Conviction: Devine (10 page)

Kris watched me with no expression on his face, as per usual.

“And . . . and . . .” I squeezed my eyes closed, hating the tightness in my chest as the nausea twisted my insides, my broken voice choking me. “God damn it, Kris! He murdered my family! Why? Why?”

Kris’ arms wrapped around me and he pulled my face into his chest. My hands fisted his shirt as I desperately clawed at him, the pain tearing through me, taking the breath from my lungs as I wailed and grabbed at him for comfort.

“Shush, chicken,” he soothed, his funny nickname only just filtering through my loud cries as he rocked me back and forth, one of his hands sliding up and down my back as he tried to quieten my distress.

He held me for a long time, patient and calm as my hysterics eventually turned to sobs and then random sniffles.

He tipped my head back, his thumb and finger directing my face to his. The look of torment on his face had me hypnotised. Kris had never shown any emotion and for him to look at me the way he was astounding. “I’m going to say two things.” He blinked at me, holding me captive in his gaze. I was struggling to breathe, something telling me I needed to listen to him to understand why my life was falling apart. “Jake deserves my loyalty and he will always have it.”

I curled my lip and tried to look away before I said something I wouldn’t regret. Kris, once again, took my face and sternly pulled my gaze back to his, his eyes narrow and heated. “Listen to me, because you need to hear this.”

“Really?” I bit out, angered by how Kris could go from being a friend to a foe so quickly.

“Yeah, really!” he growled, his grip on my face tightening.

Defeated, I glared at him. “Well, go on! Say what you have to. God forbid one of Jake’s minions would ever disagree with what he does!”

“Oh, I disagree with him alright!” Kris hissed. “I disagreed with him when he chased after you!” My jaw dropped. “I disagreed with the way he involved himself in your poor, sad life!”

I tried to pull back but he refused to allow it, his other hand curling around the back of my neck, his fingers digging in until they restricted any movement. The pain in my skull was excruciating and I was amazed how such a simple hold could be so painful.

“One thing you don’t know about Jake is his loyalty to his friends and those he classes as family. He makes promises that he
never
breaks.” He leaned closer to me at the same time as he pulled my face closer to his. “You don’t find it strange that he asked me to send you to his office just as he was
screwing
Gen? Did you even fucking bother to ask him? Did you bother to make sure what you saw was actually what you
thought
you saw?”

My Adam’s apple ached when my heart thumped madly and my throat started to close up. “What?”

He sighed and relaxed his hold slightly. “Close your eyes,” he barked.

“What?”

He growled in annoyance. “Close—your–eyes.” His order was softer this time, the tone of his voice more accommodating to my confusion. “Please,” he grated out as if it physically hurt him to be polite.

After rolling my eyes and huffing in frustration, I did as he asked and closed my eyes.

“Good. Now think back two weeks to when I asked you to go into Jake’s office.”

I snapped my eyes open not wanting to relive the painful day and shook my head frantically. “No, please, Kris.”

“Trust me,” he whispered as his fingers slid over my eyes and closed my lids. “Just trust me. You walked down the stairs. You went towards Jake’s office. I went left.”

I swallowed back the need to vomit as I mentally walked with Kris, my feet padding along the hallway to Jake’s office.

“You keyed in the code then walked up his stairs into his reception area.”

My heart clenched as my mind relayed Kris’ story in real motion, a small sob breaking free when I envisioned turning to look at Jake and Gen fucking.

“Shush,” Kris said, and placed his finger tenderly over my lips. “Look, Isla. Look closer.”

I pushed back the nausea and braced myself. The image of Jake and Gen was engraved in my mind so doing as Kris asked wasn’t too difficult.

“Look, chicken. Look at Gen.”

I bit my lower lip as I zeroed my mind onto the bitch that had ruined my life. My mind focussed on her long blonde hair that fell down the centre of her back to her bra strap. Going lower, I gasped and tried to peer closer. My eyes snapped open and I stared at Kris. He nodded slowly. “Now you see.”

For a moment I couldn’t talk, confusion rendering me mute. Eventually, I coughed, clearing the clog in my throat. “They were acting! Jake still had his fucking shorts on! She still had her knickers on. They weren’t fucking!” I babbled crazily, “Why? Why would he lie to me? Why would he do that?”

Kris closed his eyes and let go of me then stood up. “That’s the second thing I’m going to tell you and risk my friendship with a man that has nearly died for me.”

I cocked my head, shocked by his revelation. “I don’t understand.”

He shook his head. “I don’t expect you to. Always the martyr, Isla.” I gulped at his disgust of me but then his expression softened again. “Sometimes we have to hurt the ones we love to stop them hurting.”

I frowned at him, bewildered by his cryptic statement. “Kris. He murdered my brother and my mum. How do you . . .”

“But did he?” he spat as he thrust his face to mine, making me jump back. “Just because he was arrested doesn’t make him fucking guilty.” He curled his lip at me, his angry glare burning a hole into my head. “He was trying to set you free, you stupid blind bitch!”

I reared back, shocked by his hatred once again, his mood swings difficult to keep up with. “By killing my family?”

“BY TAKING THE RAP FOR SOMEONE KILLING YOUR FAMILY!”

His eyes widened when he realised what he’d said, the angry flush on his face paling until a deathly white sheen covered his skin.

I couldn’t breathe. The bench seemed to slide from beneath me as the day turned back to night and darkness once again descended.

I
STARED AT THE
burnt toast and lukewarm sludge that had been thrown into my room an hour earlier. I only studied it because there wasn’t much else to look at in the small concrete box I’d been shoved into the previous night. I’d waited for my father to visit, yet strangely no one bothered apart from a young training copper who’d brought my breakfast, not even to open the metal flap in the door to check on me.

I rubbed at my eyes, my chest aching when the image of Isla’s devastation chilled the marrow in my bones for the hundredth time since my arrest.

Brook was a dead man. Although I was looking at a life sentence it didn’t mean things wouldn’t still be run as they should on the outside. Adam and Kris had their orders and their first new one would be tearing that little bastard apart slowly and as fucking painfully as possible.

Gen had given me the nod regarding her father. Freddy knew I was going in and had arrangements already in place for my stay. It wouldn’t be the Ritz but for what I was doing, it was the least the arsehole could do.

The flap in the door finally opened, making me jolt in surprise when Graham, a PC on my payroll, looked through to me. The door opened and I braced myself, expecting my father to make his dramatic entrance.

What I didn’t expect was to see Isla.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention, my dick twitched as was habit whenever she was in the same room. I couldn’t get a reading on her emotions, her face void of any expression as she regarded me.

She turned and smiled at Graham. “Thank you. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

He nodded, patting her on the shoulder. “No rush, love. The others are on break.”

Isla stepped into the cell as Graham closed the door behind her, locking us both in. My heartbeat quickened at her nearness and the familiar scent of her perfume soothed the rampant turmoil of my soul.

Slowly she walked towards me, her high heels clicking on the concrete floor. Time seemed to stop when she slid between my open knees, the outside of her thighs touching the inside of mine and sending my cock crazy. I gazed up at her, too choked up to say anything, the restriction in my throat as painful as the agony in my chest.

I gasped when her palm struck my cheek and my face flung to the side, the sting making my ears ring.

Looking back at her, I gulped at the tears that forced free from her eyes. “I’m sorry,” I choked out, her pain my own as I tried to grab her hand. Pulling it back, she slapped me again, the hatred on her face as potent as my guilt.

“Tell me, Jake. Tell me exactly what you’re sorry for.”

I sucked in my lips and lowered my eyes. “You know what for.”

Her fingers gripped my chin harshly and she yanked my face back up to look at her. Shaking her head, her rage at the forefront, she sniffed and straightened her shoulders as she tried to pull herself together. “Actually I’m struggling to figure out which bit you’re sorry for.”

“All of it. The pain, the lies, the . . .”

“Oh! You’re sorry for the lies?” Her voice rose as her tone sharpened, her high pitched shout becoming a squeaky shriek. “Which ones, Jake? The one where you made me believe that you fucked the blonde bitch?” My eyes widened on her, my jaw dropping with her next words. “Or the fact that you have ended your life for the person who killed my family?”

She lashed out again, this time her knuckles connected with my cheekbone, the force of her punch so powerful I winced at the crack, knowing she’d just broken my cheekbone.

“How dare you put the murder of my family before me?”

I reared back when she exploded, her fists hitting me time after time, her loud screams letting out her hurt and rage. I took it. I sat back, placed my hands in my lap and allowed her to break me like I had broken her.

“I loved you, damn it!” She cried, crushing me more and more. “I fucking love you! Why, Jake? Why?”

Eventually she accepted my attempts to console her as she sank into my arms.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered over and over, her despair bringing forward my own as we both sat and cried. “I’m so sorry.”

“How can you do this to me?” she asked with a hiccup when she looked up at me, her red-rimmed eyes still exposing all of her glorious spirit. I was relieved to see I hadn’t massacred that as well. “Why, Jake?”

My love for her was so powerful that having her in my arms again was overwhelming, her little body against mine something I thought I would never feel again. “Because I love you,” I replied quietly as I stroked my thumb across her cheek and wiped away her tears. Looking away, I sighed heavily. “You could never understand.”

Her face hardened. “Try me!”

I gazed at her, drinking in her natural beauty, filling my heart and soul with her and hoping it was enough to last me the rest of my existence. “This.” I gestured around the room and to us with a sweep of my hand. “This is exactly what I didn’t want.”

She shook her head. “You’re taking the blame for murder yet you didn’t want to be locked up?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Unable to keep my hands off her, I ran my finger along the edge of her jaw. “You, Isla. I didn’t want this for you. I need you to move on, live life. I need you to marry a good man and allow him to cherish you. I need you to be happy and above all . . .” My voice broke as I begged her with my eyes. “ . . . Above all, I need you to hate me.”

“Why?” she whispered.

“Because this is what I can’t stand. I can’t stand having you close and being unable to feel you. I can’t stand not seeing your beautiful smile. I never want to take that away from you.”

“But you did.” She ran her fingers over my face. “You took away everything good when you made me believe that you slept with Gen, and killed Seb and my mother. Who did it, Jake?”

“I did.”

She glared at me, pulling away. “Stop with all the lies, please. Just tell me who you’re willing to ruin us for?”

Lowering my eyes, the pain behind them private, I refused to answer her. She remained quiet for a moment and the sound of her knocking on the door broke me yet again. I looked up, craving her, needing to engrain her to memory for the last time.