SWNOVELS The Sacrifice: Chapter 41
Senior year at Barrington University
I enter the house, shoving the door open. Her car wasn’t outside. “Whitney?” I call out, but there’s no answer. “Whitney?”
I’m pushing doors open, yanking blankets and comforters off beds, trying to find her but don’t see her anywhere. The place looks somewhat abandoned. Cabinets open, but nothing in them. Old furniture in the front living room. “Whitney?” Where the fuck is she?
I come to the last door in the four-bedroom house, and it’s locked. “I’m kicking this open,” I warn, just in case she’s on the other side, my adrenaline pumping that something really is wrong. Whitney has been over the top but she’s never this dramatic. And I’d hate to be downplaying something that’s really wrong.
Lifting my foot, I slam my boot into the door, splintering the wood and I enter the room. There’s a bed in the middle with nothing more than a blanket wadded up and covered in blood. My eyes drop to the floor, and I see her lying there on her back, arms out to her side and eyes closed. I drop down beside her and place my fingers to her neck. “Whitney? What the fuck?” She’s got a pulse. Barely.
Without wasting any time. I pick her limp body up in my arms and carry her out of the house. Ryat is already waiting in my car by the curb.
The passenger side door opens when he sees me carrying her. “Fuck.”
“Drive us to the hospital,” I bark, and he’s already opening the back passenger door for me to crawl in with her. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” I whisper to her, sitting in the back seat. Her body lies in my arms, blood runs from her broken jaw and busted nose. “I promise …” My voice cracks and I clear my throat. The fact that her clothes are covered in dirt, shirt is ripped, and her jeans undone tells me all I need to know. Not to mention the bruises around her neck.
What the fuck happened? Who the hell was she with? I haven’t spoken to her in two days. How long had she been there and how did she get there? I didn’t see her car anywhere.
“Almost there,” Ryat announces from the driver seat while taking a curve so fast, I feel the rear end fishtail, jerking us around.
“I’m sorry.” I rock her back and forth as if that will bring her back to life. I never meant for this to happen to her. I’m her Lord. I’m supposed to take care of her. They promised us protection. They failed us.
“Ty … don’t—”
I tune him out. “It’s my fault.” I pull her lifeless body into me, her arm falls to the side and lands on my thigh. Lowering my face to her neck, not giving a fuck if I get her blood on me. I’ve done my fair share of killing people to know that she’s fucking gone. Whoever did this to her wanted her dead.
I stand in the shower, my hands on the wall as I watch the blood disappear down the drain. The man in my basement got to me. His words about my wife dying in my arms just like Whitney.
I’ve spent every second of every day over the last ten days trying to find out who stabbed my wife. Yesterday, the guys finally got a hit. The man I stabbed in the basement the night the fight broke out had finally felt safe enough to make a move and contact a friend. The guys brought him in tonight.
Someone wants my wife. I thought that maybe she was stabbed by accident. But everything holds some kind of significance. The question is, do they want her alive or dead?
It could be her father or Collin. One of those if I can’t have her, you can’t either type of situations. Or it could have nothing to do with her and everything to do with me.
Ryat told me this could happen. That her father could come after her to get to me. But why? He would only do that if I loved her. If he truly thought that taking her from me would hurt me.
I married her for a reason, and it wasn’t to fall in love with her. It was for revenge.
Right.
I turn off the water and step out of the shower. Drying off, I wrap the towel around my hips and step out of the bathroom and come to a stop. Lake stands in the bedroom.
She hasn’t spoken to me much in the last ten days. She’s avoided me, and I’ve allowed it. Mainly because I felt bad. I’m a man, and I failed her. I might have forced her to marry me, but I’m still her husband. No man likes to fail. Especially me.
“Lake—”
“You gave me one table,” she growls, interrupting me.
“You’re still in recovery.” Gavin gave her the clear, and I wanted to break his fucking neck. She’s not ready.
“I’m fine.” She rolls her eyes. “Next thing, you’ll be saying that I should quit.”
I just stare at her.
“Tyson.” She steps toward me. “You can’t be serious.”
I reach out, cup her face, and her eyes soften, leaning into it. “It’s not safe. Not right now.”
She pulls away, and my hand drops to my side. “So you’re saying you care if I live or die?”
“Of course, I fucking care.” My eyes narrow on her.
“Since when?” She gives a rough laugh.
I ignore that question. “You’re fired. And that’s that.” Walking past her, I go over to the dresser and open it to grab a pair of boxer briefs.
“So you force me to work here dressed like a whore, then you fire me?”
I look up at her in the mirror, and she’s glaring at me, hands on her hips.
“What am I supposed to do, Tyson?” she demands. “Just sit up here and wait for you to speak to me? Huh? Only see you when you want to fuck me?”
“No,” I growl.
“Then what the fuck am I supposed to do with my life?” she shouts.
“Stay alive,” I answer. “And you can’t do that if you’re out there getting stabbed.”
She snorts. “Jesus Christ, Tyson. That is such bullshit, and you know it.” She angrily shoves her shorts down her legs, unsnaps her leotard, kicks off her shoes along with her fishnets, throwing them to the floor. Standing naked behind me, I turn to look at her.
My eyes drop to the fresh wound on her side. Gavin said her stitches would dissolve, so she doesn’t need them removed, but it’s still red and bruised. Walking over to the bed, she yanks back the covers and crawls into it. She jerks them up to cover her body and glares at me with her arms crossed over her chest.
“What are you doing?” I ask with a sigh.
“This is what you want me to do, right? Wait here naked for you?” She arches a dark brow, and I fist my hands. “Why don’t you just tie me down and leave me here until you’re ready to use me.”
“Laikyn,” I growl, irritated with her and myself. She thinks that way because that’s the way I’ve treated her.
“That’s what I’m good for.” She shrugs. “Except don’t knock me up.” Giving a rough laugh, she adds, “Because I’m not good enough to birth Tyson Crawford’s child.”
“Lake!” I bark.
“But my sister was,” she goes on. “She was good enough to fuck and knock up.”
I run a hand down my unshaven face. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have forced me to marry you.” She shrugs. “Then you’d be free to fuck whoever you want.”
I want to rush over to the bed, wrap my hand around her neck, and strangle her. Tie her to the bed and leave her there while I go to work, knowing when I return, she’ll be begging me to fuck her. But I can’t. Not now.
So instead, I turn and exit the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind me, and head to my office.
LAIKYN
He turned and walked out of the bedroom. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Or why I fucking care. After I saw him kill that guy down in the basement, I wanted a fight. Something about the way he killed him for me makes me question everything.
It wasn’t like when he killed Walter because he touched me, or Collin because I sat on his lap. It was … different. It wasn’t a don’t touch what’s mine. It was a you hurt what’s mine, and I’m going to make you pay for it.
I hate how much it made me feel loved. Violence does not equal love. A Lord kills for his fucking oath, that doesn’t mean he loves it. But I’ve never seen a Lord hate what he does. They’ve been conditioned from a young age to accept torture and death as their life. Their grandfathers did it and they watched their fathers do it.
In a world full of evil, they are taught to be the best.
So I tried to piss him off. Afraid he’d know that I saw him downstairs. That I might think he actually cares about me. It’s stupid, really. To think he’d care what I feel anyway.
Getting up, I hear my phone ding. I open it up to see it’s a text.
BLAKELY: Hey, girl. How are you doing today?
She and Ellington have both been texting me ever since I was stabbed. I’m guessing Tyson told Ryat and Easton what happened. Then they told their wives.
ME: Good.
What else is there to say? Hey, I’m doing great. Just got fired from my job and now I’m pretty much on house arrest because my husband thinks someone wants to kill me. But he hasn’t told me that. I just overheard him while he was killing a guy.
It pings again.
BLAKELY: That’s great to hear. Let me know when you’re feeling better and want to get out and about. I’ve still got to do some shopping for the babies, and I owe you a lunch.
Biting my bottom lip, I try to think of how to respond to her. I can’t go out and be seen with her, or anyone for that matter. Not after what I heard that guy say to Tyson earlier. I can’t put anyone else in danger. Ryat already threatened me. I’d never be able to live with myself if anything happened to her or the babies because of me. I’d let Ryat kill me if I was the reason something happened to his wife.
I start to type back a response to tell her that I’m not sure I’m ready to go out just yet but stop myself. My heart beginning to race. “Shit!” I never told Tyson about the pictures on my other phone that’s in my locker.
Hurrying out of bed, I throw on a pair of cotton shorts and a tank top and then run downstairs. I run into the locker room and unlock it. Yanking the door open, I freeze when I see the phone isn’t in there.
Where the fuck did it go? I know I put it back in there after I charged it long enough to come on. It’s been ten days since I saw it. I haven’t been in here since then.
Shutting the locker, I lean against it and sigh. Now what the fuck do I do? I can’t tell Tyson that my father gave me a phone and then I lost it.