“Rainer paid him.”
Her face drains. “How much?”
The number sits in my throat for a moment before I let it out. “One hundred and three thousand.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.” I observe her. “I know.”
She looks out across the roof, blinking fast. “And the debt. Is it completely finished now?”
“Yeah, it’s clear. I never have to go back into that world again.”
She nods once, processing it, and I give her the space to do so because she has earned the right to take whatever time she needs with information I should have given her two days ago.
“I hated every second of it,” I say. “Watching Rainer put that cash on the bench. Watching Ricky’s guy count it. Watching Griff stand there with that asshole smile of his, knowing exactly where to aim.” My jaw tightens. “I wanted to break his stupid face.”
“Zane.”
“I thought about running,” I say. “Out of town. Out of your life. Out of Rainer’s before my shit cost him more than money.”
Her face twists and I hate that I put it there. I keep going anyway.
“I told myself it would protect you. Same old lie in a new fucking jacket. I thought I could leave before the damage spread. Leave before you looked at me and realized that loving me comes with men at the door, debts I can’t pay, and my old life that keeps dragging it to my door no matter how much I try to bury it.”
I see tears forming in her eyes.
Mine burn too. Still, my gaze does not shift. I owe her every uncomfortable, honest second of this.
“I thought that if I left, maybe Rainer would stop having to clean up after the broken kid he found in a skip. Maybe that you could love the memory of me instead of waking up every day next to the mess.” I stop. “I was alone in that workshop and I thought that I had caused you both enough pain. That you would both be better off without me.”
Her mouth trembles.
“But I did not run,” I say. “I wanted to. Fuck, Sky, I wanted to so badly, because leaving is the only thing I ever learnt to make appear noble. But I worked on that Chevy all night because if my hands were on the engine, they were not on a bag packing to leave, or around someone’s throat. Instead, I finished the car.I watched Rainer pay the debt. I let Ricky walk out with the money, which almost killed me.”
“Why do you think leaving would solve everything, Zane?”
I stare at her for a moment. “Because I could not hurt you again.”
I stop because the next part sits heavier. “And because of Rainer.” I drag a hand over my jaw. “That man paid a hundred and three thousand dollars for my mess without blinking, without making me feel like shit for it, or asking for a single thing back. And for the fucking life of me, I still don’t understand why he does what he has always done for me. I never have.”
Skylar looks at me for a long moment.
“You don’t see what we do,” she says quietly. “Do you?”
I stare at her. “What I see is a man who keeps costing everyone around him and running out of ways to justify himself.”
“That’s not what I see,” she says. “And it is not what Rainer sees either.”
“Then what do you see, Sky? From where I’m sitting, the view is pretty fucking clear.”
“I see a man who keeps showing up, even when it costs him something.”
I turn my gaze away because her face is doing something I cannot bear to watch right now.
“You know what I see every day in my job,” she says. “Kids who run the second something good gets close, because nothing good has ever stayed long enough for them to trust it.”
She leans in closer, forcing me to look at her.
