Page 47 of Wicked Savage Cruel
It’s a solid plan and I should be cool with it, but I can’t get the idea of her abused body out of my head. Every time I close my eyes I see her face. The bruises. The split lip. It’s like a dagger to the stomach, and thinking of what she must have felt makes the blade twist inside me.
Practice that afternoon is grueling. I push all my anger and frustration into completing each pass and running hard until my heart feels like it’s going to burst out of my chest, but it doesn’t matter. I’m responsible for a pass-interception that I should have completed and then I fumble a fucking catch. Coach is screaming at me to get my head out of my ass and I’m trying but,fuck. I’m so out of it.
“We cannot afford for you to play like this come Friday,” Coach shouts.
I grit my teeth to keep from lashing out. I know he’s right but—Fuck.I tear my helmet from my head and throw it on the field.
“Roman!” Coach shouts, but I ignore him, stalking to the locker room to strip out of my gear and shower before the rest of the team finishes.
“Valdez, get your ass back on the field,” he tries again.
Dominique heads toward Coach to smooth over my little outburst, but I don’t stick around long enough to see if it works.
I need to see Allie, and recognizing that makes me feel all sorts of ways that I don’t want to think about. It’s three days till the big game. I should be focused on plays. Football is all that matters.
I know she’s home. I know she’s safe. I need to let this insatiable need to see her go but, dammit, I fucking can’t. I’ll be useless on the field until I know without a shadow of a doubt that she’s okay.
* * *
Forty minuteslater I’m pulling up to her house—if you can even call it that. I used my dad’s Sun Valley residents service app that he doesn’t know I have installed on my phone to look up Gerald Ulrich’s address. Having a father who’s the chief of police comes with a few perks, but what I pull up to is not a home. It’s a fucking mansion.
The place has got to be five thousand square feet or more. It’s got twin pillars flanking the front door and massive floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides of the house. The lawn is perfectly kept and rose bushes ring the grass. This place rivals even Dominique’s, and that’s saying something, because that fucker has more money than any person can spend in a lifetime.
For a minute I idle in front of the place, staring at the front door as though I canwillher to step out of it. I press down the gas, letting the roar of the engine fill the street, and a flutter of movement at one of the second-story windows pulls my gaze.
Allie peaks through pale pink curtains and I wave, still willing her to come outside. The curtains close and I wait. She knows I’m here. She’ll come.
A few short minutes later she’s closing the front door behind her. Wearing white jeans and an oversized hoodie, she stops beside my car and frowns. “What are you doing here?” She tucks her hair behind her ear, exposing the purple bruise on her lower jaw.
But all I see is red.
“Get in.”
She shakes her head. “What do you want, Roman? Shouldn’t you be at practice or something?”
I try and tamp down my irritation at her refusal. “Nah. Ended thirty minutes ago. Come on.” She’s still not moving. “Get in the car, Alejandra.” Something about saying her full name gets a reaction out of her, and with a muttered curse, she’s opening the passenger side door and sliding inside. “Put on your seatbelt.”
She does.
Thank fuck for small favors.
We ride in silence for the first ten minutes before I take her to a different side of town where the houses are smaller, some with bars on their windows and heavy iron screen doors covering their wooden counterparts.
“Where are we going?” she finally asks just as I pull onto a familiar street.
“My place.” I’m not entirely sure why I’m taking her home with me. We come from two different worlds. But I want her beside me. I need to know that she’s okay.
I pull into the driveway of a three-bedroom, ranch-style home and put the car in park. “Come on.”
Allie gets out hesitantly, checking her surroundings with an inquisitive stare. “This is where you live?”
I nod, searching for any sort of reaction that my life isn’t good enough, but I see none from her. I release a breath. There’s no judgment in her gaze as she takes in the stucco exterior of my home or the fact that the garage door is wide fucking open and my garage looks like a second living room packed full of mismatched sofas with a pool table in the middle.
A car door slams one house over and a voice shouts, “Yo, what’s for dinner?” as Emilio jogs toward us.
“What’s—”
“We’re neighbors,” I tell her as he nears.
