“Shoots!” Doodles put his hands up in surrender and took a step back. “I’ll go. Just… I’m worried about you, man. This isn’t like you.”
My laugh was cynical. He didn’t even know the half of it. “Get out of here, and tell no one where I am.”
He nodded once before hurrying to the cage where KD waited for him. They both threw me a shaka out their respective windows, and then KD backed out of the drive.
I stared down at my bike for a long minute before I heard the front door clap closed. I thought at first that she’d gone back inside, until I heard the crunch of gravel behind me on the drive.
Kalea came to stand shoulder to shoulder with me, Pua on her opposite hip than me. She took a moment to examine my bike in the setting sunlight before asking, “Want to talk about it?”
“Nope. Want to talk about why you cheated on me?”
“Nope.”
Well, at least we were still on the same page as this morning. We stood in silence for another couple of minutes, both just staring at my bike.
“I’ve got dinner in the slow cooker and was going to take Pua to the park for a bit while it’s baking. Want to come?”
My eyes narrowed on the setting sun. “Is it safe?”
“I wouldn’t take her if it wasn’t. They’ve renovated the park since you left. Lots of lighting, new bathrooms, and the cops regularly patrol it.”
I nodded slowly, still not liking the idea of her walking alone to and back from the park at dusk. But with me at their side, the only place safer would be Bacon’s house. I waved her past my motorcycle. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Nine
Pressure on my chest and a cool sharpness to my throat woke me. The room was black with only a small illumination from a kitchen nightlight casting any shadows. Unlike the couch in my former bedroom at Bacon’s house, this one was long and wide. I’d bought it myself with the intent of being able to lay with my massive body spooning Kalea’s, and neither of us being at risk of falling off. On my back, my shoulders just barely fit across the cushion. Yet, it wasn’t the couch I had just been dreaming of, back in a house with a different mother-daughter duo.
A prick at my throat kept me from moving as hot breath caressed my cheek. “You made Caroline cry.”
I froze in shock for an entirely different reason than the blade above my jugular. “Holly?”
She did not acknowledge her name, but I recognized her voice. How the fuck was this small-ass woman holding me down? She had her weight pressing down on my upper chest, but she couldn’t weigh much more than Caroline. Why did it feel like I had a full-grown man on top of me? Was Bacon here too? Icouldn’t make out even her silhouette. Hell, I hadn’t even sensed her entering the house. I’d locked up last night after Kalea and Pualani had gone upstairs for bed, and I set the alarm, which I was pleased to discover Kalea had kept after I moved out.
Going to the park last evening with them had been pleasant, and Kalea’s assessment of it being safe had been as accurate as any public place these days. Pualani loved the swings so much she barely even climbed on the playground. We were there for nearly two hours, just trading off pushing her as she giggled with glee.
I had to push thoughts of Samantha out of my head, too filled with guilt and despair. I hadn’t just left her mother, I’d also abandoned the little girl I loved like my daughter.
Dinner had been no less awkward than lunch had been, and eventually Pua and Kalea went upstairs for the night, while I stayed downstairs.
“Caroline has cried herself to sleep three nights in a row. What did you do?”
Pain assailed me. I caused that. There was no defense against Holly’s accusation, because it was true.Iwas the reason Caroline was crying.
Another prick of a blade pinched my body—only this time, it was on my dick. Holly had a knife against my throat and one pointed downwards into my groin, yet she remained a solid presence on my chest. Fucking hell, who was this woman?
“What,” she repeated just as fierce, “did you do?”
“Something I shouldn’t have,” I confessed to the darkness.
The blade at my throat shifted, slicing across my delicate skin without going any deeper. Blood dropped down my throat, and I knew in that moment that this was no act or joke. I recalled Holly’s face in my room I’d created at the barn. I no longer wondered if she’d killed before; I now knew she had. I’d been around killers and wannabe thugs for the better part of two decades. I didn’t need to see her eyes now to know that she wasserious. Her cut across my throat was too meticulous. There was no hesitation, no shake of her hand.
Holly had come here to kill me because I had made Caroline cry.
My chest shook. I’d been face to face with death before, but never like this. Never where I knew I deserved my fate. I had thought it would be Aloiki who came for me. There was something twisted about it being Holly, but also reassuring. The fact that Caroline had such a fierce protector that I hadn’t even known about calmed me, even as I came face to face with Milu, the god of death.
“Did you force yourself on her? She was supposed to besafewith you!” The point of the knife in my dick jammed down a fraction more, but the pain was astronomical.
I flinched, both at her words and the pain radiating from my dick. “She was supposed to be, but she wasn’t. I never… I didn’t want to hurt her, but I did.”