Trust Me: Matty and Kayla, Book 3 of 3 (The McDaniels Brothers 7) (9 page)

Someone who would understand me without me having to explain a thing. Someone who knew what it was to live in fear and terror and come out of the other side of it, scarred but alive and not willing to let it ruin the rest of your life.

God, I was going to miss him.

"I don't need the EMT. I just want to sit for a minute and wait for Sergeant Taylor."

I bit back the urge to ask him what I was going to do after that. I had nowhere to go and no one to run to. But today was the first step toward my new life, and I had to stop leaning on Matty. I wouldn't have him soon, and I'd need to learn to stand on my own two feet.

I straightened and wriggled away from his grasp to walk the rest of the way to the row of police cars on my own steam. "If you don't want to stay, I can handle the rest."

"I'm not going anywhere."

His voice was flat when he said it and I could tell he realized I was pulling away from him. Better now than later. His whole life was here in Boston. Even if I could imagine getting past what had happened and see a way to having a future with Matty, there was no way he could leave Southie and there was no way I could stay.

"Miss James, can you come to the side here so I can take care of that wire?"

I looked up to see the young, female officer who had fixed the listening device to my chest standing there with an encouraging smile on her face.

"You did great. Really. If you ever find yourself looking for a new career, you might want to think about undercover work."

I turned my back to Matty and allowed her to remove the sticky tabs affixing the wire.

"Thanks. I had a lot riding on this. I appreciate all your help."

She finished quickly and then jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward one of the cars. "If you want to sit in there and wait, the Sarge should be out shortly."

The place was still bustling with activity, but as I made my way to the black and white with Matty by my side, the noise seemed to fade into the background.

I stopped outside the car and looked up at him. The concern on his handsome face almost did me in. The desire to launch myself into his arms, wrap myself around him and never let him go was so strong, I was drowning in it. Instead, I laid one hand on his chest.

"Matty-"

"Don't say it." His jaw flexed as he stared down at me, the look in his eyes making me want to weep and curse the gods. He hadn't been lying when he'd said he loved me. It was written all over his face. What a sad state that it didn't matter one bit. There was no point in prolonging it.

"I'm leaving Boston tomorrow."

He flinched and I felt the sting of my words just as sharply. My throat ached as I tried to force the rest of it out before I couldn't get it out at all. "I can't stay here. Too much has happened. There are too many memories here. Too much history. I want to heal and start a new life. I can't do that here."

I wanted to say more, but what else could I say that wouldn't just make it worse?

I love you.

I need you.

I want you.

But I still need to go.

Who the hell needed to hear that? Better to leave it as it was.

It didn't feel better, though. In fact, of all the pain from the past twenty-four hours, none of it hurt as badly as when he nodded.

"I understand," he said softly.

The sergeant came over then. “We’ve got to head to the station and take her statement. Get her set up with some security. It’s just a precaution. There’s no point in Mick going after her in this case. We have too much other evidence, but it can’t hurt to be extra careful. You can ride over with us to the station if you want to.”

We locked eyes and I shook my head slowly, heart breaking a little more with every second that passed. “It’s just going to be me.”

Matty opened his mouth as if to argue and then closed it. He nodded slowly. “’Bye, Red,” he said, giving me one last, long look.

Then he walked away. 

Matty

It was ten AM by the time I stepped through the door of the apartment to find everyone there waiting for me, all pretending they just happened to be sitting in the kitchen still nursing their coffees.

"Well?" Reid asked, pinning me with an expectant gaze.

I tried to work up a smile, but it wasn’t happening. "We got him."

The three of them broke into a chorus of whoops and hollers and Olivia stood, throwing her arms around me.

"Oh, Matty, that's such great news." She pulled back and eyed me. "How is Kayla holding up?"

I glanced around the room at nothing in particular and shrugged. "As well as could be expected. Glad that she was able to get some justice for her mother, but still struggling with the rest of it. It's going to be a while."

"I imagine it is. Luckily, we'll all be there to help her through it. Now that she's severed ties with Mick, you guys can finally be together out in the open."

Those words were like tiny shards of glass being ground in an open wound and I debated whether to correct her mistaken assumption or just let it slide for now.

"What's wrong?" Bash stared at me from his spot at the kitchen table, and I knew that no amount of duck and weave was going to work here. He already knew. Better to just come out with it.

"She's leaving Boston tomorrow."

Reid had been toying with the spoon in his cup and that stopped abruptly, leaving the room eerily silent except for the ticking of the tiny clock on the oven.

"She's leaving, or you guys are leaving?" Bash asked softly, cocking his head to the side as he waited for my answer.

That was a natural assumption, I guessed.

That I would go with her and maybe start over somewhere new. If I was a different guy, that might have even worked. Only two things were stopping me. She hadn't asked me to, and there was no way I could leave my brothers. We'd been separated for a few years when we had become wards of the state after our father died and our mother left, and I swore that would never happen again. And certainly not by my doing.

I wasn't about to share any of that information with them, though. They didn't need to be burdened with that. Better they thought things just hadn't worked out. "Just her."

"Well that's fucking stupid," Reid scoffed, tossing his teaspoon onto the table, where it landed with a clatter.

The tight rein I'd had over my emotions finally slipped, and I snapped at him. "Yeah, well, it's not exactly my decision. She's a grown up and she gets to decide where she lives."

"Right." Bash pursed his lips and nodded. "And so do you."

I held up a hand and started to back out of the room toward the hallway before I said something I was going to regret. "Look, I'm not in the mood to get into this with you guys right now. She's leaving. I'm staying. That's the end of it."

"I think you're kind of being a pussy," Reid said matter of factly. He looked to Bash and then to Olivia for confirmation, which they both supplied all too quickly.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that we think you guys are meant for each other, and you're too chicken to take a chance. Why can't you go with her?"

I could feel all three of their gazes, willing me to say it. Weary and too broken inside and pissed off to care anymore, I did. "I won't leave you."

"That's really sweet, bro, but you have a right to your own life, you know," Reid said softly.

Those words were like a slap and I stared at him. "After all we’ve gone through to stay together? You want us to be separated now?"

Guilt came fast and hard as a part of me wished he’d say yes. That it was okay to leave them and chase the girl of my dreams down until she admitted that she needed me and loved me as much as I did her.

But there was no good option here. No matter what I would always be torn in two. My brothers in Boston and Kayla…wherever she ended up, which I suspected would be far from here.

“Your brothers and I were talking about this exact scenario before you got here, actually. We figure Kayla might want to get out of the area,  we had an idea we wanted to talk to you about,” Olivia said, her smile bright enough to top a Christmas tree. As she spoke, a tiny spark of hope flared to life in my heart.

Kayla James might not have seen the last of me after all…

***

Kayla

I looked around the apartment for the last time, wondering if I should've done what I'd told Matty I was going to do and just left it all behind. It had seemed foolhardy in the light of day, though. Now that Mick was in jail-- unless his lawyer had managed to bond him out already-- there was nothing stopping me from doing this the right way. Packing like a normal, grown up individual, and moving once I had a new place-- or even a destination-- secured.

I wasn't doing that either, though.

I'd opted for the middle ground. Going back, packing a bag of necessities like my passport, some old pictures and enough clothes to get me through a week or two and then getting the hell out before the memories dragged me under like a tsunami.

As I rolled up the last of my shirts and stuffed it into the bag, trying not to let the misery drag me under. There were people who had it way worse than me. I was lucky that I had enough money in the bank to even leave Boston at all. Some people were stuck in a cycle of misery or abuse or poverty. At least I could walk away. Nothing was holding me back.

My brain helpfully supplied an image of Matty, curled up next to me on my bed, snoring softly with one hand on his lean stomach.

I swallowed hard and roughly yanked the zipper of my bag closed.

This was it. The DA's office told me I might have to come back to testify if Mick decided to exercise his right to a trial rather than copping a plea. That was fine by me. A trial of this size would take a year or more to prepare for, and by that time, I was going to be a whole different person. A tougher person with a titanium shell who couldn't be hurt by any of this anymore.

I closed my bedroom door and headed into the living room, making a mental note to drop my key off at the front desk. I'd already contacted my landlady and told her that I was leaving, but would pay rent for the remaining three months of my lease. She agreed to clean out the rest of my stuff if she could sell it and keep the profits, which was fine by me. Most of it was bought with dirty money anyway, and looking at it made me ill.

I tossed my bag onto the kitchen counter and did a quick sweep of the fridge, tossing old food so it wouldn't stink up the place. Then, I headed for my laptop.

It was the moment of truth. Time to pick my new hometown. Weird, how in the age of the internet, I kind of wished I had a globe. One of those colorful ones, where the water was done in that vibrant, aquamarine enamel and the world looked like something from a Disney film. I imagined myself spinning it, and then closing my eyes and stopping it with my pointer finger.

Instead, I gathered up some supplies, googled a dismal-looking map of the United States and a virtual Magic 8-Ball in a separate window.

I picked up a tiny sticky note shaped like an arrow and held it between my thumb and forefinger. Closing my eyes, I spun around three times, and felt around until I touched the table in front of me. Then, I stuck out my arm and pressed the sticky note to the screen of my laptop.

Sucking in a deep breath, I opened one eye and then the other.

Oh, fuck no.

Alaska. See-Russia-from-my-backyard, dog-fuckingly cold Alaska. And not even like Juno or Anchorage. This was remote, bears-roaming-in-the-yard country.

Despite the fact that I'd turned off the AC an hour ago, I shivered at the thought. The plan had been to pick a place at random and let the Magic 8-Ball work as my sort of double-check that the universe was on board with my plans, but I eighty-sixed that plan. Magic or not, I wasn't about to move to Alaska.

I had just spun around for the second time when a knock at the door had me freezing in place.

For a second, my heart skittered out of control. What if Mick had been let loose already? Or what if he'd sent over one of his guys that hadn't gotten busted after the raid to rough me up? Although, knocking would be weird if that was the case. And anyway, Sergeant Taylor had insisted on having two cops stationed outside the building exactly for that reason.

“Yes?” I called through the door.

"Kayla? It's me. Can I talk to you for a second?"

Matty.

Which explained why the doorman had let him up without question. I wilted in relief at the sound of his voice, but right on the heels of that, my heart started pounding even harder than before.

Matty was here. And he wanted to talk to me.

No good could come of it. Just more pain for both of us.

That didn't stop me from practically running to the door, though. I swung it open and stared up at him, my eyes drinking him in like he was the last puddle in a desert.

"Hey." His face said so much more than that. Everything I wished I could say back to him.