She didn’t move.
My heart dropped to my stomach.
The look on her face—I knew I’d lost but I stepped forward anyway. Randy, the fucking pussy, moved back out of arm’s reach like it’d protect him. I hated him. I wanted him dead and I wanted to fucking destroy Candle but this shit was my fault.
I reached in my pocket for my cell then wrapped my arms around Siren. Slipping my phone into her jeans, I whispered in her ear. “Anytime, day or night. You need me, you call and I’ll be here. This isn’t over, Siren. I’m comin’ back for you. You hear me?”
She sucked in a breath and stiffened.
“Go. Hide the phone somewhere he won’t find it and I’ll call you in an hour with a number to reach me at.”
“What the fuck is he saying to you?” Randy demanded.
Ignoring him, I took her face in my hands and scrambled for some way to get through those dead eyes. “I’m not gonna force anythin’ on you, not ever. No one owns you, not him, not me, no one. But the moment you walked into my shop, you started to take what I got left in here.” I placed a hand over my heart. “You get what I’m sayin’? I know you’re tryin’ to protect me by doin’ this and I appreciate it, more than you could possibly imagine.” No woman besides my mother had ever tried to protect me. “But I’m not gonna let you get hurt again.” A flash of something passed across her face but it was gone so quickly, I couldn’t decipher it. I let go of her, feeling like I was making the biggest mistake of my life. “Go in the bedroom,” I said loud enough for Randy to hear. “Give us a minute to talk.”
“She’s not your woman,” Randy spat out. “You don’t get to tell her what to do. She’s not going anywhere. Stay right where you are, Nicole.”
Flexing my hands into fists, I turned on Randy. “Siren, bedroom. Now.”
Motherfucking asshole turned white. “Do what he says, baby.”
I waited till I heard the door close. “You wanna keep your dick attached to your balls, don’t fuckin’ touch her.”
“She’s my woman.”
“Correction, she was. Now she’s not. You think you won this round but all you succeeded in doin’ was pissin’ me off. I don’t give a shit who the fuck your daddy is, or what you think you have on me.” I stepped closer and got in his face. “I’m gonna love every second of the pain I inflict on you.”
“You’re a dead man, Talerco.”
I lowered my voice to a vicious calm, ignoring his threat. “Go ahead and play house. Pretend you still have an ounce of control over your life. Because come sunset?” I glared at him for two heartbeats, watching his pulse pound in his neck and smelling his fear. “The life you knew? It’s over.”
“You’re threatening me?” His laugh was off. “Are you begging to go to the chair? No problem.” He picked up his phone.
I moved. One hand curled satisfyingly around his skinny neck as I ripped the phone out of his grip with the other and spun him. Wrenching his arm up behind his back, I forced him to his knees and held his head down. “Do you know what happens when you make that call?” I growled.
He gurgled, gasping for breath.
I squeezed his neck tighter. “I didn’t hear you.”
“You go…to jail,” he sputtered.
“Wrong.” I brought his wrist to the point of breaking. “I tell Maldonado’s crew what Stone has planned for them.”
“Bullshit,” he panted. “They’ll kill you first.”
“Maybe.” A sneer of a grin spread across my face. “But not before I give them the address of the president of the Lone Coasters’ only son. And when you’re on your knees for them, begging for your life, you’ll wish it was only me holdin’ your sorry ass down.”
“Fuck you.”
I slammed his face into the coffee table.
“Leave.” Siren’s voice rang through the apartment.
Willing the deadly sneer off my face, I dropped Randy and turned. My breath catching, I raked my eyes the length of her, committing every inch of her to memory. Then I did the most cowardly thing I’d ever done in my life.
I walked out.
“CELL PHONE STORE IN THE mall,” I barked at André as I slid into his SUV and slammed the door.
“Where is she?” André looked back at the apartment complex.
“Not comin’.”
“Why not?”
My teeth ground together. “She’s tryin’ to protect me.” I’d seen the dead look in her eyes, the last place she wanted to be was with him. “She heard all the shit Carter said in my driveway and who knows what other bullshit he’s fed her since then.”