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“School was the only place I knew I’d be safe,” he continued. “And later on, when I got older, there was music and booze and girls . . . It was like a party every day. Sometimes it was even enough to get me out of my head, so I hardly even noticed what was happen—” He dropped his voice, forcing the last words out. “Happening to me.”
“I had my friends, my team, and you,” he said, raising his eyes to me. “All to myself. The only girl I ever trusted. No one was going to take you away from me. I don’t like change.” And then he glanced at Rika. “You were change.”
She scoffed, looking more daring. “Is that what you waited a year for? Devil’s Night?” She glared at him. “God, you really do need this, don’t you? The old times, that rush, your friends who hate you now . . . ?”
“You hate me because of the things I do, but you love Michael for all those same reasons.”
“Oh, you’ve always hated me,” he retorted. “I remember you at fourteen, running out of a room as quick as you came in when you saw me at Michael’s house. People dictate rules based on how they want to be treated, but I’ll tell you something. When someone else misbehaves, it’s black-and-white, isn’t it? We judge, and we condemn, but when we do it, it’s a gray area all of a sudden. Other people are subject to your convictions, but not you, right? Not Michael?”
“People are hypocrites, Banks,” he told me, still staring at her. “They do the same things they’ll hate another guy for doing. The only moral compass I trust anymore is my own.”
“And I’ve come to the conclusion,” he bit out, “that a man deserves whatever a man can take.”
sudden, her chest caved as her body froze. Her gaze fell, and she just stood there like she couldn’t move.
“Just go!” I shouted. I needed to get to my brother before Kai did.
“You don’t love him, do you?” Damon asked, something wet touching my temple. “Because I’m about to make you a widow.”
“I raised you better than that,” he bit out, spinning me around and gripping my shirt at the collar. “It was supposed to be us, Nik. Just us.”
“If you just wanted me, we would’ve been gone when you got out of prison last year,” I said, hearing Kai and the guys charge through the house. “What do you really want?”
He dropped his voice, replying, “I just want it to be how it used to be.” His eyes fell, but then he raised them again, the ice back in his stare. “And if I can’t have that, then I’ll make damn sure no one will ever be rid of me.”
Kai’s eyes fell to my brother’s hand, and I knew he saw the weapon.
“I’ve been hurting her for eleven years.” Damon tightened his fist on the back of my shirt. “There’s not much I wouldn’t do.”
He wasn’t sure if my brother was bluffing, but he wasn’t certain he wasn’t. Not enough, anyway.
“She’s not your pet,” Kai argued. “Or your property. She never was.”
“You treated her like a dog!” Kai bellowed, his worried eyes flashing to me. “You hurt her.”
I swallowed the massive lump in my throat. I knew Damon treated me badly, even though I hated facing that fact. I’d just made excuses for it. He’s not well. He’s alone. He needs someone he can trust.
But if the sacrifices only come from one side, it’s time to face the truth. He was hurting me.
“She tenses when I touch her,” Kai told him. “It’s subtle, and it’s only for a moment, but it takes her off guard, like she’s not used to it.”
Tears welled in my eyes.
“Just let her go, man. She’s not going to hurt you. She loves you. And you love her.”
“The only ones who can hurt you are the ones you love.”
“Choose,” he said.
He meant Kai didn’t need me. Damon did. That’s what he wanted me to believe, but it wasn’t entirely true.
I watched as Will jumped on top of him, knocking the gun out of his hand and swinging his fists like he’d been waiting a year for this. I guessed he had, after all.
I spun around, seeing Will still completely losing it.
But he just stood there, letting Will get his revenge.
He knew he deserved this.
I knew what he was doing, just letting Will punch him. If he was in pain on the outside, he wouldn’t feel it on the inside.
Water cascaded down his face, making his black hair hang over his eyes, and I knew I couldn’t ever not love him. Bleeding, broken, lost, and alone, he was back up, wasn’t he? He would always be able to take whatever anyone did to him. Twist it. Turn it. Swallow it.
“We didn’t choose Rika over you,” he told him calmly. “Or Banks.” He leaned in, his tone firm. “You left us.”
Damon held Kai’s eyes, giving nothing away as the silence stretched between them, and I knew . . . I just knew . . . She was dead.
We left Damon outside, and I knew that he’d run. A big part of me hoped he would.
He’d already lost the dojo. I couldn’t let this happen again.
And I looked up and saw Damon. I hadn’t even seen him enter.
“I’m not running,” Damon said, staring at the wall. “Call them.”
My father wouldn’t let Damon go back to prison. He’d send him somewhere where he couldn’t embarrass him again, and he’d keep him there, out of sight, for however long it took for Damon to get a hold of himself.
I closed my eyes, my chin trembling. I was too close to the situation. My heart couldn’t bear to see him suffer anymore.
He pressed his lips into my temple. I couldn’t ask any of them to just let him go, but I was grateful Kai stood with me.
What if I never saw him again? Damon was all I’d had for so long. Everything was new now. My home, my days, even my clothes . . . I exhaled, pain twisting my stomach.
“Did you ever love me?” I asked.
“Love is pain, Nik,” he told me. “It’s never felt good.”
don’t want to hurt you. Anymore,” he added. “That’s all I know.”
CHAPTER 30
But I didn’t realize how much I’d dreaded him, too.
Not until he left the house, giving no indication he would come for us again, and the pain in my stomach I’d grown so used to over the years, that I barely noticed anymore, slowly started to fade away. He’d always held on so tightly.
Have friends.
“We can start over. Fresh. Maybe have a date. And a proper wedding after I ask you and if you say yes.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I’ll kiss you like I should’ve.”
