Jacked (Trent Brothers #1)(153)

Erin nodded.

“Words, Doc. You with me?”

“I’m with you.”

“Good. I’m going upstairs first. Try not to accidentally shoot me.”

She frowned at me, but it had to be said.

I checked doors and windows and then went room by room. She was mostly a zombie, reeling in shock when I got back to her. I relieved her of the weapon and grabbed her bags. “Come on. Let’s get some rest.”

We moved around my bedroom in silence; gone was the comfortable familiarity and effortless ease. In its place was separation and mistrust. She took a shower by herself and then crawled under the covers, putting her back to me, spanning that distance even farther.

I rested up on my hand and stared at the back of her wet head, aching to fix this.

“Erin.”

She made no effort to move so I moved her.

I held her cheek so she wouldn’t be able to turn away and ignore me. I searched her eyes, praying I’d see some remaining love staring back at me. Her brow furrowed.

“I love you.”

Her frown deepened.

“I’ve been in love with you for a very long time. I can’t even think about not having you in my life.” The images plaguing my mind were too vivid, too real. I couldn’t bear being without her; the thought was too painful, beyond anything I’d ever felt for another person. I’d almost lost her. Almost. Part of me felt dead just acknowledging that. “I can’t lose you.”

My vision of her face blurred as the pain crushed into my chest. She’d become as necessary as breathing to me and losing that would take me out with it.

Her thumb caught one of my tears.

Her eyes were just as watery, making me say a silent prayer that she wasn’t going to tell me goodbye.

“I love you too,” she broke. “So much, it hurts.”

I leaned down to kiss her, feeling her cry into my mouth, crushing me inside. Our fears turned into need—need to feel alive, to reconnect, to drown out the internal agony that consumed us both. She let me make love to her, allowing me to show her how much I couldn’t live without her. Soft whimpers left her throat every time I told her I loved her, as though it physically hurt her to hear those words. I didn’t care; I’d tell her a thousand times a day just so she’d know.

I wrapped her into my chest when we’d finished, forming a protective cocoon around her so she’d feel safe enough to sleep.

I woke up several hours later to an empty bed.

An empty house.

Erin and her bags were gone.





MY CALLS WENT unanswered.

My texts to her—ignored.

I drove by her house; her car was gone. The bullet holes through her large front window were easy to see in the light of day.

I cruised through the hospital’s parking lot but there was no sign of her car there either.

Over the next few days I rolled through every emotion: from anger and aggravating betrayal to remorse and resentment. I managed to accomplish the very thing I had tried to prevent. I’d f*cked up her life. Her house getting shot up had made the news. Pictures of her and her house were broadcasted on all of the television news channels, in the local section of the newspaper, and spread throughout every crevice on the Internet.

Erin had obviously shut her phone off; her voice greeting picked up immediately. Call it resourceful—I put my detective skills to work and eventually found her car at her parents’. I just needed to know she was somewhere safe with people looking out for her—not that she was incapable of doing that on her own, but it gave me some peace of mind to know she wasn’t alone.

Local investigators managed to pull fifteen slugs out of Erin’s walls and retrieved most of the spent shell casings outside, but without a weapon and a suspect, the case was cold. None of her neighbors had seen anything either, only reporting that they’d heard the gunshots. No one had even seen a suspicious car driving through the neighborhood. The elderly woman who lived directly across the street told me she’d heard loud cracks quite a few times over the last few weeks but never saw where they came from. The shots reportedly happened in the cloak of night, which led me to this new level of desperate insanity.

Someone had been firing a nine-millimeter at Erin and I needed to know who.

My hand squeezed harder on his throat, choking the dirtbag I’d snatched from the street. “I’m losing my patience, Felix.”

“Get the f*ck off me, pig,” Felix groaned.

I crammed his face into the chain-link fence, pressing my advantage. The sun had already come up, revealing our position. DEA had recently seized this property, locking it down from local gang radar. There was nothing around us but an empty lot and abandoned buildings. “Yell all you want. Ain’t no one gonna hear you.”

Marcus was on point, being my backup, looking the other way while I bent the law. I tried to keep him out of this but he insisted he had my back. We were off duty when I snagged Felix; if anything happened now, we’d both be in trouble.

“I don’t know nothing,” Felix spat, trying to wiggle his scrawny body loose.

“They executed your brother, Felix.” I put my next words right into his ear. “Two bullets to the head, not just one. Apparently one wasn’t enough. Your cousin was on the slab next to Benny. Who’s next, Felix? You? Your mom? Your sister? My woman?”