Kiss the Stars (Falling Stars #1)(108)

This hell unending.

On my hands and knees, I crawled across the floor. Going nowhere with the pile of men who held me back.

But I fought and I fought, because I couldn’t stop, refused to give up.

I was weeping.

Guttural sounds ripping from my chest.

“Maddie. Haylee. Please.”

I needed to hold them.

One more time.

“Haylee. Oh God. My baby.”

“Get down, on your stomach.”

The shouts banged the walls, but the only thing I could hear was my spirit that wept.

Wails shattering the air.

Mine gutted.

Hers forever silenced.

My baby.

I was nothing.

Nothing.

Boneless.

Empty.

Nothing but rage.





*



Men hauled me away in shackles and chains. The interrogation felt like it went on forever as I sat there with my clothes stained with their affliction.

The curse I’d put on their lives.

As if I could do this.

But I had, hadn’t I?

The sins scored and seared and marred until I was nothing but rotted flesh.

Their goodness stripped away.

And the only thing left the vengeance that was to come.





Thirty-Six





Leif





“Haylee!” The cry rocking from my mouth jolted me to sitting, heart crashing like a beast in my chest.

Worst part?

Worst was the way my arms burned with the vacant weight of my little girl.

The way my soul screamed with the truth of what I’d done.

The way it’d done for the last three years.

I dropped my head into my hands, squeezing it like it might stand the chance of blotting it out.

This unending pain.

Wondering how the fuck I’d gotten here.

Loving a girl that part of me had hated.

The way I’d been tormented with a nameless, shapeless face.

And now she was the only face I could see.

My guts twisted at the idea that bastard had ever even touched her. Last night, I’d had every intention of going for him. To just end it. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave.

Mia. Mia.

My spirit groaned with her name. Body aching, already fucking addicted to her touch. Should have known I could never have them. That they were going to slip through my fingers like sand. Gone the second I’d hoped they were real.

My sins too great.

The evils I’d committed had accrued too much debt.

Now, I had to pay.

Rot in this motherfucking misery.

Hell.

That’s what I got for thinking I could possibly live in Eden.

And there was Karma, sitting on the shitty couch across the room, buffing her fingernails while she smirked.

Well-played, bitch, well-played.

My attention jerked to the nightstand of the rundown hotel where I was staying when my phone lit up with a call. Looked like I’d missed about fifteen thousand of them.

I grabbed it, squinting through the grainy light of the room.

Stomach clenched when I didn’t recognize the number.

Warily, I accepted it. “Hello?”

“Leif.”

Sound of her voice made me feel like I’d gotten knocked with a sledgehammer to the back of the head.

My mother.

“Don’t hang up,” she demanded in her hard way.

I roughed out bitter laughter. Was so not in the mood. “Give me one reason not to.”

“I’ll give you three. Mia and her kids.”

Her words pierced me all the way through.

“What about them?” Tried to make it come off strong, but my voice fucking cracked.

“Listen to me, Leif, we don’t have much time. I have reason to believe they’re in danger.”

“And how the fuck do you know anything about them?” Aggression pulsed with the appeal.

She huffed out a rugged sound. “You think I haven’t been watching you all these years? Following you? You’re my son.”

She said it like it meant something.

But I didn’t have fucking time to argue with her about the virtue of good parenting right then, did I?

“Listen to me, Leif.” Her tone didn’t help things. “Braxton came to me last night. He told me you called him distraught because you found out Nixon is the father of your girlfriend’s children.”

Mine. Mine. Mine.

Couldn’t stop it from infiltrating my mind.

Anxiety spreading wide, I slipped from the bed and started pulling on my clothes that I’d dumped on the floor while I had the phone pressed between my ear and shoulder.

“Tell me why you think they’re in danger.” The words were gravel.

“Nixon had invested in this Mia girl’s gallery. He was moving product through it. Some stolen art and guns. I don’t know if she knew or not, but from what Braxton said about her, I’m guessing she didn’t. Nixon was already in deep with Krane, but because they’re blood, he kept letting him slide. Giving him the benefit of the doubt. But Krane isn’t a fool. His suspicions deepened when shipments coming from the gallery started coming up missing. A woman at that gallery was killed as a warning.”