the Barrows,” Stubs says from his computer. “Would have wiped out Donaldson’s debt to the familia.”
“How’d a small-timer get so much?” Brute muses.
Reaper shakes his head. “That’s not our problem. That’s Ambrose’s. Stubs, send it over to our contacts with the Nightshades and ask them what they want us to do with it. Until then, I want it locked down in the armory. If a single vial goes missing, I’ll kick everyone’s ass. No one speaks a word about us having this shit. This is club business only.”
The men all grunt agreement, and Reaper turns his hard stare on me. For an absurd moment, all I can think is why Sydney seems to hate this guy. He’s actually sexy, in the cold I-can-kill-you-in-between-beers-and-not-give-a-fuck kind of way. He’s as big as Blaze, at the least, and his black shirt with the Knights of Hades logo is stretched across a ripped chest. He’s got a close-cropped beard, and his face is made up of hard lines.
Ice slithers down my spine to fill my stomach. This man, I’m certain, can walk into the Santi Pastori mansion and overthrow them on his own.
“I won’t say a thing,” I swear, my voice dry. He seems satisfied with the answer and finally takes a seat at head of the table. He grabs a legal pad that was hidden under a file folder and clicks a pen, writing something at the top.
“We need to get a bead on who shot up Sydney’s place last night. I’ve had probies over there since Blaze called it in, and she isn’t happy about it.”
He writes something down as guilt curdles my stomach. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t been there, Sydney’s wonderful home wouldn’t be destroyed. She opened her home to me, and this is what she got. It’s another reminder that everyone who tries to help me gets hurt in the end.
“She’s staying at Lacy’s place,” Brute says before suggesting some sort of security patrol.
“I’ll work with Stubs on pulling the security feed and try to get a face we can run.” Bones stands after he finishes speaking and walks the short distance to the computer bank that Stubs is already working away on.
As they continue to talk around me, discussing protection details and risk assessment, the guilt only grows stronger.
These are strangers, they owe me nothing, and they’re putting themselves in between me and my past. Even worse, apparently some group whose whole purpose is to kill demons like them may be involved now, too.
Bile burns up my throat, and I push back from the table, drawing everyone’s attention to me.
“I—I need some air,” I gasp, nausea rolling my stomach. I don’t wait, turning and bolting to the front door, bursting out of the building. I keep running along the front of the building until I turn the corner where the empty sidewalk is shaded from the sun.
I lean up against the building, lacing my fingers on top of my head, trying to gulp in breaths, my chest tight with panic.
The world slowly spins around me as the urge to vomit gets stronger.
“Keep it together,” I whisper harshly, gripping my hair and pulling it. The sharp pain isn’t enough to stop the spiral.
I ruin everything. A dry sob escapes my lips and my eyes burn. Anytime someone tries to help me, it ends in pain—in death.
Sydney isn’t the first person to pay for helping me. Imogen, one of the wives I’d befriended early on, tried to give me a place to go when Enzo was in a mood. When he found out, he had her husband beat her. She was admitted to the hospital and I wasn’t even allowed to visit her. We were never allowed to be in the same room alone again.
The guy—whose name I can’t even remember anymore—in one of my college courses who offered to come over to help me move, Enzo found out and beat him, telling me that the guy wanted to fuck me.
Pain screams in my chest as I relive the worst of my sins, making me slide down the building until I land on my ass atop the hard concrete.
My parents. I’m the reason they’re dead. I called my dad, upset after a date with a guy who tried to get more than I was willing to give. It was after midnight, and apparently my mother insisted on coming, too.
Why, oh, why, didn’t I just call a cab? Or walk? Or let the guy fuck me? I wasn’t even at my best friend’s, where I’d told them I was staying the night. But my dad hadn’t sounded angry when I confessed my lie and told me they’d be right there and to keep my phone on me.
Except they never made it. A drunk driver hit them head-on, killing them both on impact. It had been my best friend’s parents who came and got me when I realized something was wrong. On the way home, we came across the collision. I just remember screaming as I saw the upside-down and mangled old Subaru Forester my mom had loved.
The driver survived, barely more than a scratch on him, since he was driving a souped-up truck.
No matter what anyone tried to tell me afterwards, I knew the truth. It was my fault they were dead.
Hands grab me, and I shriek, my vision blurry from tears. Instead of being dragged away, I’m cradled against a broad chest. The fight melts out of me as I recognize Blaze’s campfire scent. Too lost within my own misery, I missed him approaching. But now I’m in his lap, surrounded by him. He doesn’t say anything, just holds me, and that makes my tears come all over again. I don’t deserve his comfort, not when all I do is bring pain to people. I’m too selfish to tell him to leave me alone, though.
“Do you want to talk?” Blaze asks, his voice rumbling in his chest under my ear. There’s a note of awkwardness, like he’s not used to offering such comforts or he dreads that I’ll accept.
I shake my head. Not only to spare him but because I don’t want him to know my greatest shame.
“How about I take you somewhere?” Blaze asks, and I don’t bother lifting my head to look at him before answering.