Who the fuck I was supposed to be.
There I was, sitting propped up on her bed strumming at my guitar like that was where I belonged.
Wearing nothing but the jeans I’d pulled back on from where they’d been tossed onto the floor.
Discarded while I’d gotten greedy.
While I’d gotten lost in her sweet body again.
Another summer thunderstorm rumbled the walls, quick flashes of bright light blanketing the windows, the disorder almost a calm.
Every blip of light illuminating the girl who was curled up next to me.
That tight, sweet body exhausted and spent.
Her face sheer bliss where she slept.
Kudos to me.
Girl was radiating this joy that couldn’t be missed. Emitting that light that pressed into the dark.
Had been this way for the last week. Neither of us able to get enough. Reaching for each other every chance we got.
Pure, straight-up gluttony.
No chance of gettin’ full.
I glanced down at her, girl on her side, facing me. Waves of black hair strewn around her, and her heart beating this pace that sucked me straight into peace.
That feeling gripped my black, bitter soul.
Vacancy screamed.
Begging me to just let go.
Had the stark, striking need to play.
To get lost in her decadent harmony.
Girl a song.
Surrender.
I let my fingers play across the neck of my guitar as the other hand quietly strummed. My voice barely broke through the still of the night.
Moved.
Desolate.
Would give it all up,
If it would keep you from coming apart.
Are you falling?
Are you flying?
Tell me, baby,
Is it worth dying,
For everything you’ve been living for?
Is it, is it worth dying, for everything we’ve been fighting for?
I fumbled through the chorus, the words I’d been searching for catching in my throat.
Felt like I might as well have been touching her.
Adoring her.
Girl lying next to me a revelation. Something I never saw coming.
How did we get here?
Is it ecstasy?
Blasphemy?
Can you live in this bitter truth?
Is it rhapsody?
Heresy?
Lying here next to you?
Could barely get the lyrics to scrape free, their truth bottled deep, vying to be heard.
Recognized.
Accepted.
I jolted out of the stupor when my phone lit up on the nightstand. The ringer had been silenced, and the flash dragged my attention to it.
My chest tightened when I saw who was calling.
Unease.
Anticipation.
Being careful to keep quiet, I slipped off the bed, setting my guitar aside and grabbing my phone before I quietly slinked out of the suite and out into the hall like a motherfucking snake.
A cheater living a double life.
No surprise there.
But there was no room for an audience.
Not for this.
No chance I’d risk any one of them colliding with my past.
When I was out in the silence of the hall, I accepted the call, not knowing if I should be sagging in relief or sitting on edge.
“Brax.” Kept my voice quiet. Hushed in the night.
“Yo, man. How’s it?”
Perfect.
Amazing.
Torture.
“Good,” I told him rather than dolling out the treachery.
“You got news?” I forced out the question, turning to stare out the bank of windows that ran the hall.
Pool was a dark, deep pit. Water a toil of energy.
Trees tall, dark shadows that thrashed in the night.
The yard nothing but desertion and rapid blips of light.
He blew out a weighted breath, confession laced with caution. Like he hated to be the bearer of motherfucking bad news. “Got news, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”
I waited.
He stalled.
“Just tell me, man.”
Reluctance filled his admission. “Think it’s your mom who knows, brother.”
Bitterness surged.
Malice curled my hands into a fist, nearly crushing the phone. “You sure?”
He exhaled, his voice quieted in secrecy while a party raged somewhere in the distance behind him, fading as he paced away from the mayhem of that world. “Can’t say for certain. But she cornered me earlier. Asked a bunch of pointed questions. Think she knows that I know where you are.”
Worry and frustration coated his words. “You’ve been gettin’ reckless, man. You want to stay hidden, yet you’re strutting around in the limelight like you don’t have a damned care. You knew it was gonna come down to this. But maybe this is exactly what it needed to come down to.”
“What did she say?” I bit out.
That she wanted me dead, too? Reiterate her loyalty to Krane?
No fucking thank you.
He hesitated. Like he had something different to say. “She’s claimin’ she’s worried about you. That she wants you to come back. That the two of you need to talk, lay it all out.”
Loathing left me on a hard laugh. “She wants me, she can come and get me. Besides, what could she possibly have to say? What could she possibly do that would bring back my family?”
The betrayal sliced through me so deep that I was pretty sure my guts spilled out onto the floor. Mess on the ground nothing but a snarl of venom and discord.
Could feel the conflict halting his answer. “She said if I talked to you, to tell you that she would never have hurt them, and that she sure as hell would never hurt you. That she misses you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Is it though, man?” He sighed, paused, wary before he continued, “She said half a shipment has gone missing. Same as before, and she sure doesn’t sound like she’s on his side.”
Rage slithered beneath the surface of my skin. Hatred lashing with every violent pulse.
“He’s back at it, brother,” Braxton said, voice grim.
“Then it’s time to end him.”
And if that meant my mother going down with him? So be it.
“We need to rethink how we do this. Think about it, Leif. It doesn’t fuckin’ add, your mother and Keeton. And my gut doesn’t lie. She was telling the truth.”
Rejection of his statement battered my insides.
As fierce as the wind that battered the window outside.
Her betrayal vile.
“Just . . . think about it, Leif, before you do something you can’t take back.”
Ruthless laughter tumbled off my tongue. “Too late for that.”
“It’s never too late if the deed isn’t done. Don’t mistake that.” He huffed out a sigh. “You’ve been living for revenge for a long, long time. I get it. I want it. But don’t let it fuckin’ blind you.”
“It’s the only thing I’ve ever been able to see.”
Until the only thing I could see was her. The angel in the attic.
Guilt spiraled.
Cut and slashed.
Unable to say anything else, I ended the call and pressed my hands to the flat-plate glass, phone pinned to the window. Sucking for a breath.
I glanced up just as lightning flashed.
Torrential rain poured from the sky and pummeled the ground.
Pool a riot of aggression that toiled and churned.
But it was the dark figure standing on the opposite side of it staring back at me that ripped my heart from my chest.