“I destroyed everything,” I murmur. “I was consumed by the past, by the need to make you feel a fraction of what I felt, and I didn’t even try to talk to you. To understand. I know I don’t deserve mercy. And if I were a better man, I wouldn’t ask for it. But I’m not a better man, so I’ll keep fighting for your forgiveness.”
My chest feels heavy with a million unsaid ‘I’m sorrys’that are clawing to get out, but I shove them back down. None of them would change anything. Not for her, not for me.
Her jaw tightens and releases as she fights the next wave of tears. Her eyes stay unfocused, staring straight through me.
“You’re right. You are not a better man,” her whisper cuts through the quiet. “And you sure are a terrifying one. You might have exploded that day, but up until then, you were meticulous and patient with your revenge.”
I sigh, dragging a tired hand down my face. “My revenge plans were all shitty and backfired spectacularly.”
She looks down at the phone in her lap, playing with the edge of its case. “No more questions,” she murmurs after a few seconds. “I’ve been avoiding the main subject long enough.”
Her eyes lift, wide and a little fearful. “Tell me about prison, Ghost. From the beginning.”
29. Steel
Adora
Iwasn’t ready for this conversation. But I was never going to be ready. So I put on a brave face and brace for what’s coming. I need to know this, not just to understand why we ended the way we did, but to try and deal with the guilt that’s still trailing me.
I know I didn’t play the biggest role in sending him to prison, but I played a role. Small or big, does it matter in the end? When the steel bars closed behind him, did my reason for lying — saving my sister — give him any comfort? Did it make a difference?
I don’t want the lies and the unknown to fester anymore, inventing new ways to torture me. I need to step into the light and know the full truth. Then maybe I can finally move on.
His brows furrow. He looks out through the windshield, leans back, one hand hanging loosely on the wheel. He takes a deep breath, like a soldier before battle, and when he speaks his voice is flat, stripped of emotion. Like he’s trying to pretend he’s telling someone else’s story.
“The only one who knows everything is Bones,” he starts.
There’s a faint buzz under my skin that spreads with every blink, every twitch of his brow. It’s itchy and unnerving. It makesme want to run. Instead I stay silent and watch him sink under the weight of his memories, trying not to drown in mine.
“I couldn’t talk about it with anyone else,” he says, jaw clenched. “But I owe you this, so I’ll give you as much as I can.”
He takes a second, inhales a long, shaky breath, and flexes his fingers around the steering wheel.
Fuck. I don’t want to hear this.
“The day of your testimony is when I stopped fighting. You looked so fucking innocent on that stand. Clean. Reliable. Not one prior. Good student. Every word out of your mouth said with conviction. The perfect fucking witness.”
“There was no hope for my case after that. I was facing ten years, so when the prosecutor sent over a deal for five, with the possibility of parole after three — against the wishes of the entire club — I took it.”
“I fucking took it,” he whispers, voice cracked and raw.
“Wait. You were supposed to get out after three years?” I breathe, my voice breaking too. The buzz under my skin isn’t faint anymore. It’s burning, crawling. Almost painful. Like it’s warning me of what’s to come. Of the truth I tried to bury.
“Yeah,” he confirms quietly. “I’ll get to that soon enough.”
He sighs and presses two fingers to his temple, eyes narrowing dangerously. “I was transferred to max and by the time I had contact with the outside world again, the news came. You were fuckingmarried. To none other than the pig who ruined my life.”
His voice drops lower. “I’d already been jumped in the yard at this point. Two fuckers held me while another kneed me in the ribs. I knew I might never get out alive. And while I was fighting to survive, you were moving on with another man. I got too angry to see past it. And the years that followed only made me angrier.”
Dread coils around my spine, my chest, my lungs. The air feels too thick and too thin at the same time. He keeps staring into the dark, lost in the past. I can almost see the younger version of him sitting here, right in front of me. Full of pain, fury, and an agony that had nowhere else to go except inside his soul.
“For three years, I was shoved down the stairs. Kicked in the kidneys. Had salt rubbed into shallow cuts. Shivs rammed between my ribs. My fingers stepped on. My bones broken.”
He swallows. “I lost four fucking teeth. Had to get implants when I got out.”
“But it wasn’t the constant attacks that destroyed me,” he murmurs, the skin around his eyes tightening.
He clears his throat, flexes his fingers, and keeps going. “In the end, I survived those. I had to. But by the time Pops got me protection, it was too late.”
