Saving Hailey: Dark Academia, Enemies To Lovers, Mafia Romance (Shadows of Obsession Book 2)

SEVEN DAYS EARLIER

Silent tears stream down my face as the interstate whizzes by.

Matthews has been mostly quiet since he picked me up from Lakeside.

Fear pushed me to run once Nash parked his Pontiac in the parking lot and for the first time when it came to him, I trusted my fight or flight response.

The man in my flashback made me break out in metaphorical hives. The familiarity of his posture, his gestures, even his facial features, threw me off balance, but the gold signet glistening on his bloodied finger was what sealed the icy cold tendrils of dread around my heart.

I turned over the facts on our ride back from the depths of the forest and there was only one logical conclusion.

Nash lied to me.

He had an agenda.

He used me for information.

It’s a miracle Chloe understood my high-pitched, snot-strangled wailing when I entered her dorm room, choking on tears, shaking all over, and demanding her phone.

Mine wouldn’t let me make any calls, which I bet was Nash’s doing. He probably got his friend to hack my cell, proving my conclusions were valid.

Nash knew I’d connect the man in the flashback with him.

My acting proved useful on our silent ride back to campus. It took all my courage to lean over and kiss him like I didn’t know he’s the son of a murderer and—given the guns without serial numbers he owns—probably a murderer himself.

I was confused… scared of what I’d learned.

I couldn’t think straight after bolting out of his car. My first thought was to call Dad, but I suddenly understood his paranoia about our phones being tapped, so I rang Matthews.

“I need to leave,” I wept into the phone, clasping it in both quaking hands. “Now. I’m not safe here. Whoever’s after me sent someone over and—”

“Don’t waste time explaining,” Matthews cut in, every word tense. “I’ve been staying in town since my visit. I’ll pick you up as soon as I can. Pack the essentials and wait for me at the gate.”

That’s what I did.

I burst into my dorm room and threw my things into my bags in under five minutes. My heart drummed so fast I struggled to catch a breath, hyperventilating while I left two of my suitcases with Chloe. I couldn’t carry three down the narrow staircases by myself.

She kept asking questions, panic lacing her voice, eyes watering with tears, but all I could say was I need to leave.Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

Hours later, my heart’s still beating an urgent rhythm and my chest aches whenever the blood-covered man with his unsettlingly familiar features invades my thoughts.

Rhett Willard, according to Matthews.

I told him everything.

Once he hauled my bags into the trunk and took the wheel of his sedan, words poured from my mouth without a filter. I told him about Alex, the flashbacks, the abuse, the girl he was seeing. I told him how interested Nash was in my returning memories and described the man from my flashback.

Matthews confirmed my nagging suspicion that Nash wasn’t who I thought.

Apparently, it’s long been rumored among the cops in Ohio that Rhett Willard has an illegitimate son, but no one has ever seen him.

I did.

And I saw Rhett.

Making the connection between the two men wasn’t difficult. Nash is a younger, broader, more sinister version of his father. They share the same jawline, dark eyes, facial features, posture… even the chin. The same ruthlessness emanates from their every move… and identical signet rings adorn their ring fingers—gold with an eagle in flight.

Then I remembered Nash reading my diary…

“He wants something I can’t remember,”I whispered to Matthews but all he replied was, “It’s best if your dad answers your questions. I’m not sure how much he wants me to tell you.”

I’m too exhausted to demand answers I won’t get. He called Dad earlier but I couldn’t pay attention to their conversation then; I was still shaking in the passenger seat like a stray kitten.

“What did Dad say when you called him earlier?” I ask. “Is he waiting for us?”

He nods, shifting in his seat. Taking one hand off the wheel, he twirls his wrist, then does the same with the other. I bet every muscle in his body is protesting the long drive. He was twenty minutes from Lakeside when I called… probably stationed within driving distance on my father’s orders.

“You should get some sleep, Hailey. We have a long drive ahead and you must be exhausted.”

I am, but there’s no way in hell I’ll fall asleep. Not with this turmoil of emotions running rampant inside me. Not with this stab of betrayal threatening to wreck me.

“Can we stop for coffee somewhere?” I counter, staring out of the window.

“Sure.”

I wipe my clammy hands down my jeans and adjust the hoodie, wrapping and unwrapping the drawstrings around my index finger on repeat. I count my breaths until we exit the interstate, pulling up at the first available gas station—a promise of caffeine and maybe a sandwich.

Though I’m not sure I can keep it down.

I twitch for the door handle, but Matthews clicks a button, locking the door.

“You should stay here,” he says, fetching his jacket from the back seat. “How do you take your coffee?”

“Double espresso, one sugar, please.”

He gives me a solemn nod, exiting the car. I watch him enter the shop, frowning at the screen of his cell before pressing it to his ear. He’s probably letting Dad know how we’re getting along.

Once again, I toy with the hoodie’s drawstrings to keep myself from clambering over to the driver’s side to leap out, run after him and snatch his phone.

Matthews is red in the face, the conversation growing more heated if the way he’s gesticulating and pacing by the coffee maker is any indication.

I rub my face with both hands, trying to push this headache away through my temples. The minute I see Dad he’ll get a piece of my mind for keeping me in the dark this long. Does he really think I’m safest when I’m oblivious? He’ll know better once he learns his hiding place was breached. He locked me away for weeks with a man tasked to dig out something hidden in my memories.

I sink my teeth in my bottom lip, warding off the overpowering feelings. This pain should only be mental, but it feels physical, visceral even… as if someone reached into my chest, wrapped their fingers around my heart, and ripped it right out. Frustrated, I wipe the tears trickling down my cheeks with the sleeve of my hoodie. Well, not mine… Nash’s.

Every moment we spent together plays before my eyes on repeat. Every look, every touch, every kiss.

Lies. All of it. Filthy lies.

He got close to me out of necessity, not choice. I’m not important. I’m never fucking important.

Alex wanted a perfect little doll who’d open her mouth on command. And Nash wanted whatever’s locked in my head.

I breath in on the count of four, trying to block the memories, lies, and betrayal, but it doesn’t work. Nothing works. Nothing calms me down. I haven’t kept my tears at bay for longer than a few minutes since I bolted out of Nash’s car.

That was almost eight hours ago. It’s dawn outside now, the sky tinged with soft pinks and oranges, a breathtaking view if the pain squeezing my chest left any fucking breath to take.

God, I should’ve known.

Nash was too perfect.

We were too perfect together.

Nothing that perfect can be real.

The driver’s side door opens and the bittersweet aroma of freshly brewed coffee breaks my train of thought.

Matthews slides into his seat. He’s ghastly pale, his lips pinched into a thin line. He passes me a cup, shoving his into the holder before whipping his seatbelt in place. The air around us feels heavy. Loaded.

Suffocating thanks to his silence and my racing mind.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, wrapping both hands around my warm cup. “You don’t look so good.”

“Just tired,” he says, turning left out of the gas station.

My eyebrows knot in the middle and I open my mouth to question why, instead of driving toward Columbus like we have been all night, he whips us around, heading back the way we came.

“There’s been a change of plans,” he answers before I can speak, his voice tense. Whatever the change, he’s clearly not happy about it.

And clearly doesn’t want to talk, so I sip my coffee and watch the world pass by. We don’t stay on the interstate long, exiting half an hour later.

He’s not using a map, but he knows his way around the narrow, winding roads. I guess we’re headed somewhere he’s visited a lot.

The landscape gradually changes from fields to dense woods. The rising sun casts long shadows between the trees, reminding me of Lakeside, which in turn reminds me of Nash.

I wrestle him out of my head, focusing on the present and the eerie chill sliding down my spine as the woods close up around us. The gas station feels like a distant memory now. We must’ve left it at least an hour ago.

Matthews’ silence doesn’t help me relax, but I fight my unease, forcing a long breath past my lips. We’re clearly not heading home, and the sudden change doesn’t bode well. It means my dad’s scrambling for a safe hiding place… proving he can’t keep me safe.

He already tried.

He already failed.

Nash was at Lakeside when I arrived, waiting.

Matthews takes a left turn, navigating a mile of woodland road until the trees part, revealing a massive, sprawling mansion set in a clearing. It looks more castle than home; an old stone fortress. It’s neither as foreboding as Lakeside nor as big, but I guess it could easily house a college… or a recovery center.

“What is this place?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.

I scrutinize the opulent windows and immaculate front lawn punctuated with rose bushes.

Jonathan doesn’t answer. Keeping his eyes forward, he pulls the car up to a wrought-iron gate that slowly slides open. Once he’s parked near the grand entrance, the mansion looms over us. Two Rottweilers round the corner, barking furiously, their deep growls making my skin prickle.

This isn’t a college. Not a recovery center, either. I doubt either would have such huge guard dogs.

A group of men spills through the main door, all tall, bulky, dressed in black, and… armed.

“Where are we?” I demand, my voice cracking like eggshells, heart clawing its way up my throat.

Reality blurs with a vision of Rhett Willard’s murderous face as he pulled the trigger, and the gun in Nash’s glove box. I turn to Matthews, and the words I wanted to yell evaporate when our eyes lock, his brimming with guilt, apology, and fear.

He’s every bit as scared of this place as I am.

The next thought hits me harder than a freight train—I’m not going home. This isn’t another hideout… and I’m definitely not safe.

“I’m so sorry, Hailey,” Jonathan whispers. “I… I had no choice.” His features soften, eyes heavy with regret. “They won’t hurt you. They just want the evidence.”

“Evidence?” I echo, confusion knitting my brow. “What evidence? I don’t know anything about any evidence.”

Matthews exhales deeply, his hands still clutching the steering wheel. “Alex’s files. Everything he gathered. The case he was working on… he infiltrated Rhett Willard and the information he collected…” He glances at the men grouping outside. “They think you know where it is.”

I barely hear him over the barking dogs and my pounding heart. There’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. I’m trapped inside Jonathan’s car, behind a towering fence. Those dogs would bring me down before I even got close to the locked gates.

“They?” I spit out, swallowing around the bite-size lump lodged in my throat. “Who are they?”

Matthews glances at me again, then quickly looks away. “Try to remember what Alex told you. If you give them what they want, they’ll let you go. They promised,” he mutters, like he’s convincing himself as much as me.

“Who are those people? What if I can’t remember? What then?”

He doesn’t reply, staring into the distance. He flinches when the passenger door opens and strong hands drag me outside by my arm. Pain screams from my hip as it connects with the gravel before I’m yanked up by rough fingers tangled in my hair.

My vocal cords are tied, fear ripping through me, so potent I taste the bitterness… and Matthews sits there, watching with a pained expression as my arms are twisted back.

“Careful, Jax,” a man says, appearing in front of me. He’s looking over my shoulder at the one holding me still. “We can’t break her.” He runs a calloused hand down my cheek, his nostrils flaring. “But we can have some fun.”

Jax snarls behind me, yanking me so close his groin juts against my ass and bile leaps up my throat.

“Don’t get excited, Jax,” someone hollers from the small crowd. “Darius already called dibs.”

“That I did,” Darius admits, licking his lips as his gaze roves my figure.

He takes me in like an item on inventory, assessing my worth and judging whether I’m a threat. There’s something chilling in his hollow gaze… almost like he’s decided my fate and is simply reveling in the lingering suspense.

He’s tall. All veiny muscles. The kind of physique designed to deliver excruciating pain: substance over style. His face is all hard angles, a square jaw set in a permanent sneer, hair buzzed military style. He opens his mouth but ends up moistening his lips again when he hears the slam of Matthews’ car door.

Shaking harder with every step, Jonathan rounds the hood, resembling a spooked shadow. He avoids my gaze, squaring off with Darius. “Delivered as ordered. Now give me my daughter back.”

He’s quaking in his boots when Darius turns toward him, exuding the same flavor of confidence as Nash, but Nash never made me feel this scared.

Darius carries himself with a similar predatory grace, a lion among sheep, but unlike Nash, Darius will hurt me. A complete lack of scruples or morals burns from his eyes. His black shirt stretches over his broad, muscular chest, but I think he works out to intimidate rather than impress.

The other men trail his every move, looking up to him as if every word he speaks is gospel and Matthews visibly shivers when Darius moves.

I wish I could muster an ounce of sympathy for the predicament Matthews’ found himself in, but I can’t. He betrayed not only my trust, but Dad’s too.

Darius looks far from merciful and Jax’s painful hold on me is a clear statement that all I’ll face within the walls of this mansion is pain.

“Ah, that’s right… the daughter.” Darius chuckles, raising his hand and pirouetting his finger in the air.

Matthews cranes his neck, peering over the heads as the main entrance opens again. Gravel crunches under heavy boots, every deliberately slow step measured.

I can’t see what’s happening but I know it’s bad when Jonathan’s eyes pop and a pained wail rips from his chest. He tumbles, his knees connecting with the ground as the dead body of his daughter is flung before him.

He crawls closer to the lifeless girl, discarded like a broken doll, and cradles her to his chest, rocking back and forth. His cries echo in the chilling air, the sounds so anguished my heart curls inwards and my breath falters in my throat as if a rope’s coiling around it.

I’ll share her fate…

“We’ll have so much fun, little princess,” Jax whispers in the shell of my ear, every word edged in darkness.

My vocal cords strangle any attempt to speak, wrapped together like strands of overcooked spaghetti, when Darius pulls his gun out, snarling a quiet shut the fuck up. A single bullet exits the barrel, the shot ringing loudly in the still air. Matthews drops dead, half of his brain splattered over the passenger side of his sedan.

Pained whimpers slip past my lips, my mind spinning faster than a rollercoaster, lungs screaming for air I can’t pull down.

“Get her inside,” Darius snarls over his shoulder.

Obeying the order, Jax digs his fingers into my arms, dragging me away. Fear chokes me, kicking my fight or flight response up to infinity, but before I try making a run for it, Nash’s words reverberate inside my head.

“Smarter, Hailey. You need to be smarter.”

Despite the all-consuming horror, rational thinking wins, and I don’t fight. Wasting energy on kicking and screaming is pointless. I’m surrounded by twenty armed men. How far would I get before they’d shoot?

Ten, twenty feet?

Probably less.

And even if they missed, there’s those dogs. They’d soon outrun me.

Defying my instincts, I cooperate, hoping—praying—that if I give them the evidence, I won’t end up lifeless on the graveled driveway. Two men open the tall, wooden door, ushering Jax and me inside the mansion.

It’s warm, a bizarre mix of luxury and thinly veiled threats. A grand staircase looms directly opposite the entrance, and Jax drags me that way, one arm firmly around my middle, the other on my shoulder, fingers gouging in so hard he’s not far off crushing my bones.

He leads me upstairs, nothing but our footsteps and my racing heartbeat polluting the silence. We navigate the maze-like corridors of the mansion, passing countless closed doors before we stop.

“Consider yourself lucky. You get first pick of the beds,” he says, opening the door. “If I were you, I’d choose very carefully.”

The large room is chock-full of three-high bunk beds, each neatly made with plain gray sheets. A row of college-styled lockers stands at the far wall, numbered from one to thirty.

Just like the beds are.

“Get comfortable,” Jax clips, shoving me inside. “If you behave, we might feed you.”

As soon as I clear the threshold, he slams the door shut so hard the frame rattles. A second later, the grating click of a key turning in the lock follows, and I’m alone.