Chad's Chase (Loving All Wrong Book 2) (16 page)

Giving me no reprieve, a backhand across my other cheek ensued, my head whipping to the side.

A repeated slap across the face, then a backhand.

He did it again. And again. And again. Until my vision was nothing but twinkling stars on a black backdrop.

Tears I couldn’t control cascaded, as one slap succeeded the other. As I began to feel like my head had been shoved into a barrel of burning hot coals, I cried out a garbled, “Stop. Please! Stop.”

Immediately, he stopped, dropping my hands.

Raising abased eyes to him, I blinked a couple of times, trying to see through the blur of stars and tears. There was nothing but the same placidity on his face. And I worried what to fear more: when he was raging mad, or when he was abnormally calm.

Gently bringing his hands up to cup my stinging face, he seized me with his stare as he said in an unbelievably soft voice, “I don’t want to kill you, Blood. Believe me, I don’t. But if you continue to fight me when I’ve been nothing but nice and lenient with you, then you’re gonna break my resolve to spare you and give you a chance. And when you do, I won’t just give you an easy bullet to the head. No. I’ll gouge those beautiful emerald eyes of yours, and make your death
long
and
painful
.”

As my face throbbed with flaming pain, all I could do was stare up at him. In this moment, I was just a weak little girl who wanted to be rescued. I’d been knocked around, a lot, and thought I’d gotten inured to pain. But apparently, I wasn’t.

And what made this moment hurt so much more than the throbbing was that it was
him
inflicting pain on me. All that safety I’d bragged about feeling around him, was gone.

In this moment, I realized that as bad as my life was, I didn’t want to die. If I could get a second chance at life, I wanted it. I wanted to be normal.

“Do you want to die, Blood?” Chad asked, as though he had direct access to my thoughts.

As much as I could between his hands cupping my face, I shook my head.

“Then stop fucking hurting me, okay?” His eyes softened. Only a small fraction. “If you don’t hurt me, I won’t hurt you.”

When I only stared back at him, he sought, “You don’t believe me?”

As asinine as it was of me, I believed him. So instead of nodding, I answered with a verbal, “Yes, I do.”

Lowering his head, he pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. And I closed my eyes to let it seep into me.

Among all the bad shit that just happened, that kiss, weirdly enough, gave me a strange sense of peace. All my fears calmed, all the pain temporarily forgotten. The result of a single kiss.

How did he do that? How could he make that happen?

I opened my eyes and found his staring down at me. They were warmer now. And a piece of my heart foolishly floated towards him. He was doing something to me, and I didn’t think I wanted him to stop. I wanted him to keep giving me soft kisses, because I needed them. I
needed
them, dammit.

Did he
know
I needed them?

“Until I can trust you won’t try killing me again,” he said, “I’m taking you with me. Okay?”

I shrugged, because did I even have a choice?

Dropping his hands from my face to my shoulders, he spun me around to face the wall, tugged my hands behind me, and the next thing I knew, he was cuffing me.

Although I didn’t bother struggling, he brought his mouth to my ear and told me, “This is not to dominate you, make you feel inferior, or trap you. I cuffed you for a reason I can’t explain to you right now. So just work with it until we get into the car. Trust me, alright?”

“I trust you,” I whispered in a hoarse voice. And best believe I stupidly did. After all he just did to me, I trusted him. With my fucking life.

“Good. Once we step out of this building, struggle. Okay?”

Without waiting for a response, he pulled me away from the wall and steered me back out into the restaurant.

The young couple were no longer there, the OPEN sign on the door was turned inside, and the tall, dark-skinned man behind the counter was waiting patiently with his hands laced on the countertop, chomping down on his bottom lip. When he saw us round the corner, he exhaled an audible breath, then shoved two foam boxes of food in a
Thank You
bag.

“So you actually came for food?” I asked Chad.

Chad eyed the food as the man tossed packets of sauce and ketchup in the bag. “Hugo makes the
best
jerk chicken and pork in all of San Francisco. You don’t want to see this place on a Friday or Saturday night. Trust me, I’m here for the food.”

“Thanks, Hugo,” Chad said, as the man passed him the bag, and I knew the “thanks” wasn’t about the food.

“Anytime, mi don.”

“Because you didn’t warn me,” I hissed at Chad’s accomplice, “I’m gonna need my fucking change. You don’t deserve a tip.”

Hugo broke into a wide grin, his neat, shoulder-length locks dancing as he shook his head. “Jah know, it sticky, ‘cause if only you could reach yah hand out so I could give it to yah…”

That’s when I placed his accent. He was being a smart-ass because my hands were cuffed. Alright. Let him have his fun. There’ll always be a “next time”.

Eyes narrowing to a glare, I warned, “Mark my face, Jamaican punk. Because I’ll be back for my fucking change.”

Hugo looked to Chad in question, and Chad gave him the same shrug Hugo had given me then dragged me away from the counter.

I’d be coming back for my change.

When we were out the door, I did as Chad had instructed and struggled. Manhandling me, which I assumed was a part of the act for God knows what, he roughly stuffed me into the car and set the food in my lap.

As soon as he got into the car himself, he reached over and relieved me of the cuffs, then took my messenger bag and set it down on the floor between his feet. I wouldn’t be getting that back for sure.

While starting the engine, he used his other hand to dial someone on his cell. “Now,” he commanded into the phone when the recipient picked up.

By the time he hung up and set the phone down, there was a loud, car-jerking explosion. Confused as to what the hell was going on, I glanced around, then into the rear-view mirror where I saw a massive blaze of fire and smoke a few blocks down. A glow of red flaming through the black of the night, a caustic symbol of destruction.

As Chad peeled away from the curb without even glancing back at the explosion behind us, I asked, “What the hell did you just blow up?”

The R8 accelerated in a glorifying roar. “A 2012 Kawasaki Ninja.”

I
silently seethed after Chad’s last words. Too irate to speak. Too irate to even argue. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to plunge a sharp knife right in the base of his throat, puncture his lungs and fucking
kill
him.

How dare he blow up my bike! What gave him the goddamn right?

Um…you kinda just tried to kill him
, the annoying voice in my head reminded me.

To keep from screaming obscenities at this impossible pestilence of a man, I chewed on my tongue and ate my words for dinner. That, and because he was speeding like a freaking lunatic, tires screeching and all, and my body was pressed back in the car seat.

When the car began decelerating, the buildings and street signs no longer a blur, I noticed we were on the road to my apartment complex. Disappointment pricked at me and I stupidly found myself saying, “I thought you said you were taking me with you?”

A look of irritation passed over his features, as if the sound of my voice was the last thing he needed to hear, like I was nothing but an obnoxious gnat. He just kept on driving until we were at my apartment, not giving me the courtesy of an answer.

I wanted to stick my tongue out at him, but looked out the car window instead, and that’s when I noticed the flashing lights.

Police cars and a fire truck.

The hell?

The gates were taped off, no entry. But it didn’t seem as though Chad was there to get in. He swung right up to the yellow tape outside the gates, drew up the handbrake, left the engine running, got out of the car and walked unhurriedly up to one of the police cars parked a distance away from the others.

While he bent at the window to talk to whoever was in that cop car, I dragged my gaze back to my apartment building, trying to understand what had happened, considering there was no fire and there wasn’t much I could make out from this distance.

Setting the bag with the food on the dashboard, I leaned forward to peer a little bit closer through the windshield. A horrified gasp escaped me when I saw the thin sheets of sooty black smoke, residue of an extinguished fire, floating out of an apartment on the top floor.

My
apartment.

Holy shit, my apartment had been on fire! What the fuck?

People, residents of the complex, huddled around, staring up at my ruined apartment. The fire truck must have gotten there before the fire consumed the whole building, because it was only my apartment bleeding smoke.

While I was out chasing Chad, my apartment had been on fire.

The sound of the car door opening dragged me from my warranted indignation and tongue-tying shock. Chad folded himself back inside the sports car with a duffel bag.

My
chocolate brown duffel bag. Which had over half a mil inside.

Tossing the bag onto my lap, he slammed the car door harder than I thought necessary, shifted the gear in drive, and reversed from the scene.

Lost for words, I glanced down at the bag in my lap, then at the side of Chad’s face, then in the rear-view mirror back to the apartment building, then at the bag again, then at Chad. “How did you…hold on…
you’re
the one who set my apartment on fire?”

Driving a little less manic than before, he gave me a sidelong glance as an answer.

A growl rumbled in my throat like a Bandersnatch and I gripped the straps of my duffel bag to control the rage spiking inside me. “Why the hell are you setting all my shit on fire?! Arrrghh! Do you have to be such a deviant fucking miscreant?!”

Chad turned his head to me and cocked it slightly. “A deviant miscreant?” he asked, low and slow. “And, what are
you
?”

As I heaved in a breath, gearing up to shout at him some more, he unexpectedly soared into an incensed roar. “San Fran is my safe haven, with minimal crime and impossibly happy people. And sometimes it creates a nice illusion that all is right with the world. But every once in a while, someone like you comes along and starts shitting on my rainbows and fucking unicorns. Painting my blue skies black and my white clouds red, eclipsing my sun, sucking me back into the fucking darkness. And you know what, it pisses me off! You’re pissing me the fuck off, Blood!!”

With each word, his voice crescendoed, got growlier, and by the end, I was pressing myself against the car door.

“So tell me,” he said in a lower octave, “if I’m a deviant miscreant, what are you?”

“The angel of death?”

With a humorless laugh he said, “And yet I have you in my car. Taking you to my home.” Exhaling, he tutted. “
Oh Death, where is your victory? Where, oh Death, is your sting
?”

“You’re tryna slew me with a
Bible quote
?” I asked, incredulous. “Pretty sure that’s an insult to God.”

“Nah,”—he shook his head—”it only proves I’m redeemable and you’re a lost cause.”

I scoffed. “Like fuck, you are.”

Shooting me an annoyed side glance, he scowled deep and pushed the pedal to the metal. “I like it better when you’re silent.”

The jolt of the acceleration flung me back in the seat, but it didn’t shut me up. “I see you got the cops in your pocket.”

“It’s necessary.”

“So where are my artilleries?”

Chad gave me a look. “Barring the obvious fact that I’d be out of my fucking mind to give you weapons to use against me, I let the cops have them as payment to hold your cash and docs for me.”

“And what about my clothes and—”

“Eminem,” he said out loud, cutting me off, and I was momentarily confused until I heard a beeping sound and his monitor responded, “
Locating Eminem
” and, in a second, all of Eminem’s albums were loaded.

Hitting a button on the steering wheel, Chad selected the 2010
Recovery
album, then the single
Love the Way You Lie
.

Still a diehard Eminem fan, I realized. Back when I knew him—or at least thought I did—Nas and Eminem were basically the only music artistes he jammed to. A small smile tugged at my lips at the choice of song, though.

Was he apologizing for hitting me?

Huh.

“Do you st—” I started to ask, but he instantly pressed a button on the steering wheel and upped the volume so loud and blaring, my words got drowned out by the music.

Pursing my lips, I turned and looked out the window at the world zooming by. Because, yeah, whatever, I got it now: he liked me better silent.

Arrogant shit.