Love Me (WITSEC #3)(4)

Colt’s brow scrunched up. “If you’re selfish, then I’m selfish, because I can’t let you go, either.”

“If he had taken you, we would have found you and brought you back,” Creed said in a softer tone. “As for how to stop blaming yourself…” He let out a sigh. “You matter to us. You matter so damn much and it’s so frustrating that you think you don’t.”

“It’s not a solution, but we’ll keep saying it until it sticks,” Colt said.

“Do we matter to you?” Creed asked.

“More than anything, but I—”

“Would you fight for us?” Colt cut me off. “If someone tried to hurt us or tried to take us away, would you fight for us?”

Seeing Colt’s point, I nodded. Of course I’d fight for them.

“How come it’s all right for you to fight for us, but not all right for us to fight for you?” Colt asked.

I opened my mouth, but Colt cut me off again. “Don’t you dare say you aren’t worth it. You are. It breaks my heart that you can’t see it.”

I glanced down. “No one is worth getting hurt for.”

Colt tilted my head back, forcing my eyes to meet his. “You’re worth defending. Keelan chose to defend you. It was your uncle’s choice to hurt Keelan. You are not responsible for the actions of others. You are not responsible for your uncle’s actions, and you are sure as hell not responsible for X’s.”

“Logan thinks he’s protecting me.” I wasn’t defending Logan. Just voicing his reason.

“We get that he wanted to protect you. But Christ, Shi, he drugged you,” Creed said with barely contained rage. “I get that X still being out there is making him desperate, but you could have been hurt—no, you were hurt.”

“He went about it the wrong way,” Colt added.

I agreed, but I also felt the need to excuse Logan’s actions. Feeling torn, I pushed the conversation away from the topic of my uncle. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I’m like this. I mean, how pitiful is it to not see your worth?”

Colt’s hands moved to the back of my neck. “This is only a guess, but I think after years of being tormented by Mr. X, you probably began to wonder why you were special and over time convinced yourself that you weren’t in hopes he’d leave you alone.”

“Maybe. I’ve asked myself that over the years. Why me? Why not Shayla? She was so beautiful, and it was like she was this beacon that drew people to her, where I was shy and comfortable hiding in her shadow.”

“You do realize you were her identical twin, right?” Creed asked.

When I frowned, unsure of his point, Colt chuckled. “Your sister’s personality may have been more outgoing, but there’s no way she was more beautiful than you.”

“And you’re a beacon, too, Shi. You drew us in,” Creed said.

I pursed my lips to stop myself from smiling. Colt surprised me with a quick kiss and stared down at me with a grin. “You’re allowed to feel happy about that,” he whispered.

“Even right now?” I asked.

He nodded. “Keelan may be banged-up, but I know he’d rather you were smiling right now instead of blaming yourself. So let the guilt go.”

I exhaled slowly, and with the air leaving my lungs, the weight on my chest lightened.

“That’s it, babe.” Colt kissed me again before pulling me into his arms. He held me like that as I worked to push down the feeling I’d let dig roots and grow in my soul. Because of how deep the roots went, it’d take more than today to expel the guilt completely. It was another long battle. One I’d have to win if I wanted to believe what they did.





We followed Creed through the maze that was the hospital. As we turned down a hall that led to the room Keelan was in, I saw Ian. He was leaning against the wall, on his phone. As I passed him, we locked eyes.

“I got to go,” I heard him say to whoever he was on the phone with as Creed opened a door, I assumed to Keelan’s room.

Colt and Creed went in ahead of me and after taking a few steps inside, my feet seemed to plant themselves into the ground. The room held two beds. Keelan was lying upright in one, with his arm in a sling. He had a bruise on the left side of his jaw and there was a bandage near his right temple.

In the other bed was Logan. He was sitting at the foot of it with his feet touching the white-and-pale-gray checkered floor. He was holding an ice pack to his right eye with one hand and hugging his ribs with the other. The only other visible injury was his swollen and split lip.

Knox was leaning against the wall on Keelan’s side of the room, arms folded over his chest, looking unhurt and calm. Not pleased, but calm.

All three of them had looked in our direction when we’d entered the room and one after the other locked their gazes on me. Creed went to stand next to Knox, while Colt went to Keelan’s bedside, his eyes taking in his brother’s injuries before setting an angry glare on my uncle.

No one said a word and the tension in the room intensified with each second that passed. I kept looking from Keelan to Logan. Back and forth. Angry to devastated. But mostly angry.

The door we’d just come through opened and Ian walked in. He took in the room, reading the growing unease. Smartly, he stayed by the door.