“Oops,” I laughed, instantly releasing her.
“Stupid bitch,” the woman laughed. “Come at me again and I’ll?—”
I didn’t hear a word she said after that. I was on my feet and swinging hard. The only thing I felt was the rush of relief when she went down hard, and the resounding thump in my hand as pain coursed through my knuckles.
“Damn, Bailes,” Cheyenne breathed hard beside me. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
I shrugged, shaking out my hand. “Me neither.”
“Do you think she’s going to wake up anytime soon?”
“Why?”
“Because the sheriff just walked through the door.”
21
LIAM
“Areyou sure you want to do this?” my brother asked, tossing me the bottle of pain pills.
It caused more pain than I wanted to admit just to catch the damn thing, but whether or not I was injured was the least of my worries.
I had Bailey to think about.
“It’s the only way.”
“No, it’s actually not the only way,” he sighed. “Look, you said yourself you’re not sure if it was a dream or if it was real.”
I had been going over it in my mind for hours, trying to convince myself that not a second of it really happened. But the truth was ringing in my mind.
He was there.
And that meant that as long as Bailey was with me, she was in danger.
“It has to happen.”
I leaned back into the couch, my eyes already burning with the need for sleep, but I fought it with every fiber of my being. I had to make sure Jeff knew what I wanted in case I couldn’t keep her safe.
“Man, if you do this, how can you be sure you’ll ever get her back?”
“That’s a risk I have to take.”
“You could tell her,” he snapped. “I’ve been saying this from the beginning.”
“And look at how fast he’s escalated,” I argued. “Two days ago, he tried to kill Bailey. It was pure luck that I took her car to the gas station. That would have been her, and it’s all because she’s seeing me.”
“And if you tell her, she can be careful.”
“No,” I shook my head, already knowing it wasn’t an option. “If she knows she’s the target, she’ll dig in her heels and refuse to leave.”
“So, you’re going to force her to leave instead?”
I didn’t like the idea either, but what choice did I have? Austin was psychotic. This was what he wanted, for all of us to be miserable, and he’d get his wish one way or another.
“Better for her to leave than to be dead.”
Jeff plopped down in the seat across from me. I knew he didn’t agree; I saw the way he searched for any way out of this. Hell, I wished I could think of something, too. But as it stood, the quickest way to remove her from the threat was to remove her from my life.
