Angel by Jamie Canosa Read Free Book Online

forget.
    Kiernan took his cue, herding Jade away from the scene as I laid into the dirtbag with every ounce of pent up fury I had in me. I hit him and I hit him. Again and again until the blood from my knuckles mingled with that from his busted face. He hit the floor hard and, God help me, there was a big part of me that wanted to keep going. To beat him into blood and bone. Release all of my anger. Give it somewhere to go, rather than let it continue to build inside of me. And make certain he never so much as looked in Jade’s direction ever again.
    Forcing myself to walk away was not easy. Hands still fisted tight enough that my raw knuckles stung, I stormed through the front door to where Kiernan stood, Jade tucked away in his arms.
    “No more favors.” If I couldn’t do what I wanted to do to make sure he stayed away from her, the least I could do was make damn sure she never went near him, willingly, again.
    “Enough, man.” Kiernan shifted slightly, putting himself between her and me, as though I were the threat. “She’s shaking like a leaf.”
    The red—which was all I was seeing—faded away and I saw that he wasn’t lying. She was terrified, still suffering the aftershock of everything that had happened.
    I choked back my frustration, locking it away where it belonged. She didn’t deserve it. Not on top of everything else she’d been through. “How did you end up in this mess, anyway?”
    “I—I owed him. He did me a favor.”
    “What kind of favor?” Kiernan tightened his arms around her, steadying her as she stumbled against his chest.
    “I had to pick my mom up at a bar. She passed out on the ride home and it was too cold to leave her in the car all night. I didn’t have enough gas to run the heater that long. So I asked DJ to help me get her upstairs.”
    “Let me get this straight.” It hadn’t taken a whole lot of imagination to assume I wasn’t going to like this story, but this . . . It took every last ounce of self-control I possessed not to turn around and go back inside. And then find her mother’s apartment and finish the job. “You had to go out alone, at night, to get your drunk mother and drag her ass back here. And then that bastard had the nerve to demand a favor in return for helping you get her inside?”
    “Pretty much.”
    I was about two degrees short of that boiling point. Some small part of me had hoped the scene I’d w itnessed in the library was a one-time ordeal, even knowing what Kiernan had said about her mother. There was no more fooling myself. “Like I said, no more favors.”
    Jade’s face crump led and I cursed my serious lack of brain-to-mouth filter around her. It should have been working overtime. Instead, it shut off completely. Luckily, my ever observant little brother stepped in to rescue us both from my loose lips.
    “Jade, what he means is, if you ever ne ed help, call me. Anything. Anytime. You call me, okay?”
    “Or me. If Kiernan can’t make it . . .” My chest pinched, knowing the only reason why that would be. And again, knowing she didn’t know. “For any reason, you call me. Kiernan will give you my number. One of us will always be around.”
    Kiernan peered at me over Jade’s head and, though silent, his gratitude was loud and clear.
    Jade lifted her head from Kiernan’s chest and sniffled back her tears as she swiped her damp cheeks against his shirt front. “Thank you. Both of you.”
    Her words were so sincere that they made me ache. She looked at not only Kiernan, but me with . . . awe? As though she couldn’t believe we were there. Helping her. As though no one ever had before. And a sickened part of me was afraid that was exactly right.
    “I mean it.” Kiernan pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead, and I couldn’t stand there any longer.
    Even watching them from inside the car, I could feel that sickness growing. I told myself it was because he was still lying to her. I told myself it was because she still needed to