Destroy You (Destroy #3) (6 page)

Chapter 5

Toni

Three Months Ago

Every time Trent and I got together, which was never more than once a week, we burned hot. Despite my insistence that we try to remain friends, we were all over each other almost every single time we met. Yet he didn’t treat me like a booty call. He was sweet, and I knew he wanted more from me than a hookup, but I was scared. Miguel wounded my pride, but Trent could destroy my heart.

Miguel had texted and tried to call me, but after ignoring him for over a month, he left me alone. Thank God for that too, because the one argument Trent and I had had was due to Miguel reaching out to me.

A couple of weeks after our first movie night, I was back over at his apartment. I excused myself to use the bathroom and heard my phone chime with an incoming text on my way back. As I walked into the living room, I saw Trent pacing and staring at my phone.

“Is this why you are keeping me at arm’s length?” he demanded and tossed my phone on his new sofa.

I rushed to his side, and in a rare moment of vulnerability for me, I stepped into his arms and wrapped mine around his waist. Instantly he held me tight. “No. That’s my ex, and he refuses to accept that he and I are over. I know we aren’t…I mean we haven’t…uh, we aren’t exclusive, but…”

Trent bent down and kissed me softly, then lifted his face again to look deep into my eyes. “I’m not seeing anyone else. I get that you aren’t ready to label what’s happening between us, but it is fucking happening.” He squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled. “Just please, while we are doing whatever the hell this is, no one else.”

I pressed my face into his chest. “No one else,” I agreed.

Miguel continued to be a bit of a sore topic with us, though, because my parents refused to accept that he and I were over for good and continued to try to throw us together when I visited them in Yakima. Their stubbornness had strained my relationship with them. I believed they wanted what they thought was best for me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling they weren’t really seeing me. Ever since my twenty-first birthday, my dad would get lost in thought, and sometimes he’d call me the wrong name.

“Eva, do as you’re told,” he shouted at me one afternoon when I refused to speak to Miguel at yet another “family only” barbeque. I learned “family only” meant they didn’t want me to bring a date or Jeremy.

I cocked my head and gave him a puzzled look. “Who’s Eva?”

His face paled, which was saying something with how dark he is, and he shook his head vigorously as he waved his hand about dismissively. “Someone I used to know. You just…reminded me of her for a moment.”

Whoever Eva was, she’d ruined my life. Her mistakes were hoisted on my shoulders, and my parents expected me to “succeed” where she’d failed. I don’t know how I knew that, but I felt it deep down to my bones.

Trent was getting impatient with me. He wanted more of my time, and he really wanted my parents to stop throwing Miguel and I together. I wanted to move forward with him too, but then I’d meet him at the bar or we’d be out in public and I’d see the way women threw themselves at him. He always ignored them, but I couldn’t stop worrying that one day he’d choose one of them. It would be my fault when he did, because I’d sat on my ass and let his feelings for me die, but I was afraid to risk my heart when he could have anyone.

Of course Miguel and my parents weren’t our only roadblocks. Trinity had a habit of showing up or calling most of the times we were able to get together. He didn’t always run to help her, but she was relentless. She clearly wasn’t going to let go of the hold she had on him, even if she didn’t have him the way she desired. Trent believed she was confused, but I disagreed. Trinity knew exactly what she wanted, and that was to be in Trent’s bed.

Despite all the interference, we still managed to steal moments of time to be alone. It was terrifying how much I missed him when we weren’t together. I was close to caving and telling him I wanted to really be with him, and stop pretending we were only friends, but that was before the crazy shit from Kate’s past reemerged. After her ex-husband reappeared, it would have been selfish to pull him into the danger that seemed to surround my friends and me, and Kate needed me.

I knew she had secrets; you can’t live with someone for as long as I’d lived with her not to see the way she jumped at shadows and flinched from anyone’s touch. It broke my heart to watch, and I couldn’t really understand what caused it—at least, I couldn’t before last week.

It doesn’t take long for life to spiral out of control.

Becca called to tell me what time we were gathering at her and Aiden’s gigantic house for dinner, something we tried to do at least a couple times a month. I had been out all day and decided to go home to shower and change before I joined my friends.

I was hurrying to find something simple but still sexy. My plan was to sneak off after dinner and try to watch a movie with Trent. It was a nice plan, where only my heart was supposed to be in danger. Little did I know the most threatening part of my night would be stopping off at my house to change clothes.

I left most of the lights off in the house, but Kate’s paranoia was deeply embedded in my brain after living with her for two years. She was already at Becca and Aiden’s with Reed, which left me home alone. I flipped the locks on the door and headed straight for my room. I didn’t need the light to navigate my way through the house, since I had the entire layout memorized.

After a fast shower, I entered my room wearing only a towel. I found a sexy set of bra and panties and put them on. Next, I pulled a soft T-shirt over my head. It was gray like Trent’s eyes, and I knew he liked it. I was about to go to my closet to find a pair of jeans when I heard the glass break by the back door.

I should have run, reached for my phone, anything. It’s funny what kind of strange thoughts enter your head when you fear you’re about to be attacked. I didn’t want to be found in my T-shirt and panties, so instead of reaching for something heavy to fight back with, or for my phone, I tried to make it across the room to grab pants.

I got a quick peek at a blond guy for only a fraction of a second before my hair was being viciously pulled at the roots until my neck was forced back so hard I thought it would break.

My scalp stung and burned where my hair was slowly ripping free. My eyes swelled with tears, but I refused to let them fall.

“Where’s Ana?” he shouted from behind me.

My throat felt thick. “Who?” I asked.

“Don’t play stupid with me, bitch. Where the fuck is Ana?” he growled. I could smell the alcohol on his breath even from behind me.

I sent up a silent prayer to make it out of this alive. “I don’t know anyone named Ana,” I stuttered.

With a skin-ripping yank on my hair, he slammed my head against the wall.
Crack!
The drywall dented under the impact. A flash of pain raced around my skull, making my vision slant and bile surge up my throat. I tried to force down my rising gorge and remain upright at the same time. It was a hard task to focus on while my heart was threatening to beat out of my chest with the surge of adrenaline coursing through my blood.

He either realized I didn’t know who he was looking for or decided he’d been in the house too long, because he gave me a final shove, knocking me to the ground, and ran out. My cheek hit the hardwood floor, jarring my already aching head.

The back door rattled and slammed, and despite my wooziness, I raced to put on pants and get out of the house. I vaguely remember slipping on a pair of shoes, grabbing my purse, and rooting for my keys. My hands shook while I tried to start the car, and I drove to Aiden’s house in a daze.

The rest of the night was a blur. Everyone followed us over to my house, and we found it trashed. I shook violently when I realized my attacker had come back not long after I’d left. He’d used something heavy to beat large holes into the walls, Kate’s bed was slashed, and the knife was stuck into the wall, holding a note she immediately removed. If I’d hesitated a moment before leaving, my attacker could have done the same thing to me he’d done to the furniture.

I now know that the man who attacked me was Kate’s ex-husband John. An ex-husband I didn’t even know she had. A man, and I use that term loosely, that put both her and her twin brother in the hospital. Even worse, he beat Kate so badly, she miscarried their unborn child.

My heart ached for what she’d lived through. I couldn’t be angry with her for hiding her past from all of us, especially when I’d spent a week hiding from Trent. I didn’t want him to see how powerless and weak I felt after what happened. It was like having a stain that everyone could see. God, what I’d been through was only a small fraction of what either Kate or Becca had survived, and I felt so damn dirty from it.

I spent the last week making excuses to keep Trent away. My cheek sported a nasty bruise from the impact with the floor, which was only now turning a sickly yellow-green color, and my hair was sticky with blood where my scalp was slammed into the wall. I didn’t want to explain anything, and I sure as hell didn’t want to admit how scared I still was.

Kate’s ex-husband’s body was found outside of town, but I still didn’t feel safe. The urge to crawl into Trent’s muscular embrace and pretend, even for a minute, that he would keep the danger away was the exact reason I was avoiding him.

Everyone was moving beyond me. Becca had Aiden and their son, Scott. They were a perfect family, and I suspected they would be adding to it soon. Kate had dropped the walls she’d erected and was happily shacked up with Reed.

Jeremy, Cameron, and I were coexisting in the same house without killing each other, but any dummy could feel the attraction between those two when they were near each other. I felt like I was in the way when I was with them. Like they might finally tear each other’s clothes off and go at it if I gave them enough privacy. That was hard to do while we all lived under the same roof, but Kate insisted her brother shouldn’t return to his apartment yet. Cameron was humoring her, mostly, but I also think he welcomed an excuse to spend time with Jeremy. I pretended everything was fine when I was with my friends. The last thing they needed was for me to add more problems to the mix.

Trent only put up with my avoidance act for a week before he tracked me down. I heard my phone buzz and saw a message from him.

Trent: Why is there a board on the window of your back door?

Trent: Melody said you’re at Jeremy’s. Is everything ok?

Me: It’s no big deal. Someone broke in last week. I’m fine.

Trent: I’m on my way over.

I sighed in relief. Odd, because before his texts, I was so sure I wanted to keep him away, but I was beyond tired of being alone and scared. I was also sick of lying to myself about how I felt about him.

Chapter 6

Trent

I decided to go to Toni’s to give her a piece of my mind and then kiss her senseless. I was tired of her holding me at a distance when I knew she wanted me as badly as I wanted her. I knew she’d been hurt, but I wasn’t the asshole that’d broken her heart. He made her promises he never meant to keep, but I was only asking for a chance to see what we had. It took a few months, but I’d finally realized Toni didn’t expect anything from anyone. She put on an image of a carefree party girl, but I knew she was far from being either of those things.

My agreement to try to be friends, even with the side benefits, was killing me. She kept me separate from the rest of her life, and I was determined to end that shit today. I understood she was scared, because I was, too. I’d never done the relationship thing before, and I couldn’t promise her forever until I knew if I was falling for her or for the challenge of her. Deep down I believed my feelings were genuine, but how the hell was I supposed to know? I also believed my dad loved me when I was a kid, but he walked away without hesitation, and that blood ran in my veins, too.

Her car wasn’t in the driveway, and the house was dark. She was usually home at this time of night, so I walked up to the porch and suffered a moment of panic when I saw the window near the door was broken and boarded over.

I texted her, but she didn’t reply. She’d been doing that shit to me for a week. Melody was pretty good friends with Jeremy, one of Toni’s best friends, and I decided to check if she knew anything. After a few minutes, Mel got back to me, letting me know Toni was at Jeremy’s, and she even sent his address.

I was glad to find out Toni was staying with him. The guy was every woman’s dream, but thankfully I was more his type than she was. He was the only one of her friends I’d spent any time around. He was a decent guy and seemed to be a good friend to her, but he bought her bullshit just like the rest of them. It seemed like I was the only one that saw her clearly, but maybe it was supposed to be that way.

I thought I wanted her the moment I watched her walk into my bar, but the months that followed proved to me that I also needed her. I wouldn’t admit this to Toni, not right now at least, but this imposed friendship she forced on us was a blessing because it gave us a chance to get to know each other. I missed her when she was gone. Not the feel of her or the release of regular sex, but her. I missed the corny movies she insisted we watch. I loved watching her get excited when her favorite song came on the radio and the sexy sway of her hips when she let the music flow through her.

I drove the few streets it took to get to Jeremy’s house and was relieved when I saw Toni’s car parked out front. Blocking her in, I hurried up the porch. I’d already texted her and let her know I was coming. Part of me was expecting her to try to sneak out back when she saw me, but the swaying of the curtains gave away that she was watching me from the window.

“I see you in there, Wildcat. Open the door,” I demanded.

She opened it a crack and started to walk away.

“Now there’s a pretty kitty,” I teased and entered her house.

“I’m not in the mood, Trent,” she growled.

I caught her hand and turned her around, but she continued to stare at the floor. Something about the way she refused to look at me scared me. “Look at me,” I insisted.

“No.”

I started to let go of her hand, but I couldn’t figure out why she was mad at me. I hadn’t done anything, and I mean
anything
, since I met her. I hadn’t touched a woman, except for Toni, in a long time. I didn’t want anyone else. Meaningless hookups didn’t appeal to me anymore. It had been several weeks before the night I met her, and since then it wasn’t an option.

“Please.” I wasn’t above begging at this point. I wanted her to look at me and really see me.

She slowly lifted her head, and I tucked her hair behind her ear. I tried to control my reaction, but my eyes turned cold as I saw the fading evidence of a bruise.

“Who the fuck do I need to kill?” I seethed.

Toni flinched and absentmindedly reached up to touch her bruised cheek. “No one,” she whispered. “He’s already dead.”

I held my breath before I forcefully exhaled. “I think I need to hear the whole story before I lose my mind, Toni.”

Toni led me to the couch and started telling me what she’d learned about her roommate Kate. She explained that she and her friends were concerned that whoever killed Kate’s ex-husband might also be a threat, since someone shot at Kate and her boyfriend Reed when they decided to go into hiding. Apparently by then her ex-husband was lying dead in a ditch and obviously not chasing after Kate and Reed with a gun.

“How are you holding up?” I asked. It was a stupid question, because she was clearly terrified.

She tried to shrug off my inquiry, but I could see her fear. I pulled her into my arms, and she sighed. “I don’t want you to let me go,” she whispered.

“Who says I had any plans to?”

She released a shaky breath. “Trent…”

I put my hands up in surrender. “I’ll be good. Let’s just watch a movie. But Toni…”

She looked up at me, waiting for me to continue, but instead I quickly kissed her full mouth. “This isn’t over.” One of these days, we’d both figure out if I meant that.