“Fuck,” he whispers, sounding defeated.
“I know what’s going to happen,” I say sadly, huffing out a breath. “I know it doesn’t change anything, but right now I don’t care. Kiss me, Devon.”
Slowly, he brings his lips to mine, and gently kisses me. He pulls back a little before kissing me deeper, his tongue tasting mine. I make a sound in my throat when he gently sucks on my bottom lip, carefully avoiding the cut on it.
The door suddenly opens, and we pull away from each other, but not quick enough.
“What the fuck, Devon?” Hayley says, her eyes wide in disbelief. She looks shocked, but I don’t miss the flash of anger that crosses her face when she looks me straight in the eyes.
“Hales,” he says, sitting up in bed. She turns and leaves, slamming the door behind her. Devon jumps out of bed, but to my surprise he kisses me quickly on the forehead before following her out. The sound of the door locking makes me squeeze my eyes shut.
DEVON
I stuff the keys in my pocket, running after Hayley. I don't reach her until she's outside, and I see her retreating figure heading toward her car.
“Hales, wait up,” I yell after her. She stops, her shoulders squared. I jog to where she's standing and turn her around to face me. The expression on her face surprises me. I fully expected her to be . . . I don't know. Sad, devastated, brokenhearted.
Why did I even expect that? She's the one that broke up with me.
No, she's livid, now, fuming.
“What the fuck were you thinking in there, Devon? I could have been anyone. Anyone!”
I raise my hands up in a calming gesture.
“Don't treat me like I'm some raging lunatic. Are you fucking crazy? You didn't even lock the fucking door. You're lucky it was just me. You could have just lost everything over some slut.”
“Hey, now,” I say, a serious tone to my voice.
“Then what was that? If I walked in there a few minutes later would I have seen something far more compromising? You denying what I just saw?”
I could. I could tell her it's not what it looked like and she'd take my word for it, but I don't want to lie to her. I never did. And it's exactly what it looked like.
“Thought so,” she says smugly, her hands on her hips. She sighs. “You're never so careless.”
“I know,” I tell her, glad that she seems to understand. “I can't seem to do anything right these days.”
Her eyes find mine. “You can talk to me. I wish you never stopped.”
I swallow, hard. I stopped talking to her, my best friend, because there are things she's better off not knowing. I couldn't tell her how torn I felt about myself, about who I am, who I want to be. The reasons that make me question everything about me. She just wouldn't understand.
And, if I'm honest, I don't want to hurt her. I hate to admit it, but she was never it. She knows it, too, it's why she broke up with me—not that she loved me either, but she doesn't need me throwing it in her face.
So I ignore her pleading eyes and say, “What are you doing here?” instead.
Her shoulders slump, defeated. Another sigh. “I came to check on you. Dad said I should,” she says, and then shakes her head. “But you seem to be doing just fine.”
“Hales,” I start, but she interrupts me, lifting her palm in front of my face.
“No, I'm not letting you off the hook. I'm not letting you destroy everything you've done so far for that . . . ” I give her a hard look, daring her to say it again. I know she doesn't even think of Leighton as a slut. Hayley is not one of those girls who talks shit about other people. “For that girl,” she finishes.
“I'm not.”
“Then explain, please.”
I glance at my watch, though what I have to do doesn't have a time schedule. “Can it wait? There's something I have to do first.”
“Now?” Her face is a picture of disbelief.
“It won't take long. And you can wait for me with Leighton.”
“So now she's waiting for you?”
“Later, please?” I ask her, leading her toward the house. She nods, although reluctantly.
I think of going in to say goodbye to Leighton, but I don’t want to give Hayley any more reason for suspicion. I place the key to the room in her hand and tell her to lock up.
As I back toward the car, I gesture to Marky to come with me. He gives me a quizzical look, but doesn't say anything, just follows after me.
“Where to, boss?” he says as we near my car.
“We have a shipment,” I say, daring him to question my words.
He doesn't, as I expected. He sits in the passenger seat of my car and I drive us in silence to one of our warehouses near the produce mart.
Once we're parked, I get out. Marky gets out as well and rounds the car. “Boss?” he says, looking around.
I just wave with my hand, telling him to follow me. “I have to get some papers first.”
Leaving him just outside the office, I walk in, and I head to the desk. Opening its drawer, I pull out a folder of papers, but it's not what I'm looking for. We don’t really write anything down, it’s just something I’m used to saying. Rummaging through the drawer, I call out, “So, how about last night?”
“Yeah, what a night,” Marky says back.
I come out of the office. His wide back is turned to me, and his dark-haired head bowed down, reading over some car magazine I left lying around.
“What happened out there?”
“Nothing, boss, we just wanted to have some fun. She fought, let me tell you.” His voice gets an excited tone to it. I can actually hear him grinning, reliving the moment. The picture in my head is not a pretty one. I know it's not his fault, because he says, “And she is who she is so I figured—”
Logic, right? She's a Moore, she's being held against her will, she's basically at our mercy, we're planning this huge thing to take every member of her family down. It's only logical he would assume nothing is off limits.
I know this.
But I don't really care.
“Figured what exactly, Marky?”
He turns around at the hardness in my voice. Eyeing the gun in my hand, he swallows hard.
I could do a grand monologue, waxing poetic on how I really don't want to even think about other men's paws touching Leighton, and this is why he has to die. Does he not get that if I brought her here, she can't possibly be his to take? To even try something like that?
I could let him explain, and he would just confirm what I know—that he assumed it's okay, or maybe he did what Stevie did.
Or I could give him a chance to fight back, because it's the honorable thing to do. That almost makes me laugh: honorable criminals. Who the fuck even cares about honor anymore?
Maybe this is my chance to be a better man. I could just let it go, because it was an honest mistake.
I don't do any of this.
I shoot him in his left hand, the one he probably had all over Leighton, then the other. His hands, that caused so much damage to her beautiful face. He screams, a pitiful sound that does nothing but anger me even more. I come closer to him, his eyes wide as I put the barrel of the gun into his mouth, pointing upwards.
The final shot ringing through the empty warehouse is nothing short of satisfying.
I watch the crimson splattered all over the wall as I make a phone call to Saul. “I've made a bit of a mess,” I say after he picks up.
LEIGHTON
The lock rattles just as I’m walking out of the bathroom, fully dressed. I think it’s Devon again, but the second it opens Hayley storms into the room staring daggers at me, her hands on her hips. The air is suddenly thick with tension.
“What kind of game are you playing at, Leighton?” she finally says after a few tense moments. She purses her lips and watches me intently. Her whole attitude toward me has changed, and I know that our friendship, new and fragile as it was, is something we’re never going to get back.