Thorn: Carter Kids #2 (3 page)

Our whole relationship had been a lie.

I had wasted my heart and my virginity on a gangster whore.

Goddammit.

This was the worst pain I had ever felt in my eighteen years.

I was dying.

I was sure of it.

And there was nothing anyone could do to take it away for me.

Angry was an understatement. Fury wouldn’t hold my coat. I was pissed off and heartbroken. An ugly combination for an emotionally unbalanced teenager.

Hope was in the sitting room with her phone glued to her hands when I finally finished dry heaving and rinsed my mouth out. Liam sat in the armchair opposite her, looking uncomfortable but curious.

“I’m sorry about this,” I repeated when I reached them, sinking down on the arm of the chair Hope was occupying. “If we had anywhere else to go we would be there,” I added.
Trust me.

“It’s fine, Teegs,” Liam replied. Rising from his chair, he moved towards me with his arms outstretched. “I’m glad you came to me.”

Actually I had come to his mother, but I decided not to correct him. It seemed to be a rude thing to do. “Right,” I mumbled, embracing him in an awkward half-hug. “Uh, thanks again.”

Hope’s phone continued to vibrate in her hands as she stared blankly at the lit up screen. Mine on the other hand was void of messages and calls.

I wasn’t being chased after or worried about because I had made the foolish decision to put all of my eggs in Noah Messina’s basket and the bastard had betrayed me in the worst way.

I burned my bridges with Uncle Max.

I didn’t think he would ever forgive me.

And I didn’t blame him.

I chose Noah over him, over my own flesh and blood.

I was a shitty niece.

All I had was Hope and I was secretly terrified her father was going to arrive at any moment and sweep her back to Colorado with him. And then I would be totally alone, because there was no way in hell that I was ever facing Thirteenth Street again.

“Are you going to answer that?” Liam asked Hope, releasing me from his grasp. “Could be important.”

“It’s not,” Hope replied coldly, not taking her eyes off the screen of her phone.

“You should just answer him and get it over with, Hope,” I said wearily. I knew it was her dad. He wasn’t going to lie down over this. “He won’t stop calling until you speak to him,” I added after a pause.

I watched Hope deliberate with herself before finally swiping her thumb across the screen and putting the phone to her ear. “Dad,” she acknowledged in a tone void of any emotion. “What’s up?”

Taking a few steps back from us, Liam hovered awkwardly by the sitting room door. When our eyes met, he inclined his head, gesturing for me to follow him, before stepping out of the room.

I didn’t want to know a damn thing about Thirteenth Street, I couldn’t cope with it, so I was glad for the escape Liam was offering me.

Sliding off the arm of the chair, I followed Liam down the hallway of their bungalow, stopping when we reached the last door at the end of the hall on the right.

When I stepped foot in his bedroom, years worth of memories bombarded me. I had spent most of my life in this room. It had been a sanctuary for me after Mom died.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Liam asked when he sank down on his bed.

The same bed I’d given my first blowjob in.

He patted the mattress, beckoning me. “Come on, Teegs. You look like you’ve gone ten rounds with Tyson.”

I stifled the scream that was forcing its way up my throat at the thought of rounds and rings and fucking fighters.

“I don’t think I can,” I admitted, flopping down on the bed next him. “Talk about it, that is,” I reiterated. “Everything is so screwed up, Liam.” Throwing myself back, I lay motionless, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m in so much trouble.”

Liam leaned back and rested on his elbows before letting out a heavy sigh. “I’m guessing a fella is behind this.”

I turned my face to look at him. “What makes you think that?” He was right. One hundred percent. But I wasn’t about to tell him that. “Well?”

Now Liam was the one to flop onto his back. “Because you’ve been puking your guts out in the bathroom for the past hour.” Liam closed his eyes and I watched as a vein ticked in his neck. “How far gone are you?”

“What?” I rolled my eyes in disgust, ignoring the nervous flutter in the pit of my stomach. “You think I’m pregnant?”

He blinked rapidly. “You’re not?”

“Liam, I’m nursing a broken heart,” I choked out, “not a fucking baby.” There was no way in hell Noah Messina had knocked me up. I refused to believe that the period I had been waiting on to arrive for the last ten days was down to anything other than stress.

“Oh.” Liam seemed to consider this for a moment. “Is your friend pregnant?”

“Seriously?” Jerking off the bed, I turned to glare at my former flame. If he could just stop talking about babies for one freaking minute. “No one is pregnant, Liam. Jesus!”

“I’m sorry, alright.” He held his hands up in defense. “I just presumed…”

“I caught my boyfriend cheating on me with the school slut, okay?” I hissed angrily. “And now he’s going to prison for almost killing a man at an illegal fighting ring.”

Liam’s cheeks reddened and his mouth fell open. “The next-door neighbor?” he asked, winning major brownie points for remembering the emails I had sent him last year. “The tattooed fighter guy – what was his name again?”

“Noah,” I whispered, nodding, feeling physical pain when I spoke his name.

Liam opened his mouth to say something, but his bedroom door swung inwards, causing him to pause.

We both turned our heads to look at Hope.

“That was my dad,” she announced, sliding her phone into her jeans pocket. Her face was pale and her eyes were bloodshot as she leaned against the doorframe. “He’s at the airport.”

“What?” I deadpanned. “In the states?”

“In Shannon, but it doesn’t matter because I am
not
going back.”

“Hope, be realistic,” I mumbled. I felt like weeping. Kyle was in Ireland and he was going to kill me, and then he was going to take Hope away.

I secretly wondered if he could also take my memories?

The man was a millionaire, surely he knew people that could open my brain and toss Noah Messina out?

“I am,” Hope shot back. “I am not going back there, Teagan, and the only way my father is going to make me is if he takes me home in a body bag.”

MY MOTHER WAS SCHIZOPHRENIC
and in some small part of my mind – the part I tried not to listen to – I was afraid that what had happened to her would eventually happen to me.

It wasn’t my mother’s fault.

Her illness just was, and I understood that, but I was afraid of becoming her.

No, screw that. I was fucking petrified.

And even though her drug habit was the reason I had been dragged into the underground, I
couldn’t
hate her.

She had never been much of a mother to me – not really. What I felt for her was more pity than love because in truth, since I was fifteen years old, Lee Carter had been more of a mother to me than my own ever had. She had been there for me, cleaning my cuts and broken bones, and driving me to the hospital whenever I had come close to bleeding out.

Out of all the people to arrive at the jail, I should have known it would be Lee.

I felt like shit – like I’d let her down. I was scum, I always knew it, but now Lee did too and that filled me with shame.

I watched Kyle’s wife like a hawk as an officer ushered her into the room I was being held in.

“Oh Noah,” Lee whispered when we were alone.

Lowering herself into the chair opposite me, she reached across the table and covered my hand with both of hers. The feel of her skin on mine was almost my undoing and I had to look away and clench my jaw shut to stop myself from crying like a pussy. “I’m sorry,” I managed to squeeze out, looking anywhere but her direction. “For fucking up my bail,” I added, “I’ll pay Kyle back…someday.”

“Forget about the money,” Lee drawled in her soft southern accent. “I don’t care about it and neither does Kyle. We care about you.”

“Why?” The question was laced with sarcasm and out of my mouth before I could think.

“Because we love you,” Lee replied quickly and without an ounce of hesitation. “You’re like a son to me and to Kyle,” she told me. “We want to help you.”

“Except I’m not his son, am I?” I tossed out, clenching my jaw again. “I’m his fucking
brother
.”

“True,” Lee shot back, not missing a beat. “All the more reason to let us help you. Noah, look at me. Please.”

Inhaling a sharp breath, I looked at her. The warmth and motherly love I saw in her eyes touched something deep inside me. “We know about Max Jones pressing charges on you for breaking and entering and grand theft auto.”

“Yeah.” I let out a heavy sigh. Teagan’s uncle loved this. “Asshole couldn’t wait to press charges.”

“Kyle has arranged the best defense attorney in the state to fight in your corner,” Lee told me. “They’ve already made a bargain plea on your behalf, and the prosecution has accepted – bringing your sentence from twelve years down to five and a half.”

I had always known I was going to do time.

I had done it, committed the crimes. I pulverized Gerome Javi to within an inch of his life. I broke into Max Jone’s house. I stole Teagan’s car.

It was all on me.

In a sick way, I had spent my entire life preparing for this moment. It was fucking inevitable. I had been living on the edge for so long; a pawn in a gangster’s world, that in one sense it was a relief.

But I was only eighteen; five and half years behind bars was a lifetime to me.

Leaning forward, Lee squeezed my hand, as she said, “Don’t give up hope, sweetheart.” Her big gray eyes were full of unshed tears. “Five years isn’t forever. I promise you that. You’ll get through this, Noah.”

“Teagan’s gone,” I groaned, addressing the only thing that mattered to me. Jerking my hand away from her, I bowed my head when my voice cracked. “She fucking bailed on me, Lee.” I closed my eyes, forcing the dampness to remain behind my eyelids.

Twisting around in my chair in real, honest-to-god physical fucking agony, I fought the urge to lose my shit. Something was breaking inside of me and I was losing myself in the process. “The girl I love more than every damn soul on this planet thinks I fucked her over. And worse, she thinks I invited her to watch it unfold!” My brain was like a fucking broken projector, tormenting me with image after image of my girlfriend’s heartbroken expression when she climbed into that cab.

“Noah,” Lee whispered in a worried tone of voice. “What on earth are you talking about? What do you mean ‘she thinks you invited her to watch it unfold’?”

“It doesn’t matter, Lee,” I choked out. “Not anymore.” Resting my elbows on the table, I dropped my head in my hands, tugging at the ends of my hair in agitation. “I’m here and she’s…gone.” Teagan was the most frustratingly stubborn girl I’d ever met. I didn’t want to think about what she thought of me now. “Teagan doesn’t trust easily – it took me
months
to earn it. And even if I get the chance to see her and explain, she’ll think the worst of me.”
She always does…