Page 77 of Explode
“I promise I’ll listen,” she replied quickly, but I wasn’t finished.
“And I need you to promise, no matter how pissed off you get, nomatter how much you think you hate me after I’ve told you everything, you’ll forgive me for what I’ve put you through, and you won’t leave me, because I can’t live without you, Star.” I let her hear the vulnerability in my voice, needing her to know my biggest fear, that she’ll never be able to move past this, and somehow find a way to leave my selfish ass.
To my relief, her face softened. “Kai, I can’t promise I’ll forgive youstraight away, you have to understand the past six months have been hell on earth for me.” Her voice broke, but she took a deep breath and continued. “But I promise I’ll try my hardest to understand, and I promise….I won’t leave you.”
I stared at her beautiful face for a moment, knowing she was beingtruthful, and hoping like hell she would fucking understand why I had to go down this route.
I nodded before picking up the glass and downing my shot. “I knowyou’re going to have a shit load of questions, but let me get this out of my system, and then I promise, I’ll answer anything you want to know.”
Her jaw clenched but she nodded before copying me, downing herdrink, and sitting back in her seat, her eyes fixed intently on me.
Taking a breath to calm the storm beginning to swirl in my gut, Igripped the armrests to stop my fists from clenching as memories began to surface.
“I don’t remember much about that night. I remember fighting Max, Iremember you screaming, and I remember feeling pain rip through me, pain like I’ve never felt before,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice steady, because any time I spoke of that night, rage boiled under my skin. “I remember being in the car with my head in your lap, and I remember telling you I loved you, and you saying that it sounded like I was saying goodbye.”
I reached over and grabbed her hand, running my thumb over herknuckles like I always did when I needed her comfort. “The truth is, Star, I thought Iwassaying goodbye. I could feel the life draining out of me, and all I could think was that if I died, I would die happy because your face would be the last thing I ever saw.”
Her eyes welled, and a tear trickled slowly down her cheek. I resistedthe need to brush it away, determined to get my side of things across.
“The next thing I remember is waking up in a room, connected to ashit load of machines, and every inch of my body felt like it was on fire. I remember looking around for you, but Ash was there, and it confused the hell out of me. He doesn’t live in America, so I couldn’t understand why he was there. Within about five seconds, I realized you weren’t with me, and a fear so strong that I couldn’t breathe gripped me. Ash had to calm me down, but all I could think was that I needed to get out of bed and find you, but my fucking body wouldn’t cooperate.”
Anger was taking over, my voice getting rougher as the words flowedfrom my mouth, memories of the moment when I woke up in a place I didn’t fucking know growing stronger by the second. But now I had started, I needed to purge the words from my system.
“The doctors had to sedate me because the machines were goingfucking wild, my heart was beating so fast, but I didn’t realize I was doing more damage than good. I didn’t know then that they’d already had to restart my heart three times.”
I paused for a beat, pouring another glass of whiskey for us both.Never for one second did I think talking about what happened would be as fucking hard as this. I’d spoken to Ash about it, and to Miles, but it hadn’t been this hard to get the words out. Maybe it was because of the heartbreak on Riley’s face that made it near fucking impossible to speak.
“I’d lost too much blood. That was the problem. The bullet that hit mychest missed my heart by an inch, but it did enough damage to make me lose so much fucking blood. Dr. Harris was ready to call time of death when my heart gave up a second time, but Miles held a gun to his head and made him carry on resuscitating me.”
Riley gasped, and I hoped that knowing Miles refused to give up onme would help her find forgiveness for him.
“When he got my heartbeat back, he started giving me a transfusion,but he kept telling Miles to prepare himself for the worst. He genuinely believed I was gonna die, but Miles, he never lost hope.” More tears rolled down Riley’s face, and I could tell she already had a number of questions, but true to her word she remained quiet.
“That’s when calls started coming into Miles. Hendrix had made hismove and had ordered The Stags to claim the city. He spread the word Miles had shot and killed me, and had gone on the run with you, and as my 2IC, he was taking over. It didn’t fucking matter that I had already put the word out that he was a wanted man for betraying me, he’d been working behind the scenes, turning my men against me, and by then, he had enough support.”
My jaw clenched with blind fury at what my former friend had beendoing behind my back. His betrayal had run deeper than I ever knew.
The majority of men who turned tail were killed by Miles and theApollo team on the night of the shoot-out, but there were five men who lived to tell the tale. The five that Miles killed and returned back to Hendrix in several pieces.
“Doc Harris was still working on me when Miles took a call. It wasErnie. He told Miles that Hendrix had put out a reward for you to be brought to him, and for Miles to be killed on sight. The reward was for ten million dollars, and people were going crazy wanting to find you. Miles had less than ten seconds to make a decision. He knew he had to get you out of there, but he also knew you wouldn’t go anywhere all the time you knew I still had a pulse. That’s why he told you I had died, it was to get you out of there. He was trying to protect you.”
She gaped at me, her mouth wide, her brows raised, and I gaveher a minute to digest what I had said. When she picked up the glass and threw back the whiskey again, I carried on.
“Jack was in the room with Miles, and he got straight on the phone toAsh who helped coordinate everything. Ash sent another team to the surgery. They’d been on standby to relieve Jack’s team from guard duty at the house. It was by sheer luck they were in Hollows Bay. Two of the team were ex-medics who knew what the fuck they were doing. While Miles was outside comforting you after telling you I had died, the team came in round the back and moved me out. They had all the equipment they needed to get me to a helicopter that had landed not far from the surgery, and I was airlifted out of Hollows Bay.
“It was fucking risky, Miles knew there was a strong chance I wouldn’tmake the journey, but he knew if he stayed put with you, it was only going to be a matter of time before Hendrix’s men arrived, and then not only would I have been killed anyway, but they would have killed Miles, and hand-delivered you straight to Hendrix.”
“Why didn’t he just tell me what was happening?” Riley whispered,her hands shaking as she clutched her empty glass.
“He knew you’d put up a fight and refuse to leave my side-”
“I wouldn’t!” she protested, sitting up straight in her seat, but when Iraised a brow at her, she sank back down. “Yeah, okay, I probably would have.”
I snorted at her admittance, Miles knew Riley almost as well as Idid.
“Let me finish, baby, and you can ask as many questions as you like,”I said sternly. She nodded in response, and I took a breath before carrying on. “Miles was going to get you out of Hollows Bay, and once I was stable, he was going to tell you the truth. But I crashed again in the helicopter, and this time, it took longer for the team to bring me back. They were in contact with Jack who relayed everything to Miles, and he made the decision to not tell you anything until he knew for certain I was out of the woods. He didn’t want to tell you I had survived only to have to tell you again that I hadn’t made it.
“When we landed, I was rushed to a private facility, owned by Apollo,well, Ash, seeing as you now know he’s the man behind the organization. He had a team of the best fucking doctors there, and they managed to stabilize me, but they didn’t know whether I would survive the next twenty-four hours.”
