A Captive Situation (Kings of New York)

I heard what he said to his cousin.

His brother died? Did I get that right?

My heart hurt for him.

“I’m Vivianna, sweetie. What’s your name?” She held her hand out to me, and man, she was so skinny.

I wasn’t sure what I was doing with these two, but I also wasn’t going to complain. I’d seen the other woman get brought in and we’d locked eyes. She and I weren’t in the same league. That was obvious. She looked like a model or had been a model and me, well; then there was me. Sooo not a model. But in that moment when we locked eyes, we shared a connection. Sympathy for the other. That was it before she was hauled to the back area.

When she came out, saw me, I knew she was going to do something.

I had no clue she was going to be the reason I got to leave that police station, but again, I wasn’t going to complain about it.

I shook her hand and hoped she couldn’t feel how wet my palms were. I was all a mess inside. I think anyone would be if they were hauled to a police station and left to sit. I’d been teetering on the edge, not sure if I was going to be arrested or not. The guy said he wasn’t going to charge me, but I wasn’t criminal-savvy. Getting a speeding ticket was the furthest I’d been in dealing with the law in that way.

“Sawyer.” I had to cough to clear my throat. My voice came out so timid. Jesus. That was embarrassing. I snuck a look at him.

Him.

I couldn’t believe it when he walked into the police station. Or more like, stalked into the station. It took a second to hit me, but when I realized this was the same guy from the subway . . . Floor, open up and swallow me now.

“What were you in for, Sawyer?” Vivianna was asking me, but she was having a hard time focusing on me. Her eyes were all glassy, and her head kept falling to the seat behind us.

Her cousin was on the other side of her, on his phone, but he growled, “Leave her alone, Viv. You’ve already pulled her enough into your mess.”

That’d been the wrong thing to say to her.

Her glassy eyes flashed, focusing, and she snarled, turning to him. “Just because you’re emotionally stunted doesn’t mean I am too.”

“Except you are,” he drawled, still focused on his phone.

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yes, I am, and you’re a drug addict.”

Also the wrong thing to say.

She came alive.

I needed to detach from this situation. This was family history, and she began laying into him about things that I did not need to know about. She was talking about someone named Remmi, and now she mentioned someone named Ashton. That name got his attention.

Jakie. That’s what she called him.

Jake.

Jake Worthing.

I played with his name in my mind. I liked it. Detective Jake Worthing.

It’d been loud in that entryway, but I was able to hear enough that he wasn’t a cop anymore. And that other woman. Hot jealousy struck me like lightning. She’d touched him on his arm and he hadn’t even noticed.

They’d been intimate.

That was obvious. Painfully.

Were they still intimate? Was that why she called him to take his cousin out of there?

They had a moment, their heads close together, before we left. I tore my gaze away, my stomach shrinking because I didn’t want to see any more little lovey-dovey touches between them.

Fuck.

That jealousy still pooled in me, and it was spreading, like poison.

I did not need to lose my mind over another guy. Hadn’t I learned from Beck?

“What are we doing here? I thought you were taking me to my place.” Vivianna stopped in mid rant when the cab pulled up outside of an apartment building.

Jake handed some money to the cabdriver, before meeting my eyes. He nodded to the door behind me. “Get out.” He answered his cousin. “Let’s go.”

“What? But—what?” She got out, glaring at him as the cab took off.

Jake ran cold eyes over her, taking his keys out and going to the door. “You’re going to rehab, Viv. I’m not fucking around with that, but I ain’t taking you in a cab. I need to grab something from my place.” He opened the door, looking to me. “She brought you into this, but you can take off from here if you want. I can call another cab.”

“What? No!” Vivianna shrieked, literally throwing her arms down, her hands balled into fists. “She’s my friend. I want her with me.”

His annoyed eyes locked with hers, heat flaring in them. “Drop the fucking act, Vivianna. She’s a pawn to you. You’re using her as a buffer between you and me. News flash, I am an asshole. If I want to tell you that you’re a drug addict and you need help, then I’m going to say it. I don’t give a fuck who’s around us. You’re going to rehab—”

“But my friend. We need to give her a ride to where she’s staying—”

“I’ll take her after,” he snarled, looking two seconds away from putting hands on her. He didn’t. He kept them at his side, but the threat of violence was real with him. Then again, he’d been a cop so I shouldn’t have been surprised. His jaw clenched, he looked my way, and he forced his tone to soften. “Unless you want me to call that cab?”

My tongue weighed heavy in my mouth, and I shook my head.

Maybe I should’ve, but honestly, I had nothing else going on right now. Plus, I could add this to the tourist bucket list. Taking someone to rehab. I didn’t think this was necessarily a New York–tourist type of event, but it was an adventure and that was the premise of my bucket list. Doing things I normally wouldn’t. This was one of those things. Also, she was giving me distinct Mafia-princess vibes and that felt a very New York or Jersey-esque type of thing I wouldn’t get to do somewhere else.

This guy kinda scared me, but I also wanted to see what all was going to happen. I had tuned her out earlier, but I was tuned all the way in when it came to him. He was like no guy I’d met in my life.

Groan. Bad Sawyer.

Still, I said, “I’m good.”

“See!” Viv hissed at him. “She’s here for me.” She slapped at his chest, or would’ve. His hand moved like lightning, catching her wrist, and time slowed for a beat. It pulsed around them as the two shared a look. She tried to hit him. He stopped her, and his jaw clenched again, that promise of violence just there, swimming under the surface in him.

She paled again, swallowing thickly before she pulled her hand out of his grip.

I waited to see if she’d apologize, but she sniffed and flounced past him.

His eyes met mine, and that tension was still there. It switched to me, but along with it came some underlying heat. I felt it spear my belly, warming me. My tongue thickened again, but my body moved without me knowing. I stepped toward him. My hand began to reach out.

I wanted to . . . I didn’t know. Reassure him? Comfort him?

Just touch him?

I ached with it, but so many thoughts and emotions were swirling inside of me. Compounding on top of each other. I’d never felt this way around Beck. I didn’t know how to react to this, and because I didn’t know, my body acted of its own volition.

My fingers ached to make contact with him, but before they could touch his chest, his hand found my wrist. Just like his cousin. But he wrapped his hand around me gently, holding me tight. Shivers raced through me, heating me up.

His thumb began to shift under my arm, and his eyes were smoldering.

I wanted more of this. More touch. More of him.

That scared me.

I yanked my hand back, a soft hiss on my breath.

His eyes shuttered, a wall coming down over him. I felt him pulling away from me, though neither of us moved a muscle.

I didn’t like the distance, but I knew it was because of my reaction.

He said, coolly, “I’ll give you a ride wherever you want if you endure my cousin for another couple of hours. The facility isn’t far outside of the city, but it’s still a drive.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to ward off the chill from him.

I’d messed up. I wasn’t fully aware of it, but I knew I’d messed up. I’d pulled away from him, and neither of us wanted it, but now he was all the way gone. I wanted him back, but I didn’t know him. I didn’t know how to bring him back to me.

I was in that between phase where my body was having its own conversation with his, but my mind was still playing catch-up. It was a weird place to be, and my eyebrows furrowed, trying to make sense of all the undercurrents going on.

I said, wincing at how raspy my voice came out, “Yeah. Okay. I got nothing else to do today.”

He frowned at my words, but I moved forward. I didn’t want him to question me. I might answer him, and I didn’t want him to find out how I was just another person on the edge, seriously struggling with my current life because everything I’d known had been swept out from underneath me. If he got even a glimpse at how much of a mess I was, he’d kick me to the curb in a heartbeat.

I ached at that thought, at him leaving me behind.

And again, that left me dumbfounded. Never. I’d never felt such a strong and immediate reaction to anyone in my life.

I paused in the hallway, still hugging myself, my head folded down, because I didn’t know where I was going. Vivianna had marched on by herself. Jake cursed under his breath, going past me. He glanced back a few times, making sure I was following him, or seeing if I was still here? Did he want me to leave?

I half snorted to myself, under my breath, because good luck, dude.

I’d been drowning for the last two weeks, and the second he walked inside that police station, I felt the first bubble of oxygen being handed to me. Like a hand that reached down into depths where I was slowly dying and offered me a breathing tube.

I took my first breath, and I was hooked. I wanted to keep breathing.noveldrama

Suddenly my bucket list wasn’t just for something to do, to keep me busy so I wouldn’t lose my mind.

I felt the first stirrings of something sizzling in me. The first spark of life again.

He was about to find out that once I latched on, it was going to be difficult to shake me.

Ask my ex. I gave him eighteen years of my life.