Chapter 28 Chapter 28 It’s Over

KREW

This wasn’t supposed to end like this. Watching River curling on the floor of the ladies room, whining in excruciating pain, broke my heart. I couldn’t just ignore the image of her getting hurt on my watch.

It was all my fault. I let her go alone. Now disturbing things happened.

As rage called urgently in my veins, I dashed in and scooped her into my arms. She was shaking and crying from fear. River hastily coiled her arms around my neck. As she gripped my suit, I felt as if her fear was pulling her away into the dark abyss.

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m here now. I would never let you out of my sight again.” My voice came out as a weak and pitiful whisper because I knew, and I felt I had failed her.

I just broke a promise.

I pulled her into my arms in a tight hug as I tried to calm her sob.

I was scared for her, but it had to happen. I knew if she ever found out about this, she would never forgive me. She would hate me for the rest of my life. She would despise me, and I might not be able to recover when the moment came that I had to face her, look into her eyes as I watched those deep pain, flaming anger, and fear reflected right back at me.

“I-I was so scared.” She just twisted the knife in my heart with her words.

My throat choked up. “It’s over now. It’s over now, baby.” I cupped her face. “Look at me.” Her eyes were still shut. “I know you’re scared, so do I. All the time when I was not with you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you if you were safe or if you were terrified at that certain moment.”

She finally opened her eyes and fucked me now, hurt wouldn’t cover how much I felt right now. Those bright blue eyes were swimming with tears. I had to look down. My gut twisted sickly with so much guilt for putting her in this horrible situation. I wished I could take it back. I wished I could, but her nightmare was over now.

Jesus Christ.

“I’ll take you to the hospital. Are you hurt? Did he touch you?” What stupid questions?

“I think I’m fine. I don’t know. It happened so fast.” She sobbed again.

“I still have to take you to the hospital.”

“No. I don’t want to go. I just wanna go home.”

“I have to make sure you’re okay, baby. Not only physically, but mentally and emotionally.”

“I tried to step back when he was about to launch toward me. Then I might have tripped off. I can't remember how it happened. The last thing I knew, I was on the floor, and my head hurt.”

I scooped her up, carrying her bridal style. I wasn’t aware, Kai, Krys, and Journey were already inside.

“Let’s head out. Take the back exit. The car is ready for you. Krys and Journey will ride with me,” Kai said and looked down at the terrified River. “We just have to continue our interrupted dinner next time. Get better, okay?”

River nodded against the crook of my neck. Before I could reach the way to the exit door, my brother took off his suit and used it to cover River. I knew what he was doing. We got a little bit of attention in and out of the restaurant.

Thankfully, there was no crowd at the back of the premises, except for my driver, Conner, and one of the cops who arrested Briar.

“She won’t give a statement right now. I need to make sure first she’s okay.”

“I’m fine, Krew. I can give a statement.”

“No. You need to clear your head first.”

We were soon on the road. Detached, River hadn’t said a word, wrapped herself in my brother’s suit. With eyes closed, I knew she was in deep thoughts as she leaned against the window.

“Are you okay?” I swiped some strands off her forehead. “Are you sure you don’t wanna go to the hospital?”

“I’m fine. I just wanna make sure he stays in jail. I’m not just gonna sit here and pretend this is over. This is far from over. If I know, he might have been released on his way.”

“He can’t.” I looked away, worried she would sense something I was not ready to tell.

“How are you so sure?”

I found myself swallowing uncomfortably. My stomach clenched tight as she stared bleakly at me as if trying to put two and two together before she looked away.

“River—”

She raised her hand. The awkward silence became unnerving, and it was killing me.

“That was part of your plan, was it? You lured him to that restaurant. You used me as bait?” She looked at me, eyes burning holes with anger and hurt.

I slowly nodded to confirm.

“And you didn’t care if he hurt me. All you want is to end this because that’s what you promised me. Well, congratulations on the job well done, Krew! You just won an Academy Award for the best actor.”

“It wasn’t supposed—”

“It doesn’t matter!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, piercing me with her glare. “I trusted you. So this sleeping with me, luring me into your castle, showering me with gifts, showing me the part of who you are are just a part of the plan?”

My heart stopped dead. “That’s not true.” My voice came out low and shaking. I was angry and sad at the same time. My emotions were getting through my head. I couldn’t think straight.

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “You’re good at pretending to like me. You did a bang-up job. I give you credit for that.” Her voice broke. “It felt like real. And as stupid as I was, I fell for that.” Her words were sharper than a blade, cutting my heart to shred. “I almost—” She wiped her face. She just ripped my heart off my chest after it stopped beating. “God—”

“That was all real. These are all real. You and me. You know it.”

“Please, spare me.” She wiped her tears on her cheeks and scoffed. “None of these are real, Krew. For you, relationship is just a game that you need to play very well. When you felt like you’re losing the game, you leave it there and move on.”

“Then you don’t know shit about me. And you’re not giving me a chance to show you who I am.”

“Isn’t this enough if I have to know who you are who you said you are? You know what? It doesn’t matter anymore because I know your real expertise is. Avoiding real intimacy, personal entanglement, that’s why you chose to stay out of the people who care about you. Let’s stop this stupidity before I hit bottom.”

I felt like my world pulled off under my feet. I was losing my shit. I was losing her, and I didn’t know how to make her understand.

That was not easy for me. That this—everything about us was new to me, and it was extraordinarily overwhelming and challenging at the same time.

“I didn’t stay away to avoid intimacy. And I’ve shown you the real me, River. The guy who shared his feelings with you is a real person—the same person you only met a few days ago. That’s the real me. I’m not such a lost cause because I’m not ready to face something terrifying. I’m away because I just don’t like attention. I only want attention from the people who truly care about me. And I’m the kind of guy who would like to keep the past where it was because it still hurts, raw, and it doesn’t heal fast. I’m not ready to open up to you because it still terrifies me.”

“That was a nice speech. But you don’t have the right to make that call of using me as bait.”

God, if I could only tell her the other reasons, but she wasn’t ready for that either. “I just did what I thought was right. I did that for you, River.”

A glimmer of emotion warmth in those icy cold blue eyes, but it subsided quicker than lightning. “Stop the car, Lake, or send to the precinct instead.”

“You need to rest.”

“I don’t need you to order me around. I’m an adult, not an invalid. I can take care of myself now. Thanks to your courageous effort. Now that this is over, what else is there to say? I don’t wanna say anything anymore that I can’t take it back. You know for a fact that this has an ending. I don’t wanna make things awkward and hard than it is right now.”

“So that’s it? Because he’s now in police custody, we’re over?” I tried to read her, but she blinked a few times, trying to get rid of those raw feelings she felt towards me.

I stared at her, waiting for the answer, shivering as reality slowly started to kick in. We were through.

“It’s nothing to start with. You know that.”

Exasperated, I ran my fingers through my hair as I scoffed. “Now who’s lying?”

She met my gaze. “Am I? I needed you. I just did what I thought could keep me safe. Call it, drastic actions.”

My mouth gaped. I wasn’t hearing this. The car had stopped, the door opened. When I tried to hold her, she already slipped off of my fingers.

She left.

River was gone.

And she and I were over.