Start a War (Saint View Psychos #1)(9)

I slid inside the car, well reminded why Saint View, and everyone in it, was the worst.





3





NASH





“Goddammit, Axel. Pick up your motherfucking phone.”

The phone rang through the speakers of my car, each time hitting Axel’s goofy voicemail greeting, until I was ready to throw my phone out of the open roof and watch it disintegrate on the road beneath my tires.

His place was ten minutes from the bar, on the other side of an annoying number of red lights. I tapped my finger on the steering wheel while I waited for one to turn green.

Headlights flashed in my rearview mirror as a car pulled up, idling behind me. I turned left when the light went green and then took a right at the next intersection.

The car stayed with me through each turn.

“Shit,” I uttered, glancing in my mirrors. But the headlights were too bright and blinded the details of the car. “Axel, if you’ve got yourself into something bad, and now that something bad is following me, I swear to God, I’m going to destroy your limited-edition baseball card collection.”

Any other best friends probably would have thrown punches, but I wasn’t a fighter. I mean, I would if it was a life-or-death situation, but Axel and I were brothers. I wasn’t about to take up brawling with him over just anything.

His stupid baseball card collection was totally on the table though.

I took a wrong turn, not wanting to lead whoever was behind me straight to Axel’s place, but I eyed the mirror as I did it. The side angle eliminated the blinding glare so I could make out the car’s details.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Bliss.” While I was relieved it wasn’t someone Axel had gotten himself messed up with, I didn’t want it to be her either. What the hell was she thinking, driving that expensive car all over Saint View while wearing a goddamn ball gown? She was just asking for trouble.

That old protective instinct I’d had when she was a little girl reared its head once more, as fast and hard as it had slammed into me in the bar. She’d been such a tiny, skinny, runty kid. Always underfed. Always itching with bugs. But sweet. So stupidly sweet with her big eyes and complete and utter gratitude for everything Axel and I did. I’d always wanted to protect her from the world, and that feeling had come crashing right back tonight when she’d walked into my bar, a fully grown-ass woman.

Fuck.

I’d taken one look at her, and my dick had gotten hard.

There was nothing little girl about the swell of her tits spilling out of that dress. Or the curve of her hips, shown off perfectly by the fitted satin covering. Her face had rounded, and her long hair was glossy.

Like she had enough food.

Like she had somewhere safe to sleep.

Like she’d had a good life.

That was all I’d ever wanted for her. Me and Axel both. The one good thing we’d ever done, besides Axel buying Psychos, was getting Bliss away from her deadbeat mom, her rapey stepdad, and getting her biological father to take her in before she ended up on the streets.

She didn’t belong in this world. She never had. Axel and I were different.

There’d been no saving us.

But Bliss had needed sheltering back then, and she clearly needed sheltering now. Which was what I’d tried to do back at the club by sending her home.

There was no going back now though. We were only a street away from Axel’s place, and something about the whole thing felt off. I’d played it cool with Bliss, acting like his disappearance was a mere annoyance, but there was worry gnawing at my stomach.

Things had been weird with Axel for weeks. I’d pressed him on it multiple times, but he’d refused to admit anything was wrong.

We didn’t keep secrets from each other, so I’d let it go, knowing he’d tell me when he was ready.

But now, my stomach lurched as I pulled into his driveway with Bliss right behind me.

I should have killed the headlights.

I should have reversed, even if it meant running into her car. Whatever it took so she didn’t have to see.

The scene lit up on Axel’s front porch was ripped straight from my nightmares.

Bliss’s blood-curdling scream turned me to ice. And then on instinct, I was pushing out of my car and running.

Not toward my best friend who lay slumped on his porch with a bullet through his brain.

But to his little sister, screaming hysterically beside her car, her eyes trained on her brother’s still form and the slick pool of blood surrounding him.

I slammed into her, harder than I intended, cradling her to my chest and burying her face in my shirt.

“No! Let me go! We have to help him!” Her legs trembled, giving way now that I was there to catch her. But still, she fought me, slapping and shoving, trying to get around me to her brother, but she wasn’t strong enough to put up any sort of real fight. Her sobs echoed through the quiet night air, piercing straight through my soul.

I’d always hated when she cried. I couldn’t handle it at nineteen, and I found that now, even at thirty-nine, it was still my undoing.

Nothing had ever hurt me the way her tears did.

Except for the sight of my best friend, lying dead on his front step. The pain wrapped its way around every muscle, every organ, squeezing so tight. It was bloodied nails piercing every inch of me until I wanted to beg for mercy. Beg for it to stop.