Page 58 of Risking it All

“And now?”

“Now I don’t know.”

“There has never been anything wrong with you, Zenia. It’s the men behind that whole organization who are fucked up. You’re more than a trophy for me. You’re the remedy to whatever the hell has been wrong with me all this time. You’re the heater to my stone-cold heart,” he vowed before kissing my cheek.

“I know that the way they do things is fucked up. Now I hate that I’m stuck in their sick and twisted game. Even more, I hate that I got you involved. I should have told you who I was so you could have run for the hills when you had the chance.”

“I probably would have still been sitting right here holding you. I don’t scare easily, mama. You’re right. They’re all fucked up in the head. They made you think less of yourself so they could benefit from it. It’s even more fucked up that your own father was the ringleader of your destruction.”

“I’m so sorry for all of this. When I came to Cashville, I planned to kill Reed. That’s why I had the pills. If they didn’t work, I was going to cut his throat.”

“Well, damn!” Sawyer said, bugging his eyes. “I’m glad he wasn’t there then. I don’t know how well our relationship would work with you behind bars.”

“I wasn’t going to jail. You witnessed the second half of my plan. When the whole thing fell through, I didn’t know what to expect. All I knew was that I didn’t want to do anything that I thought would burden you any more than I already had. Seeing your face at the hospital showed me that you cared enough to be affected by my absence. I didn’t want to put my death on your conscience, so I decided to fight for my life for a change. I’m glad I did.”

“Promise me something, Z.”

“What is it?”

“Never stop fighting for your life. No matter what happens, don’t give up on yourself.”

“I won’t,” I vowed.

“I’m about to tell you something, and I don’t want you to say anything back. Even if you have the urge to, I don’t need you to say anything. Promise me.”

My brows met in the middle of my face as he spoke. “What is it?” I asked.

“I love you. I don’t know why it happened so fast. The feeling hit me so quick and hard that I feel like I got whiplash. I don’t care about time and space. All I know is that I love you. I need to tell you that because I have to leave in about an hour. I have a long drive ahead of me, and I won’t be back for a couple of days.”

“I don’t want to be alone right now, Sawyer.”

“I know, but it’s something I have to do. You understand that.”

“I do.” I nodded.

“Do not leave this house, under any circumstance, until I come back for you, Zenia. If I don’t make it back, Nicholas has instructions on what to do. I want you to take the duffel bag at the top of my closet, go with him, and never look back.”

The lump in my throat almost prevented me from responding. “Sawyer, what do you mean if you don’t make it back? What are you going to do?”

“Everything in my power to make sure you’re safe.”

“I can’t let you do something that will take you away from me, Sawyer.”

“And you can’t stop me from protecting you, mama. That’s the only thing I want to do right now.”

A sob escaped my throat, and I didn’t bother to try to suppress it. Sawyer held the back of my head, pulling me into his chest as I cried. He kissed my forehead and repositioned himself until he was lying on his back with me on his chest.

Through my tears, I spoke up and said the one thing I knew he didn’t want me to say. “I love you too, Sawyer. You better make it back to me.”

A weighted blanket made me feel super cozy as I considered if I should try to get up or let myself go back to sleep. The last thing I remembered was crying myself to sleep in Sawyer’s arms. When I opened my eyes, the room was pitch dark, but I could tell I was in Sawyer’s bed.

I lay as still as possible once I realized that he was probably gone. The only thing I wanted to do was go back to sleep. My heart broke all over again as I thought about him never coming back. This was absurd.

My growling stomach won the battle of wills, making me get out of bed. The clock on the stove indicated that it was almost eight. I must have really been knocked out. There was a box on the table with my name scribbled on top, so I walked over and opened it. Inside was a box of macarons and a flip phone.

I opened the phone and found that there was only one number programmed in it. It had to be Sawyer’s number. I resisted the urge to call him in exchange for popping a cookie in my mouth. They were even better than I remembered.

I walked over to the refrigerator and smiled at the two footlong subs from the restaurant hotel that had the best grinders that I had ever eaten. One was definitely a grinder as evidenced by the green wrapper. I picked up the one in red, and it was a seafood sub. In the interest of trying something new, I picked the seafood one and grabbed a bottle of water.