“Wh-what?” Brit gasped, tears streaming down her face. “What do you mean?”
“Prison… is not for the faint of heart.” I sighed. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Brit shook her head.
I pulled out my cell and dangled it in front of her face. “One phone call from me and your father will be behind bars so fast you won’t even get to say goodbye. One phone call, Brit, and I suck every possible future from your pathetic life. You’ll be lucky to be working as a prostitute once I’m finished with you. Because let’s face it, even prostitutes need to have some class, am I right?”
People around me started whispering.
“So here’s what’s going to happen…” I cleared my throat and approached her until she could feel the heat from my body. “You talk to Trace again? I make that phone call. You talk about her, and I hear about it from one of your ugly friends? I make the phone call. Daddy goes to prison, all the family money gets taken, and, just because I love making people suffer that much, I tell the freaking world about your mother’s little… problem. Got me?”
Her lips trembled as tears cascaded down her puffy cheeks.
“Great.” I smiled and turned. “Anyone else want to tempt fate today, or are we good?”
Nobody spoke.
“Awesome. Then go back to class, make good choices, don’t do drugs, and— Go Eagles!”
I sent Nixon a quick text to let him know the situation had been dealt with, though I was kind of irritated at him. He’d been the hero while I’d had to take care of the dirty work. It was what I did, but for the first time… ever, I wanted to be Nixon. I wanted to be the guy who took care of business, not the second-in-command. What I did was important — I knew that, he knew that. Hell, everyone knew that. But I wanted more than importance. I wanted the girl too, and I was finally starting to see I wasn’t going to get her, not if Nixon wanted her, not if Nixon as much as desired her. Because I was second. Not first. Always second. And, above all else, I listened to my boss. Blood before girls, blood before life, blood before death. I was in it until I passed into the afterlife. It just sucked that while I wallowed in self-pity, Nixon was holding the girl of our dreams and wiping her tears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I would kill them all for hurting her — if I could get away with it.
Nixon
“ARE YOU HURT?” I leaned down and touched her face, but she slapped my hand away.
Cursing, I tried to pick her up, but she still shied away from me. The hell with that. I was taking her out of this shithole even if she held a freaking gun to my head.
“Shit.” I examined her face. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t…” I chewed my lower lip until I felt searing pain from biting down too hard. What could I say? I didn’t know they would take it this far? Because I had. I’d known. I wasn’t stupid. I’d known it was a possibility, and I’d let it happen.
I held out my hand to help her up.
She eyed it like it was the plague.
I couldn’t blame her.
Reluctantly, she took it, and I used the opportunity to pull her into my arms and carry her down the hall.
She gasped, and then the fight left her as she leaned her wet head against my chest.
And suddenly everything clicked into place.
It felt so right, having her in my arms, protecting her. I was half-tempted to growl “mine,” as professors watched us walk down the hall. I’d deal with them later, what the hell? A girl gets bullied that bad, and they’d just watched, sipping their coffee like it had been a normal occurrence. Assholes.
Trace’s hand pressed against my chest.
My breath hitched. I fought to keep the moan in. Touch from girls had always been something I loathed because it always seemed like there was a selfish reason behind it. They wanted to be screwed, they wanted to say they’d been with me, or they wanted my money. It was never what was behind the mask of Nixon Abandonato, but what I could offer them.
Touch had been made worse when I was little.
My father used to beat me within an inch of my life, making me shy away from any sort of human contact. Could you blame me for not wanting to show weakness? It just seemed better to hate touch — to hate pity, to hate everything — than show that it was actually a huge chink in my armor. The longer her hand stayed there, the warmer I felt, as if the heat from her palm was cracking through the ice, reaching into my chest and massaging my heart back to life.
Thump, thump, thump. It picked up speed, like it had been starved for years and was finally getting fed.
My entire body relaxed as I led her into our room, the one we had meetings in, the one I’d been sleeping in. It was our dorm, but it was private, nestled away from everyone else. Hell, it even had a special card that only we four had access to. Even the dean had to ask permission to get in.