“Yeah, maybe you could explain that one, Xar?” Micah snapped coldly.
“Easily,” Kieran bragged with a smug smile playing on his lips. “I plan to own that pussy. See you soon, pretty girl.” He strolled off, leaving me with my jaw on the street. “Call me if I can be of assistance, or when you decide to change your mind regarding my offer.”
“Did you make a deal?” Noah asked carefully.
“No.” I watched the relief flash over his face.
I had a feeling that whatever Kieran planned to do to me was going to hurt. He wasn’t the sort of creature you turned down, and I had done so several times tonight. Axton thought Kieran wanted me dead, but I didn’t think that was true anymore. He meant to play with me, which scared me more than him wanting my head removed from my shoulders.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hours after my friends had thoroughly interrogated me, I sat inside my apartment, searching through the archives on the dark web. There wasn’t any personal information about Kieran or the orphanage on my father’s wall. It was as if the data had been completely wiped clean, and no fingerprints of it were left behind.
Sipping my chamomile tea, I stifled a yawn as a knock sounded on the front door. Gazing at the clock, I frowned at having a late-night visitor. Quickly shutting down the computer, I walked to the door, opening it just enough to peek through.
Micah stood with his head against the doorframe, peering into the room. His eyebrows pushed together, and he exhaled slowly.
“Can we talk, Xari?” he asked softly, dragging his gaze up to mine as he spoke.
“It’s late, Micah,” I pointed out, aware it wasn’t a good idea to invite him inside. Something in his expression bothered me, though, and my stomach sank, realizing he wanted to talk about us. Not that there was an ‘us’ anymore.
I pulled the door open far enough for him to enter and exhaled the air from my lungs as I moved out of the way. Once he was through, I closed the door and went to the kitchen, reaching into the cupboard and pulling out a bottle of whisky and two tumblers.
“Make it a double,” he stated, sliding into the chair that sat at the far end of the kitchen table.
Rolling my eyes, I turned away from Micah, opening the freezer. Grabbing ice, I added three pieces to the glasses before removing the cap and pouring two fingers of liquor into each of them. Silently moving back to the table, I placed a drink in front of him before taking a seat at the opposite end from him. He watched me, snorting at the gesture.
“I guess I deserve that, huh?” He wrapped his hands around his drink, holding my gaze, then he looked down and away from me.
“You don’t deserve anything from me,” I whispered thickly, fighting the emotions that threatened to swallow me whole.
Slowly nodding his head, he turned watery eyes on where I sat, drawing my finger over the moisture on the side of the glass. Neither of us spoke, both fine, sitting in the silence of the apartment as we had once done as a couple.
“I fucked up.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “You didn’t make being with you easy, Minx. It was a fight every day to be with you. Even when you were home, you weren’t there with me.”
My eyes lifted to his as a single tear slipped free. “I know I’m not faultless with what happened between us, Micah. But I never betrayed what you and I had. I would have ended us before ever doing that to you.”
This conversation had been coming for some time, but I wasn’t sure it would fix what he’d broken. He wanted back into my good graces, but he’d fucked me over so badly that I wasn’t convinced we’d ever be that close again. I couldn’t count on him not to hurt me, even as a friend. We could work together because I trusted him to have my back, and I’d have his. It was just who we were. In the gist of things, it was what we’d been to one another—a team, and the next step had seemed easy.
“I love you,” he murmured, holding my stare. “I’ve always loved you, Xariana. From the moment I saw you, I knew you were meant for me. I figured I would eventually fuck it up, just like I did everything I wanted.”
Placing my glass on the table, I looked away from him, hating the tears that swam in my eyes. I wouldn’t return the sentiment, even though I still loved him. I wasn’t in love with him, and that was the difference. I couldn’t speak past the lump growing in my throat at his words.
“I didn’t love Meredith,” he admitted softly, shaking his head before he rose to grab the bottle from the counter. He held it up, and I nodded that he could drink more. “She let me in, though, and didn’t hold shit back from me. You held me at arm’s length, and she allowed me to see every part of her. That was the one thing you didn’t allow. You never let me get close enough to give you all of me.”
I snorted, holding his gaze while he challenged me to argue the truth. “I knew you’d ruin us, Micah. I realized it, but I didn’t think you’d do what you did. Not to me. I deserved more than that from you.”
“The first time I was with Meredith, it was unplanned. She was out with me on a hunt, and you were here waiting for me to come home. We had been drinking, and things got out of control, and we couldn’t take it back. I was planning to tell you the truth, to let you know it had happened. But I came home, and you smiled at me, and I couldn’t fucking come clean and say that I’d fucked up. You begged me to make a baby. I had never wanted anything more in my life than to have a child with you.”
I lifted my glass, downing it before I sat back, remembering that day perfectly. That was an entire year before I’d caught them together. I’d almost died on that hunt, alone, because my father had assigned Micah to go on one with Meredith. I’d had an epiphany that day, and had decided that I wanted a family. I didn’t wish to die without leaving something of myself in the world. It had been an insane idea, and unfair to any child left behind, but who said epiphanies needed to be reasonable?
“I took you that night, and afterward, I spent an hour in the bathroom throwing up, knowing I couldn’t give you what you wanted. Not because I was unwilling, but because once you knew what I had done, you’d be destroyed. I couldn’t knock you up knowing that I didn’t deserve what you were offering me.”
“No, you didn’t,” I whispered through the tears threatening to fall.
He groaned, lifting the glass to down it before setting it down, and leaning his arms against the table, watching me. “I went to the infirmary and had Bali give me the shot to prevent you from becoming pregnant. I wouldn’t have done that to you.”
Micah stood, then slid into the chair beside me. I didn’t move away like I wanted to because I wasn’t weak enough to fall into anything with him. I’d made peace with what had transpired, and while I hadn’t forgiven him, I would never put myself in a position that he’d be able to do it to me again.
“The second time I slept with Meredith, you’d been gone for a few weeks out hunting with Noah. I got drunk, and she showed up at our place. I was lonely, and your dad forced me to take a few days off because I’d been sloppy out on my last assignment. He told me that if I couldn’t get my shit together, he’d bench me. We were both sober the next time it happened. After that, I fucked her whenever I had the opportunity and could get her alone.”