“It’s Colt. I grew up and I’m not f**king laughing, sweetheart.” I was too close to finally getting what I needed. My plan was almost finished, and I couldn’t let any feelings for Rose as a child get in the way of all of this. A lot of people were counting on me.

I heard her heels clank against the metal stairs, mimicking that of her frantic heartbeat.

“Why are you doing this? Why?” Sobs broke through her pleas as I guided her through the window. I glanced around to make sure we were pulled away before slipping inside. Lily backed away from me. This was normally the point where I would make a few threats but also reassure them that everything would be fine if they just followed the rules. I couldn’t do it this time. It wasn’t going to be fine because the ransom would never come. I had to think of a plan. I was suffocating.

I grabbed my hoodie and pulled it over my head, causing Lily to gasp. I had forgotten about my gun. I pulled it from the front of my pants and set it on the windowsill behind me.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You are already hurting me.”

I dropped my arms to my sides and sighed. How could she say that? I was the one who protected her. She ran from me.

“You’re a tough girl and you have dealt with a lot worse than this. These next two weeks will be like a f**king vacation for you if you do what you’re told.”

“Two weeks?”

“I need to take a f**king shower and clear my mind.”

I watched the wheels begin to turn in her mind. She was planning her escape. I smiled and shook my head.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?” She backed up against my old leather couch, knocking a few books that were precariously stacked behind it onto the floor. I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the spare bedroom. I motioned to her strappy sandals with my hands and she reluctantly slid them off.

“Just until I take a shower. I won’t keep you in there if you’re a good girl.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Why not?” I asked as I pulled the door closed and secured the lock. It was hard to pretend that this girl didn’t mean something to me at one point. I was a different person back then. I was a scared little boy. I had bigger things to deal with now, and number one on that list was getting what was owed me. Rose was going to have to trust me that this was all part of a bigger plan. I would do whatever I could to get her out of it, but from the moment she stepped out onto that sidewalk, she was already involved. I wanted to open the door and tell her everything that was happening, but giving her that knowledge could get us both killed. Instead I pulled off my dark-gray T-shirt and tossed it on the counter.

I stepped into my bathroom and turned on the sink. As I waited for the water to get cold, I looked at my own reflection. My hair was a little longer, and the blond had darkened, and my body was now covered in tattoos, but I could still see that pu**y-whipped little boy looking back at me. I couldn’t go back to who I was. I had struggled for years to work past losing everyone I had cared about, and I wouldn’t go back to that.

I splashed some water on my face and let it run down my jaw and drip onto my chest. I was no longer weak. I had worked endlessly to build myself up to be the toughest motherfucker on the block. I had made a name for myself in this world and that was who I was now. I turned off the sink and turned on the shower, hoping it would be loud enough to drown out Rose’s sobbing.

I kept the water ice cold, washing away the memories and the anger that filled me. I needed to remember why I was doing this. I needed to keep myself focused. She wasn’t that girl and, even if she was, that girl had abandoned me. I had no love left inside and I wouldn’t throw away everything twice for someone who didn’t deserve it.

After I had gone over the plan in my head no less than a hundred times, I got out of the shower and put my game face on.

I wrapped a towel around my waist, leaving the water to drip off me and keep me cool. After I had avoided the situation as long as I possibly could, I pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants and grabbed the keys from my jeans so I could open the lock on the spare bedroom door. Lily sat in the far corner, curled up in a ball like countless others had before her. She was a paycheck, a means to an end.

“Are you gonna…” The words caught in her throat, too unbearable to speak aloud.

“I’m not a f**king ra**st,” I spat as I turned and left the room, leaving the door open for her to come out. I grabbed my gun off the windowsill and stuck it in a kitchen drawer, with a false bottom, before finding a couple of cans of tuna in the cupboard. The floorboard squeaked as Lily came out of the room. I heard her pause and I knew what she was looking for.

“You don’t think I’m stupid enough to leave the gun out for you, do you?” I asked with a laugh as I grabbed the mayonnaise from the fridge.

“Why am I here?” she asked as she rounded the corner.

“Are you asking the meaning of life?”

“This isn’t funny, Cole!”

“This isn’t a joke. This is life or f**king death, Lily. I am trying to save you.”

She looked terrified. Good. Maybe she would soon understand the seriousness of the situation.

“Sit,” I said as I pulled out the bread from the cabinet. She took a seat on one of the bar stools on the other side of the counter.

“Save me from who?” Her voice broke.

“From me, darlin’.” I slid the plate in front of her. “Now eat.”

I took my plate into the living room and sat down on the couch. I couldn’t eat next to her like we were friends. I needed to keep my distance. Just the smell of her triggered painful memories.

“Who was that guy? The coworker?”

“Just a coworker. We both teach history at Jameson High.” She took another bite of her food.

“Are you going to sneak out to meet me tonight?” I wrapped my arms tighter around Rose’s waist, drawing small circles with my thumb on her lower back.

“I’ll try.” She pressed her lips against mine.

She pulled back and sighed as she fumbled with the collar of my shirt.

“What is it? I can tell when something is bothering you.” I brushed the bright-red hair from her forehead.

“My stepdad had some of his friends over last night.”

“Did they touch you?” Murderous rage consumed me. Rose was mine and the thought of anyone else putting their f**king hands on her killed me.

“No. God, no. They were talking about your father.” She looked up at me with her deep brown eyes. I clenched my jaw, trying not to let myself get upset in front of her.

“What did they say?”

“They were saying he had borrowed money from one of them and never paid it back. The guy works for the mayor. Anyway, they said your father got mixed up in some crazy stuff to get back what he owes him.”

“What crazy stuff, Rose? Think.”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “They closed the door to the office after that.”

I ran my hands over my hair and sucked in a deep breath.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“There’s one more thing.” Rose wrung her hands together as she chewed on her lip out of nervous habit.

“He said if he didn’t get all of what he was owed he was going to turn you in for that string of burglaries happening across town.”

“I didn’t do that, Rose.” I cupped her face with my hands as I looked her directly in the eye. “I would never do something like that. I’m not the bad guy.”

“I know you’re not, Cole.”

“I’ll take care of it.” I leaned my forehead against hers and closed my eyes. None of my father’s mess mattered. All that mattered was Rose.

A loud bang came from outside of the office, startling us.

“Rose!” Jacob turned the corner from the gym and stopped as his eyes fell on us.

Rose jumped back out of my arms, a look of terror on her face.

“Holy shit. You and Cole?” He laughed.

“No! He’s just a friend.” She laughed and took another step back. “I was gonna see if he could do my homework so I could go to the game tonight.”

“Is he going to come looking for you?”

“He might. Everyone is going to wonder what happened to me. I won’t tell anyone if you just…”

“It’s too late for that.” I shoved the rest of my sandwich in my mouth and placed the plate on the coffee table.

I walked back into the kitchen to grab a beer from the fridge. Lily had barely eaten anything.

“You need your energy. Just eat it. You want a beer?” Her eyes met mine and I could tell she was trying to figure out my angle. “If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t need to get you drunk first.”

She nodded once and I pulled two bottles from the fridge. I unscrewed the cap to her bottle and sat it in front of her. She eyed it for a moment before I snatched it back and grabbed a cup from the cupboard.

“It didn’t keep him down; a bottle to the head sure as f**k wouldn’t keep me down. It would only piss me off.” I smirked as I poured the contents into the cup and put it in front of her a second time. It was a deep dig bringing up her stepfather, but it pissed me off that she would even think I brought her here to rape her after I stopped that son of a bitch from hurting her. I would have given up everything. I would have killed him if she’d asked me to.

She picked up the cup and took a healthy swig. My eyes watched her hand as she drank. There was no ring on her finger. No one would be missing her at home. That thought was normally comforting but with Lily, it just made me sad.

“So this coworker…you didn’t seem to have a problem making him jealous at the bar.”

“It was you. It was different. I wouldn’t have done that if it was anyone else,” she said sadly before taking another drink.

“I wish you wouldn’t have walked into that bar.” I tried to keep my tone level but I knew she understood that I regretted this and that gave her a tiny glimmer of hope. Her eyes met mine again and I could see that she didn’t regret it. My stomach turned at the thought of this woman being so f**ked up that on some level she was okay with being kidnapped and held against her will.

“If I hadn’t…would…”

“There would be someone else here, sweetheart. It would have happened no matter what.” I tossed my bottle into the trash can and grabbed another beer from the fridge. There was no ignoring how f**ked up this situation was. I needed to separate the Rose I remembered from Lily sitting in front of me now. I had already broken all of my rules. She should have been secured behind that door, and beer has never been on the menu for any of the marks. I was thinking with something other than my brain; I just wasn’t sure if it was my heart or my dick.

“Come on.”

“Please don’t lock me back in there. I’ll lose my mind. Let me sit with you.”

“This isn’t personal.” I held out my hand for her to take. I was offering an olive branch. I could have easily overpowered her and forced her into the room if I’d wanted.

“Yes it is.” Her eyes filled with tears and her shoulders slumped. I sighed and took a long drink from my beer.

I walked Lily back to the spare room, refusing to look her in the eye before locking the door. It was ripping me apart inside to have her so close again, to smell her, see her eyes sparkle. She had been the catalyst for the crooked path my life had taken, and now she was here to bear witness to the destruction I had left in my wake.

What we’d had was so much more than a high school romance. I protected her, made her smile when the world was dark, and she did the same for me. She kept me grounded when I wanted to lose control and become the guy that society had already labeled me. I was the poor boy from the abusive home. My father a criminal with no concern for anything but cash in his pockets and dope in his veins. My mother was just an innocent victim who sat in his path of terror. I tried to protect her, tried my best to stop him. When it became apparent that she had no intention of saving herself or me, I focused my attention on fighting any ass**le who looked at me wrong. I placed myself in my father’s shoes and was learning to walk that walk until the day I came face-to-face with Rose.

“Cole!” Her voice cracked as she screamed at me from the spare room.

“Beat his f**king ass, Cole!” Trey screamed as he took a long hard drag from his cigarette, pure rage flashing in his eyes. His hair was long like mine but brown and curly.

My fist connected with Aiden’s jaw, and I felt my knuckle pop as his head flew backward. I kept my left hand gripped on his T-shirt. I didn’t want him to fall, not yet. I wasn’t done with him.

“Come on, man. The cops are gonna be here any minute.” Trey flicked his butt to the ground and blew out his breathe, clouding me in his smoke.

“I’m not f**king done,” I said through clenched teeth as I grabbed Trey’s jaw and forced him to look at me through swollen purple eyes. I blocked out the small crowd of teenagers that had circled around us. The guys watched with excitement as the girls turned away in horror.

“I’m gonna make sure you learn a f**king lesson,” I growled and swung again, my broken and bruised hand pounding against his eye socket. His body went limp and I smiled down at him, not even close to finishing.

“Cole!” Rose squealed and the fog that surrounded me lifted. My eyes locked onto her terrified face and I smiled like a f**king idiot. “Stop,” she mouthed and my dick instantly pushed against my jeans. That was the first time she had ever said my name, and the breathy way it crossed her lips made me think about her saying it under completely different circumstances. I frowned, realizing the look of horror on her face was because of me, not Aiden. I let my grip loosen until he fell to my feet, clutching his face and crying like a bitch.