Chad's Chase (Loving All Wrong Book 2) (24 page)

“I used to wish for death,” I told him through a messy muffle of sniffles. “I hated my life and I just wanted to die already. But now I realize why I didn’t pull the trigger whenever I put the gun under my chin. It’s because I didn’t really want to die. I just wanted a way out.”

Taking my trembling hands in his, he whispered, “No matter how much we pretend, none of us really wants to die. Not even those who commit suicide. Some commit suicide because they’re tired of screaming out into the void and not being heard, so they do it for people to notice their pain. But I’m sure in death, they’re wishing they’d stayed and fought it out. Because they
did
get people to notice them, to hear them, but what’s it worth now that they’re dead? How can they be helped?” He squeezed my hands, warming them. “I’m glad you didn’t pull the trigger, Jhay. I’m glad you stayed and fought it out. Because I’m here now. I hear your screams. I notice your pain. And I’m here to help.”

“You’re gonna die trying to protect me
and
yourself,” I said hoarsely. “I don’t want you to die.”

“Funny,” Chad chortled in spite of the situation, “considering two nights ago you were aiming to blow my head off.”

That’s because two nights ago I didn’t know I still loved you
. “I’m serious, Chad. I don’t want—”

“You’re not going to die,” Chad assured me, firmly positive. “I might…but you won’t.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“Remember that second person I said is after you?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, they’re not really
after
you.” He gave my hands another reassuring squeeze.

“They’re watching over you.”

I
watched Chad like he’d just spoken monkey language.

Who the hell did I have left on earth to ‘watch over me’? I almost laughed. “Okay, um, I’m officially confused.”

Getting to his feet, Chad drew me up from the chair. “Let’s talk in the living area so Viv can clean up this mess.”

Still a little nervous, worrisome, and overly bemused, I let him lead me through the open-floor plan, and we took up residence on the couch. Chad lifted my feet up onto his lap and began massaging my soles.

Okay. This was nice. Really nice.
God,
please
don’t let me die.

“I don’t know who ordered protection over you,” Chad admitted.

“Chad…” I sighed, frustrated, “I’m getting more and more confused by the second.”

Concentration dedicated to my feet, his brows furrowed as he said, “When Nadia first brought you to my attention, I took immediate precautions.”

“Ah, so it was Nadia who ratted me out.”

“Yeah, before she got so disturbingly smitten by you.” He glanced over at me and shook his head. “How’d you manage to turn a completely straight girl gay?”

With a chuffed smirk, I replied, “Same way you managed to turn a completely gay girl straight.”

Bringing his attention back to my feet, he abandoned that little digression and hopped back on the main topic. “I went by your apartment and installed cameras so I could always be two steps ahead of y—”

“That’s impossible,” I said, wagging my head, disbelieving. “I swept my apartment for bugs every night.”

Lips compressed, Chad gave me a pointed look, as if saying I’d had no idea who I was dealing with. “Ah, yeah. My guys found your bug detector and tampered with it so you wouldn’t pick up on the ones we planted.”

“You…argghh!” I tried to kick at him, but he firmly held my feet in place.

“Did you forget you were trying to
assassinate
me?”

Out of valid excuse to throw a bitch tantrum, I huffed and relaxed back into the couch. “You jerked off on all the girl-on-girl action that went on in my apartment?”

“That would imply I’m a pervert,” he deadpanned.

“Did you?”

Refusing to entertain me with an answer in the positive, he ignored it altogether and continued with the original topic. “A man broke into your apartment when you left for work one night. He didn’t seem to be digging for anything like a burglar would; just snooped around and checked stuff. Flipped through notebooks and drawers. Like someone searching for clues to back up a conjecture. Two nights after that, when you left for work, a completely different person broke in. Wired up a cam in your bedroom and left. Soon as he left, I went and got rid of it. That’s when I decided playtime was over. So… I organized a plan—which I predicted you’d play right into—to get you here.”

“In the garden…was that planned, too?”

“Yes,” he confessed.

“It was a distraction,” I stated instead of asking.

“Yes.”

Mortification licked at my veins, or maybe it was irritation, or indignation, rather. “And then you want to give me shit about our fucks not meaning anything to me.”

Fingers still massaging my soles, he spoke in an annoyingly calm tone. “That’s not important right now.”

Like hell it’s not. But I let it go…for now. “So what did you do on the fifth floor?”

“Off the guy who installed the cams in your apartment.”

I straightened. “He was
living
at The Chess?”

“Yep.” His thumbs massaged deep into my soles and I emitted a low, appreciative moan. “For a month, he told me when I questioned him. Claimed he meant you no harm. Said he was assigned to protect you. But of course, I didn’t believe him. So I offed him. When you left to tail me, my dirty cops moved his body to your apartment and set it on fire.”

“Then if you killed him, who were you putting on a show for in Excelsior? The handcuffs and the bike bombing?”

“The two who’d followed you there,” he filled in. “I guessed whoever sent them to spy on you was whoever sent you to kill me. So the burnt-out apartment, the bike bombing, me taking you as hostage, was to send a message that you failed. If I had you, the general assumption would be that I’m going to imprison and torture you for information, then kill you. The goons would report back to their boss, and that would hopefully throw them off you, marking you as a lost cause.”

“You think it worked?”

Massaging paused, Chad looked at me like I was an imbecile. “
No
, Jhay. Now that I know your boss is my father, I’m positive he saw right through it. He knows I’m never going to kill you.”

My shoulders sagged in disappointment. “Well, that’s comforting.”

Cruising his hands up my left leg, he squeezed my thigh. “You’re safe, Jhay. Someone powerful, extremely powerful, more powerful than my father, is protecting you. Rafail will have to get through those men before he can get to you. I’m the only one who’s wide open. The gun is at my head, they couldn’t give a shit. The gun is at your head, your assailant meets his death before he can even pull the trigger.”

Oh God
. I removed my feet from his lap and crawled over to him. “But I’m with
you
. Why won’t they protect you, too?”

“Because I killed your mother.”

It was like a dagger twisting in my heart, that harsh reminder.
Because I killed your mother
.

He killed my mother.

He. Killed. My. Mother.

Why, then, should I care about his safety? Oh, but I did. Greatly. As though his life meant more to me than my mother’s ever did. “These people protecting me, what does my mother’s death have to do with them?”

His gaze drifted from mine and to the clock on the wall behind me. “It’s getting late, Jhay. You should go showe—”

“Don’t do that,” I said, getting onto my knees. “Don’t shove me back into the dark. Tell me.”

“Stop pushing, Jhay,” he grumbled, leaning forward and dropping his hands on his knees. It was like keeping the truth from me was taking every ounce of strength in him. “I don’t want to keep anything from you, okay? But I was
ordered
specifically not to tell you…”

“Specifically?” I asked in utter shock, almost cackling in disbelief. “Since when did you, Chadrick Niiveux, start taking orders from people?”

Slowly, he turned his head to shoot me an annoyed glare. “Since I decided, like you, that I don’t want to fucking die.”

A pause from me, then, “Is this person really that high and powerful?”

“Yes,” he stressed with extra emphasis. “If he wants me dead, I’m dead.”

I eyed the fading bruise on his cheekbone… “That’s how you got that shiner, isn’t it?”

Chad shoved a hand through his hair and nodded. “I got blocked off on a backstreet in Sonoma Valley yesterday. By Feds. Heavily armed.”

“Whoa.”

“Knocked me out. When I woke up, I was in a room with… Org.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know the person.”

“I lied, okay?” he snapped. “I’m not even supposed to be telling you this.”

I kept quiet and let him continue.

“He was pissed. I’d already been on his shitlist for assassinating Isabel….now one of his men was killed by me again.”

“So the guy back at my apartment really was telling the truth,” I summed up. “He was protecting me.”

“Yep.” Chad sighed, sounding frustrated with the world. “It was eventually pardoned because I did it to protect you.”

“Oh.” I chewed that over for a minute before asking, “What did he tell you?”

“What he thought I needed to know.” He turned his gaze straight ahead. “And what he thought you didn’t need to know.”

“And he threatened to kill you if you told me?”

“Pretty much,” Chad confirmed with a nod. “Apparently he’d been searching for you since your family’s death. Belatedly learned about their assassination. No word about you, whether you were dead or alive. Couple months ago he received confirmation that you are indeed alive, your whereabouts, and your status. Afterwards, he received unsubstantiated word that the person who ordered you to assassinate me ordered an assassination on
you
as soon as you got the job done.

“Org received no validity on that information, but he took no chances and sent his men to guard you. They’ve already killed four men they caught sniffing you out in the last two months. But more kept coming. My father wants you dead as bad as he wants me dead.”

“That sonuvabitch,” I hollowly whispered, my heart thudding in my chest. “He promised me he would free me if I got the job done. He
promised
me freedom.”

“My father’s definition of freedom is completely different from yours,” Chad dryly commented.

I swung my feet off the couch, sitting upright, trying to process all this horrifying info. “All this time, my life depended on yours? All this time, while I was trying to kill you, you were
protecting
me? My God…”

Chad reached over and gripped my arms. Tight. “I would never hurt you, Jhay. I still—” He stopped abruptly and closed his eyes. When he opened them, the soulful, reassuring person was gone; now a thick wall of impassivity. “You should go shower and get some rest. We’ve been at this all day. I swear my head’s about to explode.”

Moving closer to him, I reached between his strong thighs and rubbed my palm over him, and in a second he was hard, like rubbing a genie awake from its lamp. “Let me take the edge off.”

He gave me a look. And I knew what he was thinking:
“After all that info dump, the only thing you can think about is sex?”

The look was right. Considering the heavy shit we just discussed, yeah, the look was appropriate. But I couldn’t help myself, or the way my body fired up around him.

Chad was like my Beautiful Sunday. As long as he was right there beside me, so close I could hear his heartbeat, I didn’t give a damn about the outside world. Death or danger. Threats or fatalities.

I only cared about him. Breathing him in, letting him consume me. It’s like I’d grown addicted overnight. And now I was heady, burning with an unprecedented fervency.

I was dependent. I was addicted. I was in love.

Taking hold of my wrist, Chad removed my hand from his person. “Shower.”

“Do I smell?”

“No. I’m trying to get you to leave before I give in and fuck you in places you’re not ready to be fucked yet.”

A roiling heat settled down below. “You just need a little time to yourself, then?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” I agreed, getting up. “I’ll take a bath instead of a shower and give you ample time to get your thoughts together. But then…”

Raising his eyes to me, Chad cocked up a brow. But I wasn’t amused. Sex, I took it seriously. When I needed it, I needed it. And by hook or by crook, Chad was fucking me tonight. End of.

Face serious, tone unflappable, I told him, “Just fill in the blanks.”

On my heels I spun and made a beeline for my bedroom. Should I be thinking about the black eye of the storm we were in? The shit whirling around us? The danger? Who that Org person was? Why he was protecting me? How my mother dialed into all this? Why Rafail Niiveux wanted both me and his son dead? How free slash captivated I was? Had I jumped from a frying pan into a fire? Was I truly safe?

Maybe.

Maybe I should be thinking about all those things. Worrying. Pondering. Questioning.

Instead, all I could think about as I ran my warm bath, stripped and eased down into it was Chad’s cock.