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I’m yelling now, the rage building up inside me unable to find another way out.
Harper’s face flashes, and her eyes grow angry.“Do not yell at me, Brian.None of us had a choice in this.I didn’t ask for it, just as much as you didn’t, but it was essential that you thought I was dead.”
“Why?”I roar.“What possible reason could you have to break me like that?”
“It was so he didn’t kill you,” she screams.“I was protecting you.He was going to do whatever it took to destroy me for what I did, and he was going to start with you.The only way to end that was to make you think I was gone so you’d move on and he’d think I was out of the picture.”
Flinching, I stare at her, panting with rage.“What did you do that was so bad he was willing to take you down?Tell me, Harper, or I swear to fuck we’re done here.”
Her bottom lip shakes, but it isn’t with emotion, just rage.“I was working with the FBI to destroy him.I wanted out of that life.I knew it was the only way.He found out about it, and he was going to have me killed, but not before he took everything I loved first.He needed to think I was dead, but so did you.It was the only way.”
I feel like I’ve been sucker punched in the chest.“You could have told me.”
She shakes her head.“No, I couldn’t, because you and I both know you would have found a way to be with me.I couldn’t risk you.I just ...I couldn’t.”
“So you let me think you were dead?”I roar.“Do you have any fucking idea what that did to me?I lost Charlie, and then I lost you.I had nothing.I had no one.My heart was fucking destroyed.”
Tears burst forth and roll down her cheeks.“I know, Brian.I know, and I’m so, so sorry.If there was any other way ...”
“I can’t do this,” I bark, turning toward the bathroom.“I can’t fucking do this right now.”
Stepping into the bathroom, I slam the door.
Harper’s sob fills the room.
This is all too much.
I’m not made for all this fucking bullshit.
I need to make a choice, not just for them, but for me.
If I don’t, it’s going to kill me.
It’ll crush me into the ground until I’m a shell of the man I used to be.
I can’t let that happen.
The time has come for me to pick, and that decision could cost me everything.
If I choose wrong, my life as I know it is over.
