It’s intimate.
Private.
In any other scenario, I would have gone right to that cozy-looking bed … instead, I lead us over to the table. The loveseat would mean we would be right on top of each other, and … I needed the space to get this all out.
He folds his huge frame into the small chair and waits for me to speak. Letting me lead. I appreciate that more than he will ever know. I know it’s not easy for a man like him to drop the lead in any situation.
“Why?” I ask, breaking the silence with one word that might as well have been a gunshot. His reaction, a flinch so strong his bulky frame jolted. “Why was our girl hurt, Zeke?”
“Ours,” he whispers, word so heartbreakingly sad it’s me that reacts with a jolt this time.
“Of course, she’s yours too, Zeke. What on earth did you think we were doing here?” I ask, pointing at each other.
I see his throat work when he swallows thickly. He holds his finger up gesturing for me to give him a second while he leans forward, elbows to the table, and drops his head into his hands. My mouth opens slightly and I know I’m seconds away from crying when I see his shoulders shake slightly.
If I live to be a hundred, I never want to see him look like this again.
Not ever again.
“Zeke,” I whisper, reaching out and placing my hand on his shoulder.
“Done a lot in my life but seeing your face when you got that call about Riley will forever be at the top of my scariest moments. I’ll never forget seeing that fear and pain on your face. I put that there.”
What?
He really believes that.
“Did you hurt her?”
He looks up, fat tears ready to fall from his eyes.
“Would you have left with me had you known there was a threat out there?”
I shake my head, confirming.
“You would have been there. Riley would have been with you and wouldn’t have been at the shop that long.”
“Do you think just by me being there it would have been different? She wasn’t there much longer than she would have been if I was home to be at the shop.”
“She wouldn’t have been there that late and you know it.”
“We could argue over this all night, Zeke. Me being here with you was a choice I do not regret. It’s also not the reason something happened to her. Something you need to explain to me.”
“Goddammit,” he hisses. He leans back and runs his hand through his short hair. “I never wanted you to find out, Liv. I don’t know that I would have ever told you either. He might have been the reason I started walking with you two, but he has nothing to do with me falling in love with y’all. Not one thing.”
I open my mouth to ask who he is, but shut it when he holds his hand up.
“Please, just let me get this out. Knowing I hurt you is something I’m struggling with, Liv. The fact this will hurt you too is like someone has a gun to my head asking me to physically harm you. Don’t like hurting you, baby.”
He clears his throat, eyes holding my worried gaze. “My last job with this great country of ours was to kill Riley’s father.”
He could have punched me, but it wouldn’t have rocked me as violently as what he just said.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I utter through the shock and terror.
“Ray’s alive, and I’ve been hunting him.”
“You know,” I start. “There’s really only so much that one person can take before her brain explodes. There’s no way. They said he died, Zeke.” Fear rushes back through my body, replacing any anger I had left and blanketing everything else in its sticky grasp.
“Best guess is these days he’s a few teeth shy of a full set.”
Leaning back, I let the enormity of his words settle. If this is correct, I’ve been in danger since the day my sweet sister left this earth. Riley hasn’t been safe one single day.
It would have happened even if you hadn’t fallen in love with the hunter.
Like a cold shower, the thought envelops me tightly, and I gasp. Zeke looks up, worried gaze on me.
“Have we ever been safe?”
He looks away, inhales deeply, and holds it before slowly releasing the air. When he looks back at me, I see a little of my Zeke coming back. His eyes getting brighter and brighter as something I have never seen rushes to the surface. Gone is the shell of my man and in its place is … well, a warrior. He looks bloodthirsty and ready to kill.
“I will never let anything happen to either of you, again.”
“That isn’t what I asked you.”
“You’ve been safe.”
“If he’s been alive this whole time, I haven’t ever been safe.”
“You’ve never been alone, Olivia.”
I frown, not understanding.
“How long have I been coming into your shop?”
“Since right after we opened.”
“Every day between that one and the first day I walked you home were torture for me guarding the woman who called to every part of the man I was then and now. I never believed it was possible to have the kind of life a woman like you would give me. Not after I had been living like a dead man for so long. You woke up a dead man the day you first greeted me in your shop. The only part of why I had even been blessed to cross your path is because I had been given the job of securing Ray. Maybe I would have found you another way, but I did because I needed to hunt that piece of shit out. I didn’t know you aside from a folder of words explaining who you were. Then I walked into the shop, and you stopped being a file and started being personal. You were mine that day. Took a while for a dead man to thaw back to life, Liv. You did that. Every day until I couldn’t stay away.”
He holds my gaze, strong and sure. Then blows me away. “I didn’t tell you because I thought I could control the narrative. I was selfish and thought I could spare you the pain of ever knowing he was alive. I didn’t see a point at first, and then I couldn’t handle the thought of giving that kind of pain to you. Hurt you double because of it.”
He leans in and takes my hands. “You’ve been safe because the day Ray died he was on our radar. The team was in charge of watching you in shifts then. I didn’t meet you until the shop opened. That day it was me and only me that guarded you from the shadows. The team monitored Ray’s movements and waited until he died on his own accord or ran out of money and came back to America. We knew where he was every step of the way. It wasn’t until he started moving back to the US that we lost him. The timing couldn’t have been worse, and I was distracted.”
“Zeke …” I exhale, and my words trail off. This is so much to process. Too much, really. The rational part of me can see and hear the truth in his words, but he hurt me, and that isn’t something I can just brush off that easily.
He’s been through so much in his life. More than any person could even fathom. Who am I to punish him when he’s done that enough for way too long.
My thoughts once again beat their way to the front of my mind.
“Why didn’t you tell me after we became us? After you became my Zeke, why not then? Surely you had to trust me when you told me who you truly are? Even then you didn’t trust in me … or maybe us … enough to tell me why you had started coming around.”