Chapter Seventeen

BISHOP

"Shay!" I took the stairs two at a time, using the handrail to propel me forward.

Calli's room was the first off the landing, and I ducked inside, my eyes scanning the room quickly before I hurried out and down the hall.

The bathroom door was shut, and when I twisted the handle, it didn't push open.

"Shay? Open the door." I leaned in close, hoping to hear something, fucking anything. "Shay, I need to know you're okay."

Still silence.

"I swear to God, Shay."

The lock finally flicked, and I braced my hands against the doorframe as the door swung back, ready to demand to know what the hell was happening.

Seeing her standing on the other side instantly made my heart rate slow. No injuries, no blood. I would have said she seemed okay, but then I saw her eyes. They were bloodshot and red from where she'd obviously been rubbing them, but there was something else.

Something in her eyes staring back at me had my stomach sinking like I'd swallowed a pile of lead.

I knew Shay had been exhausted this week, even though she hadn't come straight out and told me. I figured she was still working her way through what had happened. It was traumatic, and there was no denying that. It's not every day you get in a fight with the son of a mob boss and then have your house filled with bullets.

She was stronger than most people, and I admired the hell out of her for it. But she wasn't invincible.

She wasn't unbreakable.

"The hell happened?" I demanded, watching her carefully as she pulled back, moving one step after another until she stood in front of the double vanity. "Shay…"

She turned and braced her hands against it, leaning in and staring at herself in the mirror.

Something was very fucking wrong.

Her eyes fell, and I followed her gaze, curling my hands into fists when I spotted the bag of pills. "You want to tell me what those are?"

Neither of us moved, both caught in this limbo as we stared at the fucking drugs laid out on my bathroom counter.

"Oxy."

"Where the fuck did you get oxy?"

She didn't even lift her eyes, just swiped at a single tear as it dripped down her cheek. "Did I ever tell you that my dad murdered my mom?"

I stepped inside the bathroom, my body crowding the small space, but I needed her within reach. I needed to know I could get to her before she could get to those damn pills.

"You didn't tell me that."

Her head bounced up and down. "Yep. He hunted us for years. We moved across the country, trying to escape him, but he would show up, start banging on the doors, smashing the windows, and screaming at my mom for leaving him. He got locked up for a while, but then he found us again. He got into the house in the middle of the night, and he stabbed Mom fourteen times. Killed her. Then set the house on fire to try and kill me and my brother."

Jesus Christ.

"Ali and I got put in foster care, the both of us haunted, lying awake every night, wondering if one day he was going to come back and try to finish us off." She glanced at the pills, and every muscle in my body tensed, wondering if I should just tackle her and get her the hell out of there.

But I didn't want to take away her fight. I wanted her to walk away from this moment by herself because she had the strength to, not because I had to drag her out.

"You started taking oxycodone to help you sleep," I said, finally putting the pieces together.

"I got addicted," she confirmed, releasing a shaky laugh that sent a fucking chill down my spine. "But you know what's funny? I relied on these pills for almost a year to help me sleep. They were the only thing that would knock me out at night, but I was still so tired the next day. Then, when we learned about oxy in nursing school, I found out that even though it was putting me to sleep, the actual sleep I was getting was horrible."

She laughed again, shaking her head.

"The pills were just making me more tired and more anxious, and I kept thinking the fix for that was to take more pills because the pills would help me sleep and make me feel better. Then the next day, the same fucking thing. Over and fucking over again!"

The anger that roared from inside her made her chest heave, and she ran her fingers through her hair, sweeping it back from her face, although some of it clung to the little beads of sweat around her hairline.

I cleared my throat, not sure how to approach the question but knowing it needed to be asked. "Have you taken any?"

That fierce look in her eyes fell away almost instantly, her body slumping back against the bathroom wall as we both once again eyed the drugs on the counter. "No," she whispered, though I barely caught it before she cleared her throat and tried again. "No. I haven't, but I wanted to. God, I actually almost did!"

She reached out suddenly, her shaking hands fighting to open the bag. I was poised, ready to grab them before she could put them into her mouth, but instead, she upended the tiny bag, shaking it aggressively over the toilet before slamming her hand on the lever to flush them, over and over and over again.

"I'm just… I can't believe I almost let it win again." She pressed her fingers into her already dark and sunken eyes, rubbing at them for a second before finally looking up at me again. "I'm just so tired. I've been lying awake at night, letting my mind get to me, but this time, instead of expecting my dad's face in the darkness coming after me, I'm just waiting for Vince."

I took a step forward. "You know I'm not going to let him get to you," I growled, reaching out and curling my hand around her jaw when she tried to look away. Reluctantly, her eyes met mine again. "Do you hear me?"

"Whether you say that or not, it doesn't stop my mind running wild when I'm alone at night, thinking I can hear someone moving in the shadows." Another tear snuck out the corner of her eye while she looked up at me. "It's the sleep. Without it, I start to feel like I'm going crazy… hearing things, seeing things, and doing shit I would never usually do because I feel so damn weak."

That was it. I was done watching her crumble.

With one step forward, I had her off the floor and wrapped up in my arms, her legs circling my waist. I held her tight, trying to keep from hurting her as her body shook violently, each heartbreaking sob followed by a desperate gasp for air.

This was real pain. This was the kind of pain that caused people to hurt themselves and take their own lives.

It was the kind of pain that seemed inescapable because the solution hurt you just as much as the problem.

That was addiction.

Something I never in a million years would have suspected Shay had suffered because of how well she'd always managed to put on a happy face, though now that I knew, a lot of other things made sense. Refusing painkillers when she had her arm stitched up. The way she'd gotten so invested in Alice, knowing that Vince had probably been using drugs to control her.

Carrying Shay from the bathroom, I walked down the hallway and into my bedroom, kicking the door closed behind me. "I'm gonna lay you down," I murmured into her ear as I leaned over the bed and eased her onto the comforter. She let go of me, but it wasn't without hesitation, her hands lingering in my hair as I braced my body over her.

I leaned in, pressing my lips to her forehead and murmuring, "Trust me. Okay?"

She let out a heavy sigh. "You say that a lot."

"And have I ever been wrong?"

Her grip tightened, and there was a breath in time where I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing.

But I was following my gut.

Letting it lead.

I'd been fighting it for a while now when it came to Shay, but it was time to throw a fuck it to the wind because how could I keep asking her to trust me when I didn't even trust myself?

She finally let me go, and I had to summon all my strength to pull away, but there were a few things that needed to be done.

"Take off your jeans and sweatshirt and get under the blankets," I told her as I walked across the room to the window. I pulled the curtains across, holding them a little longer as I waited for the shuffling behind me to stop.

The room was dark now.

Or at least as dark as it could be for five o'clock in the afternoon.

The armchair in the corner of my room was piled high with clean clothes. I didn't bother folding or putting my laundry away these days, so they were just tossed there to use. Right now, though, I needed the chair, so I shoved the clothes to the floor and wrapped my arms around it, carrying it to the door.

Shay's eyes followed me in silence as I pressed the back of the chair hard against the wood and pulled my gun from the back of my jeans. I fell back into the chair, resting my gun and hand on my knee and getting comfortable.

"Sleep, Shay."

She pulled the comforter up to her neck, tucking it in around her. "What are you—"

"I'm gonna sit here so you can sleep knowing not a fucking thing in this world is going to get past me," I told her honestly, clutching my nine millimeter tightly in my grasp. "Now close your eyes."

It was so hard to sit there and not climb into the bed with her.

But despite knowing my self-control would not stand it, that wasn't what this was about.

This was about making her feel safe. I'd deal with the rest of these feelings later since it was becoming pretty fucking obvious they weren't going away any time soon.

But for now, I'd sit here.

I'd protect her from the danger outside this room and the shadows within if I had to.

Her eyelids fluttered, already struggling to keep them open. "You're going to just sit on a chair at the door every night while I sleep?"

"If I have to."

She sigh heavily, sinking further into bed and deeper into sleep. "You're a stubborn man, Bishop."

You have no idea.