Prologue
Faith
Rays of blinding light streaked through the moss-covered branches that stretched across the old dirt road like a living canopy.
It was a road we’d walked together what seemed like a thousand times.
It was our secret spot.
Our sacred spot.
He stared at me from where he stood five feet from me. Big hands stuffed in the pockets of his ripped jeans and guilt written on the lines of his perfect face.
“I don’t care what anyone thinks.” The words poured from my mouth, begging for him to hear.
To listen.
To finally, truly understand.
“I don’t care what kind of trouble we’re in. The only thing that matters to me is that you’re standing right there in front of me.”
Sadness crested his features. Face masculine and striking. Every time I looked at him, it twisted something deep inside me. My love for him was bigger—more important—than anything else in my small, little world.
But that was the thing when I looked at him.
I saw great things. A future spanning out in front of us that would go on forever.
But it was the expression he wore this afternoon that scattered the butterflies in a shock of fear and sent dread gushing in to take their place.
“It doesn’t matter, Faith? How can you say that?” His voice was bitter and hard, every bit of disgust cast at himself.
I took a pleading step forward. “It doesn’t. The only thing that matters is you and me.”
He took a weary step back. It kicked up a plume of dust to hover around his old, worn shoes. “You matter, Faith. Who you are and who you’re going to be matters. And I won’t stand in the way of that any longer.”
Tears burned my eyes. “No.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you, but that seems to be the only thing I can do. What happened last night is proof of that. It ends right now.”
His broad shoulders heaved as he forced himself to turn around, bitterness and self-imposed rage coming from him in waves as he started up the road.
Panic filled my chest. A crushing force against my aching heart. I rushed for him. “Jace . . . please, don’t do this. Don’t leave me.”
My fingertips brushed down his back. I swore that I could see the snap of energy crackle from the connection. The way it’d always been. This boy my fire.
I could feel his burn when he whirled around. A gasp raked from my lungs when he suddenly captured my face in both of his hands. Those eyes searched my face.
A tender memorization that contradicted everything about this hard boy.
My heart stampeded when he dipped down and took my mouth.
His lips were soft and rough.
Possessive in their goodbye.
I knew that was what it was.
I could feel him taking pieces of me when he dropped his forehead against mine and breathed me in, his eyes squeezed tightly closed.
Pain radiated from him like the heat waves that held to the sticky, summer air.
He reached out and gripped me by both of the shoulders, pushing away from me as if he had to physically pry himself free.
Stripping and ripping and ruining.
The second he stepped back, I could feel the tear run through the center of me.
His gaze remained fixed on the ground when he reeled back around, his head dipped low because he couldn’t bring himself to look at me as he went.
So, it was me who had to watch him go.
I couldn’t stop staring as he trudged up the deserted lane. Spikes of sunlight slanted through the spindly branches, covering him in a golden, glittering light.
So bright he appeared unreal. Tall and strong and gorgeous in his rough, raw way.
An angel in tattered, demon’s clothes.
He’d always viewed himself as the town pariah. The outcast.
The outlaw.
Bringing trouble to everything he touched.
But that troubled boy was my shining star. He’d taught me to have faith that people were so much more than their exteriors and their reputations. Made me have faith that destinies weren’t based on our circumstances but rather what we made of them.
In that moment, I had faith he’d come to his senses. Stop and turn around and realize we were always supposed to be together. No matter what.
But he didn’t.
He just let the connection pull and pull and pull with each of his steps until my heart finally ripped under the strain of it.
It shredded me right in two.
That was the day Jace Jacobs walked out of my life.
And I swore I’d never be fool enough again to let him back in it . . .
Chapter One
Jace
Ten Years Later
“We just finished getting her statement.”
Her.
The girl I’d never forgotten no matter how fucking badly I’d tried.
I swallowed around the lump lodged in my throat as I stood on the sidewalk across the street from the police station, talking to Mack who was inside.
The second Mack had called last night and told me the situation had escalated, there’d been nothing I could do.
I’d been in my car, a suitcase packed, the trip from Atlanta to Broadshire Rim made in three hours during the middle of the night. It was a small town twenty minutes outside of Charleston, and the one place I’d sworn to myself I’d never return to.
I hadn’t even thought it through.
The consequences.
What it was going to do to me or how being around her again was going to affect me.
The only thought I’d known was she was in trouble and I had to get to her.
Stop what should have been stopped a long time ago.
“How is she?” The words barely made it from between my lips.
He sighed on the other end of the line. “Not well, as you can imagine. Some asshole was definitely in that house. Slipped in and out with her barely noticing except for the fact she’d had the intuition that something was off. That was until she went into her little girl’s bathroom and found a doll floating in the tub while the kid was fast asleep. It was definitely some kind of fucked-up warning. Pair that with the two letters she’s received, and the poor girl is terrified.”
Fury surged. So intense that I saw red.
I wanted to hunt someone down. Find them. End the threat. But every name I’d given Mack relating to Joseph had been a dead end.
So now I stood there like some piece-of-shit stalker, fighting the urge to pace like a lunatic or maybe bust through the station doors.
“What do I do?” I grated at the phone, at a loss. All the things I was aching to do might be frowned upon.
“You let me do my job. I could lose my badge for telling you any of this shit, so I need you to play it cool. Most of all, you need to give her space and time because you know she needs it. Deserves it. You can’t come in like some kind of vigilante thinking you’re going to set shit straight.”
He might as well have not said a thing with the words that fell from my mouth. “I need to find this asshole.”
He sighed. “It could be nothing more than kids playing a prank.”
“You really believe that?” I bit out.
Frustration bled from him. “No, I don’t. Gut tells me someone is trying to send a message. A warning. The question is why and what the fuck it has to do with Joseph’s death.”
I could hear him shuffling some papers in his office. “I am going to figure this out. I promise you that. But you need to give me the space to do it. I don’t know why the hell I called you in the first place.”
“You know why.”
He sighed again.
Of course, he knew.
He really didn’t have much of an option. There was too much history between us for him to keep me in the dark, even though he probably would have preferred to have left me hanging.
Out of his way so he could do his job.
But sometimes friendship and loyalty meant more than protocol.
Guilt clawed at my insides while this spot inside me screamed and groaned and demanded I cross the street, fly into the small police station, wrap her up, and take her away from here.
Was pretty sure that wasn’t going to go over so well.
If only I could go back to that day and intervene. Make the right choice instead of the selfish, petulant one I had.
It had been one driven by bitterness and hatred.
One I’d regretted every single day since Mack had first called me and told me Joseph was gone.
“Where are you, anyway?” Mack asked.
“Outside.”
“Fuck . . . Jace . . . you can’t do this.”
“Watch me.”
I ended the call and shoved my hands into my suit pockets, doing my best to keep my cool, trying to listen to all the warnings that Mack had made.
Give her space.
We don’t know what’s happening.
It could just be punk kids playing a prank.
Punk kids, my ass.
Main Street was busy, the rural town bustling with people as they went about their days, yet their pace somehow slowed.
It was like the entire population had gone back in time.
Stepped into an era that was simpler.
Small shops and stores and businesses were tucked in the old brick buildings that were fronted by large windows and colorful awnings. Trees grew high where they were sporadically placed in the cobblestone sidewalks, and some hugged the sides of the buildings, giving shade to the hot, heated summer day.
It was all mixed up with the familiar, distinct smell of the pluff mud in the marshes that sat back from the sea.
I caught a few curious glances. I’d been gone for so long and had changed so much that I doubted a whole lot of people would recognize me, but I stood out enough that I was sure they wondered what the hell I was doing there.
Yeah, join the fucking club.
Because I had no idea what the hell I was doing there, either.
Torturing myself, that was what.
The police station that hadn’t been there when I left sat across the street, the two-story building tucked under a bunch of lush, green trees.
Cruisers and a couple of unmarked cars lined the curb and filled the parking lot to the side.
Sweat gathered at my nape, my body itchy.
Antsy.
I just needed to see her.
Know she was really okay.
But I guessed I really wasn’t prepared for that happening. Wasn’t prepared for a second to actually see her again.
My goddamned breath was gone when the door swung open, and she fumbled out with her head dropped toward the ground. Her shoulders sagged and defeat lined her posture.
Her best friend, Courtney, was next to her, guiding Faith out with one hand on her lower back.
It didn’t matter that ten years had passed or that a whole shitstorm had transpired during that time.
She was still the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen.
Beauty.
Belief and purity and this innocence that made something crazy come unhinged inside me. It was overpowering, the need to get to her.
Protect her.
Worst was the way my body reacted.
The girl had always been so far out of my league it wasn’t funny.
Better than me in every way.
Grace.
Beauty.
My guts clenched.
None of those things meant what I’d felt for her hadn’t been real.
It’d just been stupid.
Just like right then.
Because a streak of possessiveness flew through my veins like a goddamned drug.
Energy crashed through the air.
A torrent of emotion.
Resonating.
Pulsating.
An echo of the past.
Chocolate hair fell down her back in silky waves, and I swore to God, I could feel the warmth radiating from her spirit, all this devastating goodness paired with a body that was meant for sin. All long legs and tempting curves.
My sin.
Taking her was exactly what that had been.
Since the first time I’d seen her, this girl had held the power to drop me straight to my knees.
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