Toxic Bad Boy(82)

I cautiously took a step closer, causing him to jerk her up by the neck. He nodded his head toward the ground below. “You jump, and I let her go.”

Ian had been edging sideways in an attempt to come up from Josh’s left. Josh repositioned so he could see both of us and took a step back on the asphalt roof. His heels were now up against the low brick ledge.

I was going wild inside at the danger to the girl I loved. “Fine!” I shouted, holding my arms out in front of me. “I’ll jump.”

“You, too!” Josh barked at Ian.

“Fuck that,” Ian drawled. “Not when I’m dying to beat your ass again.”

I stepped onto the ledge, drowning in her stormy blue eyes. Josh held Gianna several yards away, but at least he wasn’t right at the edge anymore. In the corner of my eye, I saw Ian creeping closer again.

Josh’s crazed eyes needed to stay on me. “How do I know you’ll let her go?”

The drop to the pavement below was about three stories high. It was possible, but highly unlikely anyone would survive it. I’d rather it be me than my girl, but I’d much rather have the future we’d planned.

“No, Caleb!” Gianna shouted as cop cars pulled into the parking lot.

“Hurry up, or I’ll toss her over!” Josh screamed, visibly tightening his grip on her neck.

Ian was now closer to Josh than I’d managed. Gianna struggled to breath and Josh didn’t seem to realize he’d cut off her air. She clawed at his arm but he remained unfazed.

“Don’t jump!” a female cop called out from below.

One foot went into the air. Gianna began fighting Josh in an animalistic frenzy. Despite his threats, he didn’t immediately throw them both off the roof. Gianna finally tore herself away from Josh and he went after her, his obsession overriding rational thought.

At the same time I tackled him, I saw Ian push Gianna out of the way. I couldn’t worry about Gianna because Josh wrapped his arms around me and vaulted us off the ledge.

The moment I felt air under me, someone grabbed my wrist. I gulped in breaths, my gaze riveted to the sight of Josh’s broken body on the pavement. A cop checked his pulse as I felt mine race faster.

My head whipped up to see Ian gritting his teeth as he held onto me with both hands. “You’re fucking heavy,” he grunted.

My girl’s beautiful face peeked over the edge as tears streaked down her cheeks. “Pull him up, Ian!”

Ian pulled me up and I gripped the ledge as Gianna reached down to hook her arms under one of mine. “Get away from the edge!” I snapped at her. From now on she wouldn’t be allowed anywhere higher than two stories.

All three of us collapsed in relief. Safe from plummeting to my death, I told Ian as we lay on our backs, “You’re my hero.”

Breathlessly, he said, “Thanks for the awesome first day of freedom, Caleb.” He ran a hand over his face. “Fucking perfect. First day out and I’m about to be hauled to a police station for questioning.”

Gianna, who’d been quietly crying into my chest, giggled before sobbing harder.

“Don’t worry. I know a chick who’ll bang you later tonight for three hundred bucks.”

“Hold up your hands!” a voice screamed at us.

Rolling my eyes, I outstretched my arms as if about to make a snow angel. Ian did the same, chuckling. “This is ridiculous.”

We were hauled to our feet and handcuffed. I began fighting them when they did the same to Gianna. “Take those off her! She’s the victim, you idiots!”

They didn’t listen to me, but Chris raised hell when he saw his daughter handcuffed. Officer Novak was the one who got the handcuffs off me and Ian. The cops had a mess to sort out and Ian was right, we were taken to the station for questioning.

Josh was gone for good, but the statements of Gianna and Cece clarified that Ian and I were innocent. The whole mess ended up on the news, the escape from juvie, the kidnapping and Josh’s death. It also brought up the old story of his attack on Gianna, which I made sure she didn’t watch.

That night, I snuck into Gianna’s house after going home to shower. As if expecting me, her bedroom door wasn’t locked.





EPILOGUE





“To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever.”

-Henry Drummond

GIANNA

“Tell me you love me,” my fiancé ordered, pinning me to our bed in the off-campus apartment we moved into last month.

“Caleb, I have to get dressed. I’m going to be late for class again,” I whined from beneath him, failing to buck him off with my legs. It was our sophomore year and I considered moving back into the dorms next semester if he didn’t quit making me late for class.