Dark Savior: A Dark Bad Boy Romance (7 page)

Just as I decide to break the silence, something else does it for me. A phone rings and vibrates on a hard surface somewhere behind me, making the most aggravating combination of sounds I can think of right now.

His eyes darken, but he doesn't hesitate a moment to straighten up, moving me aside in a quick and almost careless motion. He slips out from beneath me and jumps up from the sofa, heading toward the obnoxious ringing. Just like me, he's completely naked, and I scan his beautifully sculptured back as he strides over to the kitchen counter, where his cell phone is dancing to each series of vibrations.

He has his back turned to me when he answers it. "Hello."

A few moments of silence pass while the person on the other end talks to him. As he’s listening to the person on the other end of the line, he turns around, casting his dark gaze in my direction.

"I'll call you back in a minute," he says, still looking at me.

He hangs up and puts the phone back on the counter.

"I gotta’ go."

His announcement hits me with a twinge of disappointment.

"Where?" I ask, as he starts picking up his clothes from the floor so he can  get dressed.

I'm not surprised when he shakes his head no. Of course, he won't give me an answer.

"When... I mean, can I...," I stutter, quickly covering myself with the brown blanket that we’ve shoved to the side sometime during the night, suddenly aware of my own nakedness.

"You can stay here," he says. "If you want."

He throws me a questioning look as he pulls up his pants.

I nod. "Yes. If it's okay, for now I—"

"It's okay," he interrupts. "But in this neighborhood, I'd advise you to lock the door. You need a key for that, which I can't give you."

"What do you mean?" I ask, tilting my head in confusion.

"I only have one key," he explains, now standing in front of me wearing just his pants, his ripped upper body on full display. I can't believe I slept with a man like him. He looks so damn hot. The v-shaped muscles in his pelvis area are so pronounced, they almost make his clearly visible six-pack appear weak in comparison.

"And I won't leave that key with you," he adds.

I tighten the blanket around myself. "So?"

"So, there are two options," he says. "I leave the door unlocked and you're free to go whenever you want, but you won’t be safe. Like I said, I wouldn't suggest sleeping in here with the door unlocked, not in this neighborhood."

He pauses, casting me a warning look.

"Or?" I ask.

"Or I lock the door when I leave," he says. "You'd be safe, but you can't go anywhere."

"Oh," I whisper. "I'd be... held captive."

He shrugs and walks over to retrieve his sweater from where he threw it down hours ago. "If you wanna’ call it that, yeah."

"When will you be back?"

"Tomorrow," he says, pulling the sweater over his head and robbing me of the fine view of his muscular body. "You have enough food and drinks. You won't die."

I chuckle. "You know I wouldn't care."

It was supposed to be a dark joke, but Kade won’t have it. He turns around to glare at me, his hazel eyes burning with fury and his eyebrows drawn together so strongly that they create a deep furrow between his eyes.

“Yes, you fucking
would
care,” he barks at me. “And you should care! I’m not gonna’ have that self-pitying attitude here, do you understand?"

I flinch at his aggressive reaction.

He approaches me with two wide steps and grabs my upper arm, pulling me closer to him. I try to fight him off, but of course my efforts are futile. His grip is strong and unyielding, he has complete control over me.

"Look at me!" he snaps, as I lower my head in fright.

I obey, meeting his enraged hazel eyes.

"I won't listen to that shit," he warns. "If you want to stay, you'll grow the fuck up and figure out what the hell it is that's turned you into this whiny little sheep."

Now I'm the one who's getting angry. Who the hell does he think he is?! He has no idea what I went through, no idea who I am, no idea about anything.

He responds to the rage on my face with a warning look and an even tighter grip around my arm.

"You asked me to take it away," he hisses. "To take the pain away. And I did, didn't I?"

I gulp, trying to hold back tears. His demeanor intimidates me. He scares me.

"Yes," I breathe, nodding.

"I told you, I'm not good at consoling people, talking about feelings and shit," he says. "This is all I could do for you. Give and receive pleasure, make you forget the bad and make you remember the good. The rest —— well, you'll just have to figure that out for yourself. But God damn it girl, you
will
figure it out.”

He lets go of my arm, and I rub the place where his fingers pressed in viciously on my upper arm. As much as it hurt, I do crave his touch. A part of me feels saddened and lost when he withdraws his hand.

“You should be fucking thanking me,” he mumbles, as he turns around to grab his jacket from the bar chair.

“You’re right,” I agree. “And I am thankful. For everything.”

He puts his jacket on and heads for the door. Before he leaves, he turns around to me one last time and looks at me quizzically. “So, what’s it gonna’ be? Door locked or unlocked?”

I hesitate for a moment, pondering both options and their accompanying implications. I know he’ll grow impatient, so I don’t give myself too much time to consider before I answer him. “Locked.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Kade

I’m on the phone as soon as I get to my car. “Sorry about that.”

Unlike me, Joseph never wastes time on pleasantries.

“Is it done?” he wants to know.

“Yes,” I say simply.

“All good?” he presses. “No trouble? No one saw you?”

I hate lying to him. Joseph has been my friend for as long as I can remember. We lived the same fucked up lives, connected through the choices our mothers made. No one gets me like he does. No one. We are closer than most brothers and I trust him, but I can’t tell him about her. I can’t tell him that I picked up a suicidal girl from the bridge as she was getting ready to jump, and I sure as hell can’t tell him that she’s currently staying at my mother’s apartment.

My old home. Telling him would cause nothing but trouble. He would worry about me losing myself, and he would worry about her yapping. Even though there was no reason to worry about the latter, as she has no idea about anything that happened. Luckily, Meadow has been too wrapped up with her own troubles. She doesn’t know I drove up to that bridge to dump off the dead body of a filthy scumbag.

“It’s all good,” I assure him. “The guy is gone, rotting at the bottom of the canyon, just as planned.”

“You made sure no one saw you?” Joseph asks again. “No one followed you?”

“Chill,” I tell him. “This is not my first time. When did you stop trusting me?”

Joseph laughs. “All right, all right. Calm down buddy, I trust ya’.”

He’d better.

Joseph and I have freed the world of another asshole because no one else would. But we’re still murderers. The law doesn’t care who you kill, and the police has proven to be ineffective against him. They’re our heroes and protectors all right, but if you ask me, they’re far too easy on the guys who could really need a kick in the nuts — or their heads chopped off.

Joseph and I don’t have that problem. When someone needs to go and the law is not taking care of him, we make sure that someone does. Especially here, where we grew up. We’ve seen shit happen to good people almost every week, and the bad guys never seem to have to face prosecution. Even if they were found guilty, they were back out on the streets within weeks, sometimes days, because whatever they’d done wasn’t bad enough to lock them up for any longer, or there wasn’t enough evidence to put them away for a more serious crime. A man could rape women and girls as young as twelve over and over again and again without facing any harsh consequences because his victims have no voice or are too afraid. They’re just poor little ghetto girls, often charged with their own little crimes. A lot of them sell their bodies for money out of sheer desperation, and they’re the easiest victims for these assholes. After all, how can you rape a prostitute? How can she press charges against you?

“Well, glad this shit is over,” Joseph adds. “It’s good to have you back.”

“Mmhmm,” I reply. “Don’t get used to it.”

He may be happy about my returning home, but I’m still torn up as fuck about it. I had a good life out on the East Coast, a normal life. Peaceful, successful. Just like my mother always wanted my life to be. Perfect, almost. She worked her ass off to make things possible for me — an education, a chance to get out of here — and I took advantage of that chance. I wanted to help her  get out, too, but she refused to leave the place that had been her home for almost her entire adult life. All she wanted was for me to leave, get out there and make a life on my own, far away from the dirty streets I grew up on. What would she think about me being back here? Would she be disappointed or glad that I’m just as connected to my home as she was?

I know she wouldn’t be proud of our activities. She knew I was protective of our neighborhood and the people who lived in it, but she never appreciated Joseph’s and my desire to clean the area of those who made it especially terrible. I’m getting tired of it, too.

“This was the last one,” I say.

A husky laugh echoing on the other end tells me that Joseph is not buying it.

“Yeah, you said that the last time, too,” he reminds me. “And the time before that.”

“I’m serious,” I insist. “This shit is getting too risky. I’ve worked too hard to risk everything for these pieces of shit. They don’t deserve my attention.”

“Oh, and their victims don’t either?” he asks.

I pause. Joseph knows just how to get to me, that bastard. He knows of my dilemma, the desire to leave this shit behind, while still feeling responsible for what is going on around here. But that responsibility has decreased significantly since my mother's death. I helped to clean up this neighborhood because she was still living. Now, there's no one left who needs my protection.

Except for her. Meadow.

"Will I see you at the bar later?" Joseph asks.

"No," I say. "I won't be around for a while."

"Why?" he probes. "You leaving town tonight?"

"I'll be busy," I reply simply. "We'll keep in touch."

I hang up and start the car. Part of me wants to go back upstairs, back to her. I don't feel comfortable leaving her up there by herself.

But what kind of message would I be sending by staying with her overnight? Girls get attached with shit like that. I don't need that, especially with a potential nut case like her.

As I drive through the streets of my youth, I go back and forth on my decision to take her in. What's the long-term idea behind this? I can't keep her locked up in my mother's apartment forever. What if she never wants to leave?

And what if she does? What if I come back tomorrow and she tells me she wants to leave. I can't keep her against her will, even if it's just to protect her. Meadow doesn't only need to be protected from others, but also from herself.

I wonder what brought her to that bridge, yet at the same time, I don't want to know. The more I know, the more involved I get. I can't have that. Love. Relationships. I don't do that shit. My life has always been better without it. Caring for people makes you weak and vulnerable. I should know.

Childhood home or not, I let out a loud sigh when I leave the ugly side of town and get sight of the clean high-rise buildings that serve the new me. My current penthouse is just a makeshift solution until I make up my mind about whether I'm here to stay or not, but it's miles above the apartment my mother insisted on living in until her death. It's my sanctuary, free of commitment, free of responsibility.

But as my mind wanders, it's not free from her. I can't stop thinking about Meadow, and it bugs the hell out of me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Meadow

He never said anything about the bedroom being off limits to me, so I decide to spend the night there instead of on the sofa. I wake up early in the morning, feeling more refreshed and alive than I have in a very long time.

After I take a shower and put on the only clothes I have at the moment — his shorts and hoodie sweater — I'm delighted to find coffee in one of the kitchen cupboards. I haven’t had an appetite for weeks, and I can't remember the last time I had a proper breakfast, but today my stomach is growling so loudly there's no way for me to ignore it. I make myself another sandwich, realizing there really is no other option in regard to food. I won't starve, he promised me that much, but it seems that sandwiches will be as creative as I can get.

I don't mind, but I'm beginning to regret my decision to let him lock me in the apartment. I'm trapped, alone with my thoughts and no way to distract myself, that is, except for reading since the place is filled with books. There's no TV, no computer, not even a phone. I wouldn't know who to call anyway, but it still strikes me as odd that this home doesn't have a landline considering an older woman likely lives – or lived – here.

When I'm done eating, I involuntarily start reminiscing about the sad reality that almost pushed me to end my life by jumping into that canyon.

My sister is dead. And I blame myself for her death.

I've lived with this guilt for more than half a year. I tried to keep going, to live the life she wanted me to live, but I screwed up. I failed my sister even after her death. She gave everything she had to give for me. After our parents were killed in an awful car crash more than seven years ago, Sonya didn't hesitate to bury her own dreams for the time being to make sure that I'd grow up to be okay. I was twelve years old and she had just finished high school. She had a scholarship to go to college out of state, but upon hearing that I'd end up in a foster home because we have no other living relatives, she put that dream on hold to become my legal guardian instead. She worked as a waitress at first, but managed to secure an office position by the time I entered high school. The monthly social security check and government-funded health insurance provided us with just enough to keep getting by. We both felt like we had it all. Already, Sonya had achieved a lot more for us than our parents ever had. They were both heavy drinkers, and the fact that my father was the one who caused their fatal accident didn't make things any easier on us. At least he only killed himself and our mother. There was another car involved in the crash, and next to our own grief, Sonya and I spent weeks sick with worry about the couple who drove the other car. When it was certain that they'd recover, we celebrated as if we had just been told that it was our parents who had survived.