“Screw you, Lane. I am not confused. Just stupid,” I mumble past the split lip while one eye cracks open to glare at him.
I can’t look good. One eye is swollen completely shut while the other feels puffy, but my glare is in full force when my vision clears and I see both Miah and Jared staring down at me.
Miah, bless his heart, is smiling and throws me a wink while the world’s biggest A-hole stands glaring at me with enough intensity to catch my hair on fire.
“Ah, should’ve known you were awake and listening like the sneak you are,” he says and I groan at the pain his words cause me.
I want to tell them everything and beg them to fix it. And yet I can’t, because he believe me and I am terrified of what will happen when they find out everything that was done to me.
Those bastards, those slime-sucking evil bastards took something from me that I can’t even think about. If I do, I know I will fall apart and never get back to myself.
“Eat my ass, Lane,” I mutter, wincing when I shift and try to sit up and pain streaks through my entire body.
“Goddammit, lie down! You’re not healed enough to move,” Jared yells, stalking over to me to push me back down with a curse.
For a man of his size, considering that he’s beyond pissed with me right now, his actions are so gentle, I hardly feel a twinge as I’m pressed back into the mattress and scooted up a little.
“I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’ll need much movement where I’m going anyway, so chill it and let me up, Lane,” I say, covering the tears that have yet to leave my eyes with a disdainful sniff. “I need to talk to you about—”
“I don’t want to fucking hear it, Paulette. You had more than ample opportunity to come clean about this shit, so if that’s the angle you’re gonna try and play before stiffing me…just stop.”
“No—”
“Enough! I said I don’t want to fucking hear it. Now just lie there while me and Miah go talk and I’ll bring you something to eat when I come back.”
“But—”
He walks away before I can finish my plea and exits the room with a curse, leaving Miah shaking his head before turning to me.
“He’s gonna need a little time to get over this shit, sis.”
I know, and even as I nod, I accept that it will likely take a lifetime and a freaking day before he looks at me with affection again. I know I said I hated him looking at me like I’m his pal or something, but right now I’d take any freaking scrap I can get if it means he won’t hate me forever.
“I had no choice. I swear, I had no choice,” I whisper, swallowing past the tears clogging my throat.
Miah’s eyes soften before he straightens and looks at me sternly.
“There’s always a choice, Paulie. Always. You just made the wrong one, sweetheart.”
“I know. I just…I was alone and…it was already too late for me by the time Jared came along.”
No, that’s a lie. It was too late for me a long time before that even. My parents, those soul-sucking demons, put me in a position that is inescapable, and then when Cleo got her hooks into me I had nowhere to turn.
I resent this attitude the Lanes are throwing my way, because as cool as I think they are, they have no idea what it is to never be loved or cherished. They have the perfect parents and each other while all I have are parents who sold me to the highest bidder and a sister who has enough shit of her own that she doesn’t even acknowledge my existence.
There is no going back from this. I fucked up, big time, and nothing I say or do will ever excuse or make up for the betrayal I dealt to the man I love.
“Paulie, honey, just give him time.”
“I would, really I would, Miah. But we’re out of that luxury. The Patriots aren’t going to stop till they get what they want, and right now they want their leader back.”
He scowls at me, and for the first time I see his face harden so much that he looks exactly like his twin. For some reason, and one I can’t really put into words, I am more afraid of Miah in that split second than I have ever been of Jared.
As his eyes narrow on me, I realize that looks are totally deceiving. This man is way more dangerous than Jared, I know it instinctively. He just hides it behind a laid-back attitude and ready smiles.
For whatever reason, Miah chooses to let people believe he’s the easy mark, and I almost pity Lynn Conrad if what those assholes said is true. If she is, in fact, alive and in Miah’s hands, then she’s not anywhere I would ever want to be.
“Your leader, you mean?”
“No. I—”
“Let me make something very clear to you, Paulie. I like you. I always have and I consider you one of us knowing that Jared wants you, but if you lie to us, if you hurt my brother again, I will lock you away in the deepest, darkest hole I can find and enjoy knowing that you’re suffering just a tenth of what he’s suffered at your betrayal.”