Chapter 35: : Chapter 35

through what you go through.”

Everyone in the circle slowly looks side to side, making awkward glances at each other, with milf lady holding my glance a tad longer than everyone else’s.

“Grow through what you go through.” The collective group groans together.

Dave is shining like the goddamn sunshine with his ear to ear grin, looking directly at me from the opposite side of the circle of addicts and offenders.

I feel my phone vibrate in my jeans. Slouching down in my plastic school chair, I pull it out and instantly feel a wave of excited energy course through me.

One word. Three letters. Millions of emotions behind it. Thank God I’m naturally always smiling. No one here has any idea the girl who rocks my world just texted me.

After our little fight the other night, when emotions spilled over, one thing led to another. We spent the evening connecting on another level. I held her as she cried into me, softly kissing away her pain. The way she was holding onto me was still in the forefront of my mind. I can’t forget it. She was gripping her fingers into my flesh, like the idea of me disappearing was an actual possibility, crying out for me as if I were the last name to ever leave her lips. Like needing me was now her new purpose as well.

My brows drop as I try to process what she’s referring to before a picture comes through. Clicking it open, I see a row of hickeys along her collarbone, just beneath her neck tattoo. I bite down on the corner of my lip, trying to conceal the joy my marking gives me. Turning the front facing camera on, I snap a silent picture of the spot just below my ear.

I smile at the question at the end of her text. Look at her, needing me.

Fingers crossed I can ditch this shit for her.

Truth. We’ve talked about how I’m the only one who routinely answers his questions, raising my hand in order to be a good little student and smile my way outta this shit. Dave looks around at everyone while he’s talking, but sadly for him, all the other classmates make it a mission to avoid his direct eye contact. Everyone but me. I’m there, smiling right back at his ass. He loves it.

I grin to myself, satisfied thinking about how funny I am. My phone vibrates in my hand again.

The message confuses me. I get a little worried again, wondering if she’s too in her own head, ready to backtrack on our progress. These are the first thoughts that plague my tortured mind. I text her back again.

I truly have no idea what she’s referring to. As I wait for her reply, other thoughts cross my mind that include her top half being stuck in the washing machine at her apartment with her ass out, thong in place, just waiting for me to ram into her. The other thought is she’s accidentally handcuffed herself to her bed, trapped with her arms raised above her head, her shirt over her eyes, bra lost, waiting for me to “save” her.

Nothing can really describe the feeling I get in my stomach reading those words. I just feel amazing all over, and she’s solely the reason for it. She makes me so fucking happy and she has no idea what those little words mean to me. It’s like validation for all the shit she’s put me through by fighting this off. It’s real now, and she’s finally accepting it.

I start typing out that I’m gonna knock her up when I come back over tonight, but I delete the words before sending.

I’d told her again and again how much I loved her as we connected. I lost track of how many times I said it. I didn’t want it to lose its meaning, but I couldn’t hold it in. She needed to know, again and again, especially while I lost myself deep inside of her.

She hasn’t said it back yet, and that’s okay. I’d never want to force her to feel she had to. I’m completely fine letting it happen organically, if that’s even how she feels. But nothing will keep me from expressing myself around her. I’ll say that shit every chance I get because I know I’m crazy about her, and you just never know what tomorrow could bring.

Everything about these last few days has felt monumental. Even our quiet moments after the insatiable sex. Like last night, when she literally fell asleep on my stomach with me still deep inside her. Our connection is metagalactic, as she said. There’s just so much beneath the surface with the two of us.

I’ll never get enough of the woman she is. I wasn’t lying when I said I was insane for her. I’d do anything, if only given the chance to prove myself. I feel another wave of obsession wash over me, the feeling almost too painful in my chest. I have to bite down on my lip again to regain control.

“As a person who’s struggled with addiction myself, I learned that having a Naloxone kit at home is a very safe idea.” Dave’s voice interrupts my thoughts as I put my phone back into my pocket.

New guy, Simon, raises his hand.

“Yes, Simon,” Dave calls out.

“Isn’t that setting yourself up for failure? Having the antidote there to save you, knowing you can fall back on it?”

“I don’t look at it like that. For me, it’s being realistic. Having an addiction is the same as having a disease, and sometimes that disease has flare-ups. Would a diabetic not have the proper medications on hand in case of a blood sugar spike? Addictions are the same way.”

I mindlessly daydream about Han again, zoning out of the conversation at hand until it’s time to go.

About twenty minutes later, I’m back on the road, my destination, well…not where I should be going directly after drunk class. But when the call comes through that Dario needs to meet with you, you do it or face the unfortunate and unknown consequences.

I knock on the strange steel door inside the Lust Lay again, awaiting the red-haired man with the strange curled mustache, eager to take me to Oz. Sure enough, he takes me back down the dark hallway past numerous rooms of moaning women.

I get to a new door. It’s wood, painted in a refreshing blood-red color. Super easy on the eyes. Great choice for a calming interior.

It opens, and darkness awaits. I look back at Mr. Mustache, giving him a nervous glance. He simply nods his head, edging me forward. I shake my head, realizing how stupid it is for me to be nervous when there’s truly no reason for it. I haven’t done anything that could’ve pissed this man off, have I?

I walk forward into the dark as the door closes behind me. Pitch black. Why? Hard times at the ol’ Lust Lay? Are we not making electric payments? Not enough ass shaking to keep the lights on this time of year? What the fuck is happening?

With the flip of a switch, a bright fluorescent light illuminates, hanging about five feet from the ceiling by a rusted chain. Beneath the light is a man, tied to a chair, with a bag over his head. My lips part as my heart simultaneously stops in my chest. A wave of anxiety washes over me from head to toe.

The man must have heard the door because now he’s twisting his head back and forth frantically, looking, listening, waiting for whatever comes next.

“You made it.”

The voice spikes my heart rate, reviving the stillness of it in my chest. It’s Dario, coming from out of the darkness to approach the man in the chair.

“Yeah,” I reply, cautiously attempting to find his eyes through the dark shadows of the overcast light.

He stands with his hands on the shoulders of the man before him. The man flinches and tries to talk, but his words are muffled by what I can only assume is tape over his mouth beneath the burlap bag.

“Sorry.” He looks down at the man before his dark, soulless eyes finally find mine. “Business never ends.”

He leans down, whispering something to the man in what sounds like Italian as his eyes stay trained to mine, almost ensuring I don’t miss what’s to come. It doesn’t matter if the man is gagged. I can literally hear him pleading for his life as his body shakes in the chair, his arms pulling against the restraints holding him to it.

In one swift motion, Dario wraps his arm around the man’s head, his elbow by his chin, his hand on top of his head.

“I used to use knives,” he says casually. “And guns, of course.” He quickly twists the man’s neck, cracking it between his massive, bulging bicep with narrowed eyes and a tightened jaw, killing him instantly. I haven’t taken a breath since I entered this room, and now, I feel like every molecule of oxygen has seeped its way out of my depleted lungs. “But what a waste of cleaning solution.”

The man lays slumped to the side, completely deprived of life. I feel the slow roll of my throat as I attempt to swallow. Three men instantly come from the darkness to untie the man and carry him away. Dario removes his gloves, tossing them into the lap of the deceased as they take him out the back door.

“Bleach prices have been on the up since their new advertising campaign. Name brand shit always comes at a price.”

I’m staring at him, my throat dryer than dry as I try to determine why in the fuck we’re talking about bleach prices. I attempt to wrap my head around the fact that I just saw a man murdered. My eyes widen slightly as he approaches.

“Which is why you’re here,” he says, coming to a stop before me.

He’s about my height, but dammit if he doesn’t have at least a hundred pounds on me. The guy is stacked. Like a brick house. Bulging pecs, rippling biceps that lead to roped forearms. One of his thighs is the circumference of my entire being. You already know my grass hut blows in the wind.

I cock my brow, awaiting the reason for this meeting. Intimidation? I get guys like Dario need to prove dominance in order to keep their house in check, but I’m not entirely in. Nor am I entirely out. I’m somewhere stuck in the middle. So where does that leave me to a man like him?

“I’m name brand. My brand is exquisite. People know what to expect coming from me.”

“The best of the best?” I answer for him.

He cocks a brow with a half grin inching across his intimidatingly powerful jaw.

“Better.”

I try to breathe normally, but already have a strange feeling about what he’s insinuating. Apparently there’s a new product being brought to the market. It’s better than the one from my sources. I’m out, but not in the clean, “oh you sold me drugs and now you’re set free”. No, he doesn’t need me anymore, yet I can’t be his liability either. Smart men cut loose ends.

“Hope you can understand,” he says simply.

The look in his eyes tells me everything his words don’t. This is the end of the road for us. He turns to leave the room, back into the darkness where his kind resides. Pausing in place, he slowly looks over his shoulder to face me again.

“I really liked you too,” he says, staring at me before twisting his lips. “Not often you meet people that remind you of yourself at a young age.”

He clicks his tongue and I can almost hear himself say, , before he finally turns away. He passes the hanging light, pushing it out of his way before he disappears into the darkness.

I stand there, still in my boots, as the ray of light from the hanging fluorescent bulb swings its powerful stroke back and forth across the darkness, highlighting every corner of the room like a pendulum under the influence of the gravity around it. But like the second hand of a clock, eventually gravity gives out. Eventually, that force comes to an abrupt end like a man who’s no longer needed.