“Ty…”
“Asher, can you give us a minute?” Ty turns his head to the side, asking–without really asking–for a moment. Asher just nods, and walks out, leaving me with my brooding, angry, protective man.
“I love you,” he says the moment Asher’s out of the door. “I love you so fucking much and you thinking that what happened was the best case scenario, it kills me. It physically makes me hurt, Roxie. You deserve to beprotected. To becherished. To besafe. I know you haven’t had that, baby. But you’re going to. For now on, you will. I’ll make it so. Ifyoudon’t want to live here, then after we figure the whole Mickey thing out, we’ll find you your own place. But don’t you dare think for asecondthat I want you gone or that Asher does. Your place is here, with me.”
CHAPTER 22
FIVE WEEKS LATER
I’ve wonseven fights in the last three weeks.
I’m making good money, and got my mom and Mario off my back. For the month at least.
Paid Mickey off for the month last week only to be given the next deadline for the next fifteen hundred. Yep, that’s right. He upped the payment. I shouldn’t have expected that he’d keep the payments stable. Just enough for me to get my footing. Mickey’s a bad guy. A dick and a fucking waste of space honestly.
He bullied, manipulated, and tortured Roxie into submission. She’s been through hell and back and I hate that there’s still this thing that he’s holding anything over her head.
I just want her to be free.
Roxie’s barely left my sight for weeks. Not only because I had to make sure she was out of the woods for any worsening braininjuries, but because I’m terrified that if I look away, she’ll be hurt again. And only this time, she won’t make it.
I open the door toFrom The Ashesfor her, and she smiles brightly at me, taking my breath away. The bruising around her eyes and neck have faded, the healthy color returning to her cheeks now that she’s feeling better.
Roxie’s looking and feeling better…and I’m doing everything I can to hide that I’m fighting again from her. From Asher, too.
We’ve had Roxie work towards becoming a full tattoo artist here, but she’s talking about cosmetology. I’m cool with whatever she wants. As long as she’s happy, that’s all I care about. That’s all I want.
It’s all I’ve wanted.
My eyes drift over to where she sits at the reception desk, looking up the different ways she could go to school. She’s been doing her hair and having me take pictures so she can apply for scholarships. Honestly, she’s pretty good. I’m impressed.
“Oh my god,” I hear her exclaim, leaning back in the chair so fast I almost worry the chair is going to fall to the floor. “Oh my god, I got in!”
“You did?” I drop the pencil I’m sketching with, and rush to hold her.
“Dear Ms. Westin, We’re pleased to say that we see real promise and talent in your application and we’re excited to offer you the full ride scholarship for this upcoming year!” Roxie reads off the screen excitedly, her voice sounding shaky and breathless. I wrap my arms around her shoulder as she reads, so fucking proud of her that I can’t keep my hands off of her for long.
“Roxie, baby, this is great,” I speak in her ear, kissing just below her lobe and she leans into the kiss, laying her hands over my forearm. Her fingers gently ghost over my reddened, bruised knuckles as she softly trails her fingers over the length of myarm, and I bite back a hiss. It fucking hurts, but I’m trying not to let it show. She hasn’t said anything yet, but I’ve seen her looking.
“I can’t believe it,” she says in disbelief as she covers her mouth.
“I can,” I whisper in her ear, kissing her shoulder before twisting the chair around so she’s looking at me. “You’re amazing, and everyone sees it.”
“Everything seems to finally be working out,” she whispers softly, like she’s almost scared to speak too loudly.
I get why. I do. We’ve been dealt less than stellar hands in life, and if things go too well, the other shoe drops twice as hard. It’s happened to us both together and separately for years. This fear isn’t going to leave her just because of one or two good things.
But I’ll be here through every other thing to make sure she knows I’ll stay, no matter how hard the drop is.
“It is, baby. It’s all working out,cariño,” I cup her cheek, pressing a small kiss to her forehead, trying to put all my pride for her in that kiss.
Her eyes close as I kiss her, her hand wrapping warmly around the arm holding her face.
“All thanks to you.” She smiles warmly as I lean back, looking right into those gorgeous brown eyes. I keep my face as calm as I can, but when she says it, I jolt inside.Did she find out? Does she know I’m saving up to pay off Mickey? Did someone let it slip that I was in The Underground again?
It’s not that I’m… No, I can’t even say that. Iamintentionally keeping it from her. But I know that if she found out I’d made a deal with Mickey and that my family was pushing for more money…
I know that she’d do everything in her power to help me. To take on Mickey herself. Because that’s what Roxie does. Shemight be all independent and rely on no one, but I’d like to be the person she can rely on, that she can be soft with.
