Blake
"I’ve got to find her." I’m going to rip the fucking house apart and God help anyone who stands in my way. How could Erica let her go? The woman is downright negligent. If it’s possible to be negligent of an adult offspring, then this woman is it.
"She’s mad at you." Erica sways a little and I grab the glass out of her hand, launching it at the wall where it shatters into minuscule shards of crystal. "You’re drunk, you stupid woman. Do you not know anything about recovery? This is the first challenge, the first real test, and you’ve left her alone."
She waves a hand at me and I’m close to ripping it off and smacking her with it. "She’s not alone, she’s with him, you bloody imbecile. Where she should be. They are gold together and there is nothing you can do to stop it."
My teeth clench at her words. My heart, which has been pumping with heated blood, cools to the temperature of the sea in the depths of winter. "She’s with Johnny?"
"Of course." She nods blindly.
"But, she overdosed with him? He’s a trigger for her." I shouldn’t need to be explaining this, surely it’s obvious? I’m just wasting precious time prattling a conversation with this ridiculous woman.
A flicker in her eyes catches my attention and I switch into overdrive. Adrenaline begins to pump through every cell in my genetic make-up. "Oh shit, you know what the trigger is, don’t you?" I step for her, my hand wrapping into the silk of her blouse sleeve, grasping her tight so she’ll have to look at me. "What’s the trigger, Erica?"
She laughs, a high-pitched squeal. "She’s fanciful, always has been."
"What’s the trigger, Erica?" Hitting women is one of my no goes. But shit I want to thump her, and not for the first time in our acquaintance.
"You. You’re the trigger. You destroyed her and left her searching to replace you."
A nasty chill creeps down my spine. Just what would Sophia allow to happen to try to replace me? What had she wanted from me that I wouldn’t give her?
My memory reels to the night I walked out five years ago. The night I’d found Johnny Fairweather’s naked arse poised above my obsession. The night she’d clambered onto my lap and pressed her lips against mine, her desperate hands tangling around my neck.
"Fuck."
I launch for the door, allowing it to swing on its hinges in my wake.
The jeep can’t go fast enough. The roads are empty but every turn feels like it’s taking me further away. Finally, I find my way to his house. How I remember where it is after all these years I don’t know. I run along the driveway, my feet crunching underneath. His car is on the drive but my hammering on the door goes unanswered.
I pound harder and harder, preparing to splinter the wood of the arched door if I have to, but a cry from outside fills the air. I run for it, my legs moving before my brain has even registered the cry is Sophia’s. The fence doesn’t stand a chance as I kick it down, clambering over the security wire. Alarms wail with my entry, but it doesn’t matter. Hopefully the cops will arrive, hopefully they catch the sick pervert for what he is.
Everything makes blinding sense to me now. The jigsaw pieces have slotted into place, but the picture they reveal revolts me and turns my stomach.
He gets her high.
He helps her forget… me… I swallow hard enough my throat aches, my feet still working on the fence, untangling it where it snags into my trousers. Once I’m free, I run; my legs pumping, my brain churning with half-baked thoughts, and nightmares.
What does he get from her?
What would make her overdose? What would make her slash at her own wrists so she’s scarred by her own mistakes for the rest of her life?
My breath hisses in my throat as I screech onto the pool deck. God give me the strength not to kill him
"Sophia," I call her name and his head shoots up. What I see makes sick rise up my throat. He rolls off her, his groans filling the air.
"Fuck, here comes the anti-fun police."
She doesn’t move, doesn’t stir. She’s dead. He’s been mauling a dead person. His jeans are undone, his belt hanging free, but thankfully they’re still up around his hips.
She’s in her underwear. A corpse in underwear.
"You’re a sick pervert." The words shoot out my mouth, venom sending them flying through the air.
"Whatever, bodyguard. I get to do it, you just dream about it." He stares at the sky, no concern for the semi-naked girl by his side. There’s nothing on his face apart from boredom.
I will kill him.
I will actually kill the bastard.
I lurch forward, this will be it, the end of everything I’ve battled against. Everything I’ve fought so hard to contain and remain professional. But I can’t hold back any longer. Her. Me. As I move toward her and her vulnerability stabs me in the heart, saving her right now, being there for her, protecting her, will be worth any repercussions. My arm rises ready to deliver a blow to the bastard that’s touched my girl. My pulse thumps in my veins, pushing me on. Go on do it Blake, end the bastard.
It’s in this moment of blinding clarity as I step towards Johnny that the truth I’ve been trying so hard to avoid acknowledging hits me with full clarity. She’s my girl. She always has been and I know she always will be. There is no chance I will ever be able to walk away now. My eyes flutter over her. Should I be fighting, or should I be saving her? The only thing that matters to me, is the person who I have put above all others.
"This time I won’t let you get away with it, bodyguard." He lifts an eyebrow as he clambers away from her body leaving her exposed. “Who’s going to protect her while you’re behind bars?"
He thinks he’s won, he thinks his words have stopped me. I allow my arms to drop to my sides. Releasing my fingers from their tense curl I want to pound the fuck out of him, but what would be the point. I want to laugh in his face more, empowerment rushes through me. She’s mine. He can laugh, sneer, goad me as much as he likes but he won’t change the fact that she will never be his.
Sophia stirs, groaning, her skin the hue of pond water. I don’t hesitate to sweep her into my arms, her bare skin burning though my suit. "Sophia?" her name lifts from my lips like a prayer and I hear him chuckle behind me as I grab her clothes. I don’t care. I’m going to take her away from everything. “You’re okay, Sophia, I’ve got you.” I whisper into her hair, my lips skimming the flattened strands. “I’m never going to let you go.”
I walk away with MY girl in my arms. The only bloody girl in the whole of my existence.