Shattered Dreams (Boys of Bellerose, #3)(43)

The shadow passed me once more, and when it reached the stairs, where the fire was burning the brightest, I caught a glimpse of a man, broad-shouldered, completely covered in black.

This was no firefighter.

He turned as he descended, taking one more look around, the darkness covering most of him except… the hair. It was longer… familiar.

My screams jolted me out of the flashback, and I found myself stretched out on the bed, Grayson holding me so that I didn’t roll off and hurt myself. The moment I opened my eyes and saw his face, the moment I stared into the dark depths of his broken expression, I knew the truth. I knew that fucking hair.

Grayson had been there that night. The night my parents died. The night the fire started.

The night my baby died.

Grayson had been in my house, and he was the reason for everything.

“Prickles?” he said softly, loosening his hold. “Are you okay?”

Shock held me immobile as I tried to process. As I tried to breathe.

“The flight attendant is fine,” he continued, “just a small cut on her hand. And the turbulence is already easing.”

When I lifted my hands, they trembled so hard that I felt like I was literally rattling. Somehow, I got them before me. Somehow, I pushed against his chest. “Get away from me, murderer,” I choked out, voice hoarse from all the screaming. My chest rattled as hard as my body as I sucked in a breath to get the next words out. “You. Fucking. Murderer.”

Another scream escaped me as I lost control of myself, fighting his hold with everything I had, and it was only when Jace burst into the room that Grayson released me and stepped back.

“What the fuck happened?” Jace roared, looking between me and Grayson as he dropped down beside the bed to wrap an arm around me. “What’s wrong with Rose?”

I got myself up to a sitting position, random cries spilling from my lips, and I couldn’t stop them. Somehow, between those gut-wrenching sounds, I managed to say, “Grayson killed my parents.”

Jace turned in almost slow motion and stared at me, and it was all too much. The past and present, they were closer than I’d ever expected, and as my memories shattered once more, I gave into the darkness that pressed at the corners of my eyes.

I let the trauma drag me under, and part of me hoped—a small part of me—that maybe this time, I wouldn’t wake up.





nineteen





JACE


When Billie passed out, I set her gently on the bed before pure rage had me leaping to my feet, and I punched Grayson in his hard-as-hell face. “You fucking bastard. You killed her parents? How the fuck could you hurt her like that? Billie, of all people.” I wasn’t rational. Rational me knew that Billie’s parents had died long before Grayson met her, but the rage I felt didn’t give a shit.

Grayson shoved me back. Normally, I’d take that as a warning not to push him any further, but I was beyond reason. Seeing Billie so broken was fucking breaking me. I slammed my fist into his face again, and blood spurted from a new gash on his cheek. When Gray swung back, I let it hit my chest, knowing that I could take it. He was a big guy. But so the fuck was I, and I had lethal rage on my side.

“Hey, what the hell,” Rhett shouted, trying to get between us before he managed to yank Grayson out the door. “We’re on a fucking plane. You can’t beat each other up.”

“I’m going to kill him,” I snarled, starting forward but Angelo got there in the next beat, interfering like the nosy fucker he was.

“Bro, shit,” he said as I struggled against his hold. “What the hell is going on? You both need to calm down.”

“Fuck you,” I shot back. “Grayson did something to Billie. She said he killed her fucking parents, and now I’m kicking his ass.”

Grayson shouted something back to me, but I couldn’t make it out over the roaring in my ears. Rhett wrangled our drummer from the room, then I heard him open the bathroom door and shove him in. “Clean yourself up,” he told Grayson. “Don’t come out until you’ve calmed down.”

“Why has Billie passed out?” This came from Vee, who was hovering near the doorway, smart enough to know that she shouldn’t venture in. “Is she okay?”

Like the mention of her name called her back to us, Billie shot right up on the bed, her eyes wide open. She stared around like she’d seen a ghost, small whimpers falling from her lips.

“Billie,” I said, moving back to her as I wiped away the blood trickling from my lip and down my chin. Gray must have gotten another hit in that I’d missed in my jacked-up state.

I still couldn’t feel anything with all the adrenaline pumping through me, but I’d know about the injuries soon enough. That fucker packed a mean punch.

Billie's eyes locked on mine, her lips trembling so hard that her next words were difficult to understand. “He killed my parents,” she wailed. “He was there; I saw him in the fire.”

That triggered me back to my previous rage. “He started the fire?” I bit out. “Do you remember him starting the fire, Rose?”

She just kept shaking her head, crying and sobbing. Her lips were moving, and as I leaned in closer, I heard her mumbling, “Our baby. Our baby. Our baby. Our baby.”

In my anger over Billie’s state when I raced into the room, I’d forgotten one very large detail in all of this. The fire that killed her parents. The fire that almost killed Billie.