30. King

30

KING

My head is pounding.

I lift my head off my desk, and everything is blurry. I rub at my eyes and am surprised that the pounding is not actually in my head, but at my front door. Before I can get up, I hear my brother Holden hollering my name.

Fuck. I'm not in the mood for this right now. If I'm quiet, will he go away? I lay my head back on the desk, and right in front of me is the empty ? bottle of Blaze whiskey that I drank last night.

I clench my eyes as it all starts to come back to me. It's all fake. She played me, and I fell for it.

"What the fuck, King?" Holden says as he falls down in the chair opposite me.

"Please… just leave me alone. "

He picks up the empty bottle, shakes it, and sets it down. "You don't drink, brother."

I try to raise my head, but the room starts to spin, and so I lay my cheek back down on the desk. "I did last night."

"You're an idiot, you know that, right?"

I roll my eyes and groan at the pain that shoots in my head. "Shouldn't you be throwing a ball somewhere or something?"

"Yeah, I have to head out for a five-day series, but I wanted to come and help you get your head out of your ass before I go."

"Fuck you," I groan.

He just laughs. "So uh, hear me out. Sis called me, and just a note, she's not happy with you at all. I've never seen her this mad."

I close my eyes. I hate to piss off my sister, and I'm sure by now Haven has told her lies about what's happened.

Holden blows out a breath. "Anyway, I went and talked to Haven—"

I finally raise my head up. "Where is she?"

Instead of answering, he says, "Anyway, I talked to her and she told me about the pictures."

I hold my head in my hands. "Did she tell you she broke my heart? That she's with another man?" I grab one of the pictures and shove it toward him. "See.. Here's proof."

He rolls his chair closer to the desk and picks up the picture that I've stared at all night. "Hhhmmm… good picture, but I saw it on video."

I groan. "On video? Of course it's on video. I can't watch it… just kill me now."

"For a millionaire, you're really dumb, King."

I don't have it in me to argue with him.

"Anyway, after talking to Haven, I then talked to Callan and had him pull the video footage outside of the community center."

He pauses, and I just sit here, concentrating on breathing without the room spinning.

"The video shows two men talking outside. Then Haven comes out, and one of the men knocks her to the ground, and the other man picks her up."

I raise my eyes to look at him, not believing what I'm hearing. "What did you just say?"

"Two men—"

I cut him off. "Someone knocked her to the ground? Someone hurt her?"

"Fuck, you look like death. Your eyes look like they're bleeding."

"So she wasn't with another man."

He looks at me worriedly. "No, man. How did you miss her skinned-up knees and hands and her sprained ankle? She was hurt."

"Who did it? Who hurt her?"

"Callan's been working on it all night. He's identified the two men and the person that hired them."

I shoot out of my seat and sway on my feet. I lean over on my desk so I can stay upright. "Someone hired them to hurt her?"

"Becca Archer, your marketing manager, hired them so she could get pictures of her with someone else."

"But—"

He cuts me off. "Haven didn't do anything wrong, King."

"Someone hurt her?"

Holden winces. "Trust me, brother. No one has hurt her more than you did."

"What have I done?"

He crosses his arms over his chest and stares at me. "You did what you always do. At the first opportunity, you pushed her away before you could give her a chance to explain. The only difference is, she didn't deserve it. That girl is so fuckin' in love with you…"

He stops talking, letting his voice trail off, and I think back on everything I said to her. As it replays in my head, I panic. God, I hurt her. I intentionally tried to hurt her because I thought she betrayed me. I said things I didn't mean. I stumble out of the room and up the stairs. Holden follows me, and as soon as I get upstairs, I strip down and step into the ice cold shower.

"Fuck, King, how about a warning? The last thing I want to see is your ass right now."

I stand under the spray and let it hit me in the face. Holden continues to talk from the other room. "Callan is just waiting on your direction. He assumed you'd want to fire Becca. You just need to give him the word."

"Fire her," I croak.

As soon as I'm out of the shower, I walk naked into the bedroom, and Holden jumps up from the end of the bed. "What the fuck, brother? I don't want to see your dick either."

I start yanking clothes out of my drawers and get dressed. "Where is she? Where's Haven?"

"She was crying so hard when she left here, Chrissy found her outside her house."

It's like a knife to my heart. I did that to her. "Can you drop me off?"

He nods, and I'm walking downstairs and out the door without another word between us. Holden drives me down the block and pulls into Chrissy's driveway. "She doesn't want to see you."

I can't say I blame her. I can't stand myself right now either. "I have to make this right."

He blows out a breath. "I gotta go. I have to be in North Carolina tonight, and the plane's leaving soon."

"Thanks, brother. For everything."

I get out and make my way up to Chrissy's front door. My sister answers, and she looks at me angrily. "She doesn't want to see you… I don't want to see you either." She starts to shut the door, but I put my foot out to stop her.

"Please, Chrissy. I need to talk to her."

When she doesn't open the door any farther, I tell her, "I'm not leaving here until I see her."

She finally opens the door and stands to the side so I can go in. "Fix this, King. She's in the spare bedroom at the back of the house."

I nod and don't waste any time walking down the hall to where Haven is. I knock on the open door and push it open, letting out a breath when I see her sitting on the bed. She's sitting cross-legged with a notebook in her lap. When she looks up at me, I notice her eyes are swollen and red. Fuck, I did that to her.

Slowly, I walk into the bedroom. She tenses and pleads with me, "Please, King. I can't do this."

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" she asks.

I nod and move closer to her. I don't stop until I'm standing next to where she's sitting on the bed. "Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for doubting you, for the awful things I said to you, for not trusting you."

She lets out a frustrated breath and scoots away, putting some distance between us. "King—"

I move and sit down on the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry that I wasn't there to protect you…"