I Promise You (Scarred Executioners #2)

by Lexie Axelson

I wish it were me holding her instead; I let that thought go as quickly as it came; she’s Grim’s girl.

My attention goes back to the woman of my dreams, her boyfriend’s frantic compressions, the only motion coming from her lifeless body.

He stands there as if it were just another normal day. The lengths he’d go through for Ari were admirable, yet frightening.

I watch him, watch her, and I know he is ruined by her.

I need to be at the hospital. I need to be there when she wakes up, but I can’t. Grim will see right through me and then…our friendship will be over.

I’m done watching someone have the life I want with Ari.

I pleaded with Death because her soul isn’t his. Hell, it’s not even hers–it’s mine.

“I’m sorry, Ari. I’m so fucking sorry. Cry, hit me as hard as you can, scream at me, hate me. I can take it. What I can’t take is you opening your stitches and bleeding again.”

“He can’t hurt you anymore. They can’t hurt you anymore. As long as I’m around, no one will hurt you again, I promise you.”

“I’ve got you for the rest of my life. I’m not going anywhere. I promise you.”

“Everything will be okay, Ari. I know it’s not right now…but someday, everything will be okay, I promise you.”

But my God, how I wanted my son.

My son…I have a boy. “He’s gone?” I choke out, trying to stop the lump in my throat from forming. I’m breathing, but I feel like I just died.

Kane’s expression stutters and his face drops. He thinks I don’t know…but I do.

I’m midway off him when he puts his phone on his shoulder, muffling the mic and grabbing me angrily. “Where do you think you’re going? You’re not going anywhere,” he growls, narrowing his eyes at me. I bite my lip and I don’t dare move anymore.

If I’m not already fucking broken, I am now. I take off my mask. My face is still covered in camo paint with green, black, and brown layers, so I’m not worried about my identity being exposed. I toss it over to the little boy, and his eyes light up like a Christmas tree. His brown eyes glimmer with joy through the holes of the front. The disguise is too big for his little head, but he holds it into place with his hands, so it stops swaying. “You already are a superhero.”

This was the moment I realized that I’d never be the same operator…or man again.

“Dehydrated, huh?” His voice is laced with playful accusation. I walk past him, not bothering to stop, ready to leave the hospital, and he follows my steps, matching my speed. “Severely parched… I almost had to be admitted.” I smirk, shrugging my shoulders, loosening the knots in my back with my sways.

“Right, and I’m having the shits. Do I have to get admitted, too?” He sighs, shaking his head.

“I don’t know, man. I hear having the shits can lead to dehydration. Do you want to stop by Noel’s so she can…rehydrate you?” I raise a brow, pushing his buttons. “You guys live on base, right? We can stop by for five minutes.” He rolls his eyes. “I don’t know about five minutes,” he mumbles under his breath. “You’re right. What was I thinking? Three minutes is your limit.” I roar with laughter before he pushes my shoulder, pissed off. “Asshole.”

“Grim didn’t tell you?” Kane says. I shake my head vehemently. “He didn’t tell me what?” “I thought he would tell you something like this.” He looks away from me, nervously running his hand through his dark hair.

Ass. Hole.

“Fuck it, you deserve to know.” He leans into my ear, whispering, his breath sending more shivers up my spine. I’m paralyzed, waiting for him to spill. “People are after Grim. The same people that killed your brother.”

Dude. STFU and quit being a snake

“Grim has a fucking bounty on his head. We’re all at risk. They won’t stop at anything to have us dead, the whole team, specifically Grim. They’ll even hurt you if it means they can capture him. If it means they can hit him where he’ll hurt the most, and that’s you, Ari.”

Woah. Mind your business. I don’t like snakes.

They want to kill Danny?

She deserves to know, but right now?! And FROM YOU?! You just want her

That’s when I catch Danny on my porch, sitting with his head hanging down on a bench he built for us. He carries a bouquet of flowers in his hands, dressed in all black.

“Ari, it’s a little hypocritical of you, don’t you think?”

Yup she should have told your that your “best friend” IS A FLIRTY DIRTY RAT

“No more secrets, but you still haven’t told me about Kane’s visitation.”

I need time alone. We need time apart.” I say sternly. “You’re poison to me.” He stops breathing, and so do I when the words leave my mouth. Do I mean it? Do I really mean this?

“I won’t let you leave me, Ari. Grant me mercy by putting a bullet in my head, then. Because I’d rather die than live in a world where someone else has your soul and not me.”

“No. Just say it, Ari, stop being so fucking scared all the time. Stop being so fucking weak.”

“All right, Grim Reaper.” I spit. “Your name fits you perfectly because so much death surrounds you. Everyone around you dies! I will not be a part o-of—” I stutter. “—of this curse that surrounds you.”

Bitch

“Everyone dies around you. I almost did. Our baby died.”

😳

“My own brother died around you.”

🫢🫣

“I lost my baby too!” He points to his chest. “I don’t get to be a father. I didn’t get to know him or know what he would look like. If he was going to have your brown or my blue eyes. If he was going to have your black hair.” His face flickers pools of affliction, his voice roaring with affliction. “I know I said fucked up things to you that one night and that will forever eat me alive.” He drawls, stalking toward me, his steps loud and indignant.

Preach.

“You’re really blaming me for everything? Don’t you dare act like I’m not a man at the end of the day. I’ve been grieving, too, but I handle my shit differently, Ari. I do my best to save who I can when I’m out there with my team. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You have no idea what it’s like to watch a body get burned alive.” Each word hits me like a bolt powered by resentment.

“When I told you I was pregnant with our baby, you couldn’t even...

“You crushed me. You broke my heart. You broke my heart over and over again this past year.”

“Yeah...I did. Because all my life, I’ve been this man who couldn’t feel anything unless I was drunk. I did react in such a fucked up way, and I’ll be groveling for the rest of my life at your feet. There is no excuse for my reaction, but there is a reason why I didn’t want children.”

“What is that ...

“Do you know what it's like to carry out dismembered children from an explosion from a fucking playground?” He quirks h...

“To have a child bleed all over you while their parents beg you to save them, knowing damn well it’s too late?”

“All of this did happen because of you. I gave you all of me. Everything. You completely obliterated every moral I held so dear to me. If you hadn’t started a war between you and Shane that night at El Devine, maybe he wouldn’t have tried to kill me. Maybe our baby would still be here. Don’t even get me started on Nora.”

“So, I should have just let that coward abuse you?”

“Why didn’t you? Because of the promise with Paul? That you refus...

“I should have never thought this could work. I fell for you so hard. Something about you captured my heart instantly, and yet you can’t say the words I’ve felt about you since the first time you kissed me. You can’t say those three words, can you? Are you even capable of that emotion?”

“Well, I can say them.” Raindrops fall down my cheek, and I push him from me, hitting his broad chest, but of course, he doesn’t move, and through heavy salty tears, I shout, “I. Love. You.”

“I love you!” I shout again. “I love you all the time, Danny. I’ve loved you since the day I met you. I love you even when I shouldn’t. I worry about you because I love you. Every time you walk out that door, I’m scared you won’t come back to me. I think these things because I love you. I love all of you...everything. All the parts of you that you consider dark? Every part of you that you deem unworthy? I think are beautiful…because I love you.” My voice bleeds pure honesty, pleading with him to understand why I can’t do this anymore.

“But it hurts so much,” I whimper, looking at the flowers and then back at him, my vision blurred with crushed tears. “It pains me to love you, Danny, and…” I sob, shaking my head, biting my lip, my teeth sinking until it throbs. “I don’t think this life is for me.”

“If we have a family again, what am I supposed to do? Have them go through the same thing I do? Lonely nights and mornings? Missed birthdays, missed holidays, missed milestones like their first word or first steps?”

“No, Danny, I don’t think I will allow that to happen if I want to start a family.”