Drowning to Breathe (37 page)

My smile was full of grief and awe, my understanding one-hundred percent clear. I’d accepted it. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t also tried to protect him from it, because that was just a part of who I was, too.

Emotion pressed in from every direction, a spike of desperation slicing through the words. “Did anyone find out anything more?”

The shake of his head seemed regretful. “No. We were all blindsided by this, Shea. Not just you. We haven’t been able to get in to talk with him yet and Kenny doesn’t think he can make that happen until Monday.”

Monday?

He hesitated again, sliding his gaze back to Kallie, to the road, then me. As if gauging what to say. Weighing if he had it in him to hurt me more.

“Just tell me,” I begged, because I couldn’t stand being left in the dark.

His words were measured and quiet, as if he could shield little ears from the magnitude of them.

“The charges are bad, Shea. He broke his restraining order by going over there, which is probably the least of his worries. It’s the assault and battery. Breaking and entering. Felonies that can add up to life, especially with his record. For the first time Kenny’s outlook is bleak.”

He roughed a hand through his hair, anger and frustration and worry bleeding through. “This is going to be a battle I’m not sure we can win.”

Sorrow struck every cell. Invaded every crevice.

Hands squeezing the wheel, his deep voice broke into the torment. “But things that are worth it? They’re always a battle, Shea. Everything important comes with a cost. We don’t always realize the truth of that because we don’t fight for the things that don’t truly matter to us. In my experience, the best things come through tribulation. What is forged in the fire always comes out stronger.”

I swallowed around the lump in my throat.

Sebastian was the fire.

“Thank you,” I whispered, just noticing we’d pulled to a stop in a drive in front of an immaculate home.

“That’s what I’m here for. Whatever you need, just ask, okay?”

I nodded.

Anthony helped us take our things into the house. On the outskirts of my mind I recognized it was incredibly beautiful, so different than the sleek, modern lines I’d anticipated. Instead it was a stunning structure of warm stucco, sweeping windows, and dark, homey woods, a Tuscan haven hidden away by lush vegetation in the Hills.

No place inside me had the capacity to appreciate it. All those places had been struck down, chained in a fear and a loss that spun firm and fast and ferocious, all muddled with a hope I refused to relinquish.

I held tight.

The only way I knew how to keep myself together.

Inside, all the guys were there to welcome us, but the mood was decidedly somber.

Zee hugged me for a long, long time, his hold so full of sympathy it made me want to give in and weep. Like he sensed it, he pulled back and took Kallie’s hand, asking if she wanted to go for a walk around the pool and gardens, luring her with the many different types of butterflies she would find.

Supportive eyes flashed to me, a look that promised he would take care of my baby. That he was offering me a second’s reprieve in the midst of tumult. A moment to catch up to the pieces that were still falling apart.

With a stoic jerk of his chin, Lyrik looked on with sorrow and understanding as he leaned back against the wall with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Beneath that rigid calm I saw it. A gleam of malice and mayhem, the glint in his eyes dark and foreboding and fueled by anger. No doubt he was itching to break out, to go track Martin down the same way Sebastian had done and seek his own revenge.

“Come on, Beautiful Shea,” Ash said, with none of the flirt and tease he normally injected into his words as he gathered my bags. “Let’s get you settled. You have to be exhausted.”

I was.

Absolutely exhausted.

Emotionally.

Mentally.

But I knew well enough there would be no sleep.

This is going to be a battle I’m not sure we can win.

I followed him upstairs. At the top of the landing were two hallways. We took the one to the right. Ash led me to the room at the very end on the left, shut off by high double-doors. He turned the knob and let the door swing open wide.

Sebastian.

His presence hit me like a rogue wave.

Completely unanticipated and knocking the breath from my lungs—all spice and man and dark seduction.

Greedily, my eyes sucked in his space. Natural light glimmered in from the balcony doors that overlooked the pool, and heavy, dark drapes framed them at the sides.

The guitar we’d played together on our wedding night was propped against the wall next to his bed, as if he’d lain there against the leather headboard and his fingers had played the strings.

Thinking of me.

I could almost hear that beautiful, beautiful voice filling the air, deep and rough and brushing across my skin, like the pleasured scrape of nails as we lost ourselves in the other’s body.

I pressed my hand to the wall to keep myself upright, overcome with the staggering weight of it all.

Ash eyed me warily. “You okay?”

I shook my head. “No.”

There was no use in lying because I was not okay.

Not in any shape or fashion.

He nodded, his discomfort clear. And part of me wanted to laugh, because I thought if I shed a single tear, this rocker just might bolt. Boys like him didn’t do well when women cried. But there he stood, his expression so blatantly clear.

He wished there was something he could do. A way to fix the mess Sebastian had gotten himself in.

With none of that flare or grandeur or cockiness, he gestured around the room. “Baz’s pad, obviously.”

It seemed stupid that I missed his arrogance, but it only amplified everything lacking. Everything missing.

Sebastian.

Sebastian.

Sebastian.

His name turned dizzying cartwheels through my mind.

“Bathroom’s there.” Ash pointed to the en suite. “Austin’s room is directly across the hall and I’m the first on the left, so I’m right here if you need anything.”

More hesitation, before he blew out a strained breath toward the ceiling, then looked back at me. “Baz had been clearing out Mark’s room for Kallie…it’s down the opposite hall, last door on the right. Kallie’s welcome to stay in there. Not sure with everything if you two want to be separated and it’s still a fuckin’ mess, but it’s there if you want it. We can help clear it out if you want us to. Nobody’s been up to finishing the job.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

He twisted his mouth to the side. “You’re welcome.”

He sidestepped me, and I shifted, moving deeper into Sebastian’s room to give him room to pass. At the doorway, he paused with his back to me, before he slowly turned around. “Want you to know you’re welcome here, Shea. This is your home now, for as long as you want it to be, no matter what goes down with Baz.”

Tears resurfaced in my eyes, because it was so overwhelming, the loss and the love and the unwavering support they showed for each other.

“You’re family now.” He rapped his knuckles on the doorjamb, as if he were driving home the point.

Then he disappeared through the doorway and left me to the startling loneliness. You’d think it would be impossible for something so barren to feel so alive.

Lost, I wandered to the bed, fingertips tracing along the sheets long since cold, and I gathered up the blanket and pressed it to my nose to take in more of him.

Sebastian.

I wanted to be angry. Curse him for being so reckless.

But I saw him for who he was.

A guardian.

Unsettled, I looked around the empty room, knowing I couldn’t sit idle. That I had to do
something
.

The nerves skittering through me promised it was to fight.

I stepped out into the empty hall, somehow drawn toward Mark’s room.

Yesterday, Sebastian and I had been texting on and off. Even with the burden of Martin on our shoulders, we’d been excited, flirting and teasing and playing while we anticipated being together again.

The last text I’d received from him had been filled with the same kind of thrill.

Score. Found Kallie all kinds of cute shit for her room. Going to have it ready to surprise her tomorrow. Can’t wait to see her face. Getting to work. Love you.

No warning or indication of anything amiss.

Fingertips fluttering along the wall, I slowly edged in the direction of Mark’s room as Ash had instructed. Silence echoed back, as if the massive house held still, whispering a hushed warning. My steps slowed in apprehension as I traversed the landing and crossed into the opposite hall.

At the end of it, a pile of shopping bags sat outside the room. I crept closer. The door stood wide open. Holding onto the wall, I peeked around the corner and inside.

A mountain of clothes were piled in the middle of the floor, and a few black garbage bags sat at the end of the bed stuffed full and tied off with a knot.

Warily, I stepped inside. My heart rate sped.

Muted light glowed through the gaps in the blinds, a thick coat of dust covering everything, the sober energy in here dampened even more than throughout the rest of the house.

It must have been so difficult for Sebastian to come in here, my brave, beautiful man.

My eyes jumped around, trying to latch onto something, a feeling or a vibe or the heart of Sebastian that had sent him running from here and into the grips of Martin.

Crossing the room to the desk, I ran my fingers over the few pictures left cluttering the surface, as if those were the things Sebastian couldn’t bear to part with. A feeling of sorrow captured my spirit as I strayed into the void Mark’s tragedy had left behind. Heaviness weighing me down, I turned from the desk and eased around the pile of clothes, my attention hooking on the yawning closet where a single light still burned from within.

I peered inside. The rods and half the shelves had been cleared out.

Unease trickled into my senses.

A job half done.

I sucked in a breath as a vibration of disquiet stirred through me, and I tentatively took a few steps deeper into the closet.

Boxes lined the floor, some shoved farther toward the room as if Sebastian were planning to get rid of them or store them elsewhere, and a couple were still tucked in the shelves and coves.

At the very back, a plastic storage bin had been dragged out onto the closet floor, the lid balanced at the side. In front of it, a few pictures were scattered about and a journal was turned upside down, pages bent as if it’d been dropped.

I sank to my knees, shaking hands and panted breaths out of control as I reached down and cautiously picked up the journal.

I hated the thought of invading the man’s privacy, long after he was gone, but I knew whatever Sebastian had found was now clutched in my trembling hands.

Another piece of me broke for a man I didn’t know as I scanned the pure and utter desolation slashed across the pages. Page after page of hopelessness and shame. The heart and mind of a terribly lost soul.

Tears gathered in my eyes as I continued on, searching for anything.
Any
indication of what would have sent Sebastian toward a fate I knew he didn’t want.

My attention caught on an entry nearing the back, in a place where his typically messy penmanship had become almost violent. Frantic.

Fucking Donny and his fucking mouth.

Donny?

A sinking feeling washed through me, taunting me with flickers of recognition. Vicious blue eyes I would never forget. I gripped the book, reading as fast as I could.

Always with his fucking mouth. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want any part of it. I knew Martin was sick. Both of them were sick. But not that sick. I told Martin so. I told him to go to hell when he demanded the money I owe him. Told him I’d take everything I know to the cops. I was going to anyway, money be damned. I knew what he’d had Donny do to that girl. I knew what he planned to have him do. She was a loose end. A liability. Just like me. Call me a snitch. I didn’t care. Let the asshole burn.

That girl.

That girl.

That girl.

That girl.

Oh my God.

Was this me?

A liability. A loose end?

That sinking feeling pulled me beneath the surface, like blackened waters lapping over my head.

I flipped the page. All my breath locked up in my throat, so thick and tight and suffocating. Lightheadedness tilted the room.

Donny’s gone. Dead in the water. I’m going to be next. I know it. Feel it coming. Am I scared? Yeah. Terrified, really. I led Martin on. Made him believe I’d leaked info. Ratted him and Lester out. He thinks I’m blackmailing, but I don’t have anything but Donny’s word. And Donny’s word is about as valuable as a ten-dollar whore. My only intention had been to thwart the plans he had to hurt that girl again. Only this time, make it final. Sick. Fucking sick. Couldn’t live with myself if there was any chance of it happening, so I’d rather die stopping it. I guess I finally did something in my life worth a shit.

Horror and hate collided in a cataclysm of fear when I locked on the name.

Lester.

And I knew. And I knew. And I knew.

I lurched forward, holding myself up on my hands and knees as I gasped for absent air.

I’d always thought the threat I’d made had saved Kallie’s and my life. Allowed us to live the way he never would have let us. But now I wondered if it was the stupidest thing I’d ever done.

And Sebastian…he was so protective, bore so much shame, regret, and guilt over the loss of Mark. One inciting factor would be the match. A combustion of sparks and flames and gasoline that would set him off.

Send him over the edge of the cliff on which he always teetered.

Volatile and explosive.

Just like Anthony had claimed…had asked me to accept.

Sebastian never loved lightly.

This was what Martin had wanted, wasn’t it? What he’d counted on?