Midnight sun

42 | Noah

Dylan must have broken a dozen traffic laws getting across town, but I didn't say a word to slow him down. I gripped the door handle and braced myself on the tight turns, but kept my other hand flat on Dylan's thigh to keep myself calm. It was difficult trying to focus or calm down when anger and fear still pulsed through me at regular intervals.

As soon as we step into his hotel room I hurry towards the window, scanning the area, looking if I could spot one of the familiar cars Valentine's men drove. "We're not safe here."

"I made sure we weren't followed," he says slowly, his voice rough and quiet.

"Yeah but-"

"Noah," I almost jump at the feel of his hands on my shoulders. "We are at a very public hotel. There is a deadbolt on the door. They have security downstairs."

"Fuck. Sorry."

All this time I felt like I'd been trapped in some kind of bubble where time no longer existed. Nothing else could penetrate my consciousness. But now there are burning points of contact where his body meets mine, his large hands gripping my shoulders. The feel of his broad, muscular frame pressed against me, his chest brushing my back. The feeling of being pinned by him contradictorily makes me finally breathe the air that I was holding and just relax.

He turns me around and gently pulls me to sit on the bed. The room is still dark and we are illuminated by the street lights shining through the window. It's familiar and intimate in a way that makes my heart beat faster. He centres me. I'm safe with him. Always have been.

"So...I wasn't entirely honest about why I came to Alaska." I drag in a deep breath through my nose and begin. "I almost killed a man. They arrested me and I was going to end up in prison, but my uncle showed up and got me out with his connections. The only way for me to actually walk free was to leave the state, and go somewhere far, far away."

"Like Wake Forest, Alaska."

"Exactly."

"Why did you want to kill that man?"

"Because he was Maya's boyfriend."

His brows pull together, and he looks at me with what appears to be genuine confusion.

"She fell in love with this guy but very soon he started being controlling. They did drugs together, but soon he got her hooked on the hard stuff. And by the time addiction took every bit of her common sense she moved in with him and I couldn't do much about it. I couldn't help her."

My chest is fluttering with rapid breaths as I remember everything. The stories I heard about what she had to do in order to get more drugs. The air in the room is stifling, and my skin feels hot and itchy everywhere, like I'm breaking out into hives. My mind is somehow both swarmed with a million different things and completely blank. But I have to go on.

"... so when I got a very strange message from her after not hearing from her for days, I ended up going to his place. That's when I found her dead. She ODed. And he was right there, doing nothing about it, didn't even call the ambulance. Then I beat him up."

"My god, Noah..."

"Unfortunately I didn't kill him. And the most unfortunate thing about it all is that the man I didn't kill is Valentine Black, a crime boss in charge of a drug trafficking network."

"Fuck Noah. What are you saying?" Dylan blinks over wide, worrisome eyes. He sounds genuinely upset. Looks it, too. "Are you saying that a mafia boss is after you?"

"Yeah, he is." I can't help the bitter laugh that leaves my lips. "Anyway. This is where he found me, in LA, when I came to see my mom."

"Did he hurt you?" He's glaring, looking too tense.