Elite (Eagle Elite) (22 page)

“They won’t.” I kissed his mouth. “Phoenix hasn’t done anything yet and when he does… you’ll be there.”

Nixon’s eyes closed briefly. When he opened them they were full of sadness. “Yes, but so will you.”

“By your side,” I confirmed.

Nixon didn’t say anything. His mouth found mine and I fell against the bed as his body hovered over me. His lips saying what his words couldn’t. I wrapped my arms around his neck and coaxed him toward me. With a grunt and then a masculine groan he swept his arms around me and under my shirt.

“Damn.” He growled the minute his hands came into contact with my bra.

“What?” I kissed his neck.

“Your grandpa’s going to shoot me if he finds out I’m doing this right now… I promised…”

He didn’t finish the sentence because my hands had already found his lean muscled stomach. I was drawing circles with my fingers across his hip bones. He closed his eyes. “I need you to remember something, Trace.”

“What?”

He kissed me softly across the lips and stared directly into my eyes. “When I make a promise I keep it. Regardless of whom it hurts, even if it means it hurts me or someone I care about the most. Sometimes… sometimes in life we’re asked to sacrifice something for the greater good.”

“Okay, you’re making me nervous. Can’t we just make out?”

Nixon’s smile was sad. “I love you, Trace. I always have. Just remember that, okay? Hold on to it. No matter what I say or what I do… and trust me, I’ll do some terrible things. Just know. I love you. With every fiber of my being.”

Tears clouded my vision as I nodded and brought him in for another kiss. “I love you too,” I said across his lips.

“I have to go.”

“Don’t!” I didn’t mean to yell.

Laughing, he lay back down on top of me, careful to keep his weight off so I could still breathe. “Trace… your grandfather’s not a patient man. Let’s not give him a heart attack.”

“Seeing us make out would not give him a heart attack,” I argued. “You taking me up on my whole virginity offer? Yeah, that would do it.”

Nixon froze above me. His eyes wild. “Please. Just please don’t ever. Trace, you have to promise — shit, you have to promise that no matter what happens, you wait, okay? You wait until it’s with someone you love.”

My smile widened. Because I knew he was talking about him. After all we’d basically just declared ourselves. I nodded just once and kissed him on the cheek. “I promise.”

His chest rose and fell as if he’d just run a marathon. He nodded once, his eyes welling with tears. Had I said something wrong? I pulled his face to mine and kissed him, this time slowly memorizing the way his lips slid past mine, creating the perfect amount of friction as they teased and taunted. His tongue. Good Lord that tongue could make a girl throw caution to the wind.

Nixon didn’t kiss as if it was something to pass the time. He kissed as if there was nothing in the world he’d rather be doing. He kissed like I was his oxygen, and I knew in that moment there was no way I was ever letting him go for the second time.

A knock sounded on the door. Nixon jerked away from me so fast I thought he was going to fall to the floor.

After a staggering breath, I went to the door and unlocked it.

Grandpa stood, arms crossed and glared at Nixon. “It’s time to say goodbye.”

I rolled my eyes and turned to Nixon. I latched on to his arm as we walked slowly down the stairs to the front door. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Nixon.”

His eyes still looked teary as if he was going to lose it at any minute. Nixon collected his gun, knife, and brass knuckles, and gave me a quick hug. “Remember what I said, Trace. Remember.”

With that he left.

Chapter
Twenty-eight

I slept like crap. Visions of a scary-looking Phoenix chasing after me made it so that I literally got two hours of sleep and that was on the optimistic side.

When Grandpa dropped me off at the dorm that night, Monroe was crying on her bed. I hoped to God it had nothing to do with me. I wasn’t sure I could handle any more drama.

“What’s wrong?” I asked rubbing her back.

“My father died.”

Yeah. Not the time to tell her I already knew. “I’m so sorry…”

“Don’t be.” She snorted. “I’m not crying because he died. I’m crying because the last thing the bastard said to me was that he wished I would have been born a boy.”

“So he was a jerk.” I reacted without thinking about how that may or may not sound.

She stopped crying, and then the tears turned into laughter. “What would I do without you, Trace?”

Wow, loaded question that one. I shrugged. I knew that Nixon hadn’t told her who I was yet. I wasn’t sure she would remember me anyways. I didn’t remember her at all, but Grandpa had let it slip that the minute she turned six she was sent off to a boarding school, making it so I’d only seen her at Christmas once or twice before I was taken away.

I sighed heavily and looked to my right. Mo was still sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, I tried to get ready as fast as I could.

“Ugh, what time is it?” Monroe asked sleepily.

“Time for class in about an hour,” I announced throwing a pillow at her.

She looked back at me through swollen eyes. “I’m going to need a tub of cover up.”

“Or kick ass sunglasses?” I threw her a pair of aviators.

“I shall rock the hung-over look.” Monroe punched her fist into the air and staggered out of bed. “So how did yesterday go?”

“Good.” I cleared my throat and pretended to still be straightening my hair, even though it was already as straight as can be.

“That’s it. Good? Where’d you guys eat?”

“Um…” I didn’t want to lie but I had no choice. “Grandpa’s kind of going to stay longer than we thought, so we ate at the place he’s renting while he’s in town.”

“Hmm, isn’t that kind of weird?” Monroe brushed her teeth at the sink and then smacked on some lip gloss. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad he’s here. I know how much you missed him. But he has a ranch, right?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. Grandpa’s always wanted to hang out in the city. And one of the ranch hands needed the money, so I think it’s a win-win.”

Monroe nodded and threw on a baseball cap. Impossible. She had tattered jeans, a rock-n-roll sweatshirt on, aviators, and a baseball cap and she still looked better than me. “No uniform?” I lifted my eyebrows.

“Crap. There went my idea to look cool.” Monroe kept a loose shirt on, threw a cardigan over it and pulled on her skirt and knee high boots. “This, my friend, is as good as it’s going to get.”

“Hey, still looks good to me.”

We ate some breakfast and walked to our first class. She waved while she ran off to the science section of the building. I walked slowly to my politics class and was somewhat stunned to see an actual teacher sitting in the desk. Where was Nixon? Didn’t he have a few more days left to teach?

I sent him a quick text.
WHERE ARE YOU?

And sat down.

An hour went by and still no text from Nixon. I kept the phone in my hand just in case it vibrated. I didn’t want my only form of communication getting stripped from me, and for some reason it made me feel safe. The mafia was only one phone call away, literally. So if Phoenix decided to mess with me, I could run and call for one of the other families to smack him upside the head.

Oddly enough it didn’t make me feel any better about the whole gangster thing. I mean, the mafia is the mafia. And I wasn’t one of those ignorant girls who hadn’t seen her fair share of mafia movies. Not that it was realistic, but still.

After a few more minutes of torture, class ended. I made my way down the hall to the next class. This was always the part I hated because kids were standing around talking to one another, texting, and pointing. I still couldn’t figure out why the school gave us ten minutes between classes. It seemed extreme to say the least. You could get in a lot of trouble in seven minutes.

I looked down at my phone and sighed. Still no text. The minute my gaze lifted to look down the hall, it was too late.

I ran smack dab into muscle.

Reeling back I realized it was Nixon. I sighed with relief and wrapped my arms around him for a hug.

He froze beneath my touch. Cursing, he gripped my arms in his hands and pushed me off of him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Huh?” Probably not the best response.

“Why are you touching me?” Nixon sneered.

“Because…” My gaze fell to all the students around us. Their faces were a mixture of amusement and horror.

“Because?” He took a step toward me and tilted his head. “What, cat got your tongue? Or I guess in your case it would be a… cow?”

“A cow?” I repeated. “Nixon, what the hell is wrong with you, last night…”

Gasps resounded around the hallway. I refused to back down.

“Was clearly a mistake if you still think I want more from you.” His eyes were steel. The tightening in my chest increased so much I thought I was going to stop breathing.

“But you said…”

“Are you deaf?” He shouted. “I don’t want you, Farm Girl. Not now, not last night… never.” He laughed. And with each echo of his laughter off the walls I felt my heartbeat slam into my chest like a hammer. “Let me put it into a way you understand. I will never want you. I mean, look at you. You’re nothing like us, and you won’t ever be. So do yourself a favor, leave me the hell alone.” His hands shook as he looked away, a muscle twitched in his jaw.

I refused to move. I could only stare as tears streamed down my face.

“Get the hell away from me.” Nixon was inches away from me. Those very same lips that promised me forever were driving the knife further into my chest. “Leave. Now.”

Somehow I forced my legs to move past him but not before I heard him yell after me. “Moo.”

Sobs racked my body until I couldn’t breathe or see straight for that matter. I didn’t even know which direction I was running. I just knew I had to get out of there. Away from him and away from my broken heart that had just shattered at Nixon’s feet.

I turned to make sure nobody was following me and again slammed into someone, but this time it wasn’t Nixon, and it wasn’t anyone friendly.

Phoenix grinned. “Nice show. Good to know he’s finally put you in your place. Maybe now that the whore’s out of the picture, we can go back to the way things were before you polluted this school.”

“Screw you!” I spit in his face and jerked away from him, running into the first available classroom I could find.

Unfortunately, it was occupied with a few students, but I didn’t care. I just had to get away from him… away from everything.

I crumpled to the floor in front of everyone as I tried to keep my breathing even, but it was impossible. I was dying. I knew it. I tried to breathe. I really did. But each breath was shallower than the last until I started seeing black spots.

Chase’s face was suddenly in front of me.

Wordlessly, he lifted me into his arms and carried me out of the classroom, damning the mafia to hell the entire way.

Chapter
Twenty-nine

By the time we reached the Bat Cave, aka the Elect hideout, I felt like I’d lived through a thousand lifetimes. In a word, I felt old and grumpy and bitchy. And really all I wanted to do was punch something…
anything
in the face.

Why would he do that to me? And in front of everyone? My fuzzy brain tried to come up with excuses. Maybe that’s how pitiful I had become in the way I felt about him. I tried to justify his actions. By replaying everything he said to me the night before, I succeeded in only making my stomach feel sicker.

He talked of protecting me, loving me, doing things he didn’t want to have to do. But what the hell? I mean, I get having to make rough choices. But if his plan all along was to make me look like shit in front of the student body, couldn’t he have at least warned me? Any girl, even if she knew the plan all along, would have been in tears.

I was pathetic because I had almost convinced myself that Nixon did all of that on purpose. That he wasn’t actually using me like Grandpa said.

“Damn it, Trace, listen to me!” Chase was in front of me, examining my face and swearing so much I would have blushed had I felt anything but numb from the pain. The boy had a mouth on him.

“What?” I licked my lips and refused to make eye contact.

He grabbed my chin with his hand and jerked my face toward his. “Do you need to go to the hospital? Lie down? Need a drink of water? Want a sedative? These are all the things I asked you on the way over, and again when I plopped you on the couch. Shit.” He released my chin and ran his hands through his hair. “What the hell was that? Are out of your freaking mind? You can’t just…” He pushed away from me and began pacing.

“You can’t just break down at school like that. Can’t let people see weakness. You’re better than that. I don’t care if the freaking President of the United States waltzed in here and told everyone you were a terrorist. You’re an Alfero for shit’s sake, start acting like one!”

And he just gave a whole new meaning to
tough love
. My mouth gaped open. I was too shocked to be hurt anymore. Did he just reprimand me for getting my heart broken?

I felt the sting of tears but I refused to let any more fall. Instead, I flipped him the bird and may or may not have dropped a really inappropriate word.

His stone face broke into a small smile. “Better, Trace. You can do better than flipping me off and telling me to go screw myself. I know this blows. Believe me, I know. But it’s the only way.”

“The only way?”

Chase nodded. “You and Nixon. You can’t happen. There’s too much history — too much drama, and with Phoenix lurking around campus, you can’t be the catalyst that brings this entire operation down. Believe me, you don’t want that and you don’t want Nixon to be tempted to do that.”

“Nixon.” I spat. “He can do whatever the hell he wants.”

“Good to know,” came the familiar voice.

My head jerked up to see Nixon in the doorway. His eyes uncertain as they flickered from me to Chase and then back to me.