Page 47 of Hayes
“Bam, you’re dead,” Gage says.
I frown as I feel the barrel of a gun pressed against my temple.
My eyes cut to the side, where I see the gun I knocked out of his hands lying on the floor. This is a new gun.
“That’s not fair. I disarmed you!”
Gage shakes his head. “You didn’t. You knocked one gun out of my hand. You didn’t disarm me. You didn’t ensure I only had one weapon on me. You assumed I only had one when you saw me get one gun from the bag. You got cocky and failed just like I knew you would.”
“That’s cheating,” I complain.
“There is no such thing, not in this world.” Gage gets off of me, his expression somehow more serious than ever. He doesn’t offer his hand to help me up. He just towers over me, making me feel small.
I frown.
Hayes walks over and offers his hand to me, but I don’t accept it. I stand up on my own.
“Fine, I’ll train.”
Eight hours later, I’m ready for bed. And not with Hayes, just to sleep. They’ve kept me training for eight hours. I don’t know how I’m still standing in this basement.
Their reasoning is we don’t have time. We need to take advantage of every second we have. I don’t know why they think we have so little time to train. The only thing I can think of is the wedding. I’ve been given very few details of what will happen at the wedding or who will show up. My guess is that our wedding will be flooded with Retribution Kings, and maybe they have a plan to use the wedding as a way to get our revenge.
Despite all the training, they haven’t shared a whisper of their plan with me.
“What did the Retribution Kings do to you? To you both? Why do you hate them?” I ask.
Gage exchanges a silent look with Hayes. Gage wipes the sweat from his brow, grabs his bag, and then leaves without a word or look in my direction.
I sigh. “He’s never going to trust me, is he?”
Hayes glances at the stairs Gage just disappeared up. “Give him time.”
“What about you? Do you trust me enough to share your truth with me?”
Hayes takes a deep breath but doesn’t say anything.
“My father was killed by the Retribution Kings, but I’m sure you know that. Everyone does. What everyone doesn’t know is why. The lie is that he betrayed the Retribution Kings. He was planning to destroy them. He wanted power and money. He was working for a rival gang. He was a spy. But none of that is true,” I say.
Tears well in my eyes as I think about my father. “His only mistake was not killing a man. He was sent on a mission to kill a man who had stolen from the Retribution Kings. But he couldn’t do it when he realized the man had two young sons and had stolen to feed his family. My father paid the price instead.”
Hayes stares at me with his piercing green eyes. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t tell me he’s sorry. He doesn’t offer me any condolences.
Slowly, he walks toward me and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear before grazing a soft kiss on my forehead.
“Come. I’ll make you something to eat.”
He doesn’t open up. He doesn’t offer me any of his own history. And he doesn’t offer any of his thoughts about what happened to my father. He shuts me out.
My heart aches, desperate to learn more, to find the flirty, fun-loving guy again. But deep down, he’s as broken as I am.
Let me in, and I’ll help you rebuild the pieces.
He doesn’t—at least, not today.
He will. He just needs time.
As my heart aches for him, I wonder a realization—who really loves who?
