Deception. Betrayal. Mistrust.
It seems the closer Rayne gets to the truth, the more she finds herself wanting to run away from it. It's complex and terrifying-more than she ever fathomed.
New family members, good and bad, pop out at her like a br...
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𝗙or the first time in a month, his message delivered.
Such an insignificant thing—so ordinary, so human—and yet those nine letters anchored his body to the gravel under his shoes and the back of his head to the brick wall. For someone who lived a life as ironically spectacular as he, if anyone had asked him six months ago if something so little could bear this much weight, he would have laughed in their face.
He would have declared that he was Kai Alveréz, and if an Alveréz doesn't get a text back, then they should simply move on to the next willing individual.
But this wasn't six months ago.
And he'll never be Kai Alveréz again—in name only.
Not without him.
From the corner of his eye, he could see the little blue line flashing in the textbox, urging him to draft out the message he'd been creating in his head, but his instincts told him to leave it be. Instead, he charged his attention toward the words he already spoke into digital airspace, reading and reading and reading it over and over and over again thinking that someway, some-fucking-how, a response would pop up.
It was a stupid idea. A stupid text.
Two minutes into the future and the hour he gave the man with his heart would be up. As he clicked his phone shut and tipped his head toward the sky, breathing in American air for what was probably the last time for a long time, he reconciled with himself and what this street meant.
When he was a boy, he always assumed his death would be in the hands of another, but he didn't think it would be in this way. He didn't think that the feelings Mason had given him those months ago before shit hit the fan would be the cause for his demise.
He didn't think that something as intangible as hope would completely gut him.
—maybe that was why it cut so deep, that hope.
Kai watched a pair of birds circle each other, squawking with what he imagined was glee. He could feel his phone vibrating from incoming texts, and he knew it was Caycee urging him back. But he couldn't tear his eyes away from them, from what could've been.
Even if he was to blame.
After one more longing minute, he peeled himself off the wall and stood straight, barely paying attention to his newly disgruntled outfit. He scoped the area out for the last time with a corner of a smile on his cheek before turning on his sneakers and heading to the car.
He'd wait forever for Mason, but unfortunately, even as rich as he was, planes to the UK don't.
Just as he began passing the door he stepped out of a lifetime ago, and as his fingers began to slide across his phone screen, answering Caycee's call, the muffled sound of a scutter perked his ears and halted the rubber tips of his Converse. He paused for a moment, halfway willing to continue, but that blessed moment turned the tides of a war he wasn't aware he was participating in.
