“I mourned him, River,” I say, barely recognizing my own voice. “I carried that weight. For twenty fucking years, I thought he died because of me. Because of that shit thatIplanned. I thought he couldn’t live with what we did. The crime we committed.”
River lowers his hand from his jaw. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“No?” I laugh, bitter and hollow. “Because that’s not what it felt like.”
He flinches.
Good.
Let him bear some of the guilt. He earned it.
“You should’ve told me,” I say. “Maybe not then, maybe not right away, but sometime. You owed me that much.”
“I owed a lot of people a lot of things,” he mutters. “But keeping him safe came first.”
“And what about the rest of us? What the hell were we supposed to be, River? Me? The guys? His mom? Collateral damage?”
He doesn’t answer. Just stands there in that same infuriating way he always has, carrying the world on his shoulders and acting like it’s a virtue.
I turn away from him, jaw clenched so tight it aches.
He steps beside me, careful not to get too close.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he says quietly, rubbing his jaw.
Same old, same old. I’m tired of the broken record.
“Fuck off.” But then Sienna spears her way into my thoughts once more.
Beautiful, brilliant Sienna. Sienna who loves me. Sienna, who I love.
I don’t want to give her up.
But if there’s a chance for Jake and me…
Life with Sienna would certainly be easier, but I’ve never chosen the easy route.
Still…I adore her. Was dreaming of a life with her. Marriage, children…
Yet here I am, my hand still throbbing from hitting the man who brought Jake back.
The man who, for all his flaws, gave me the one thing I thought I’d never see again.
“Brett, I never?—”
“Oh, save it,” I say. “Don’t talk to me like I’m some wounded animal on your ranch that you’re trying to calm down.”
“I’m not trying to do anything right now,” he says. “I’m just…here.”
“Yeah, well, you’re ‘just here’ twenty years too late.”
River doesn’t respond. He stands there, that same damned stillness that used to drive me crazy back in high school when he’d shut down mid-argument instead of exploding. I used to think it made him noble. Now it just feels like avoidance.
“Do you love her?” he asks out of the blue.
I blink. “What?”
“Sienna. Do you love her?”
