Page 12 of Thaddeus

No matter how pissed I was at her, I couldn’t leave her on the dirty ground covered in the other men’s blood.

I was weak. A stronger man would’ve turned his back. Which was what I should’ve done. Instead, I bolted from my hiding spot and scooped her up.

Then I’d lost my temper, something I rarely did, as in—never. And now there she was next to me. Something I wasn’t ready to face. Something I’d thought I’d never have to deal with—the demons of my past slamming into my present. The ones that haunted me.

I also knew I was going to be catching shit from Declan. Which I deserved, and that pissed me the fuck off.

I did not lose my shit. Not ever.

Except when it came to Emerson.

But this woman was not the Emerson I’d fallen in love with, she wasn’t the woman who I’d bought a ring for and was going to ask to marry me. The woman sitting next to me in a fancy-assed ball gown was a gang leader’s girlfriend. Not my sweet Emmy. All traces of that woman were gone.

That should’ve made it easier, but it didn’t. It killed. Knowing what she’d turned into made acid churn in my gut.

Declan and Kyle got out of the SUV and I inhaled through my nose, trying to calm my racing thoughts. On the third in-draw of breath, I realized as long as she was sitting close, our thighs touching, I’d never get my bearings. I needed to get the fuck away from Emerson.

I opened my door, got out, reached back in, wrapped my hand around her slim bicep, and struggled with the awareness I was touching Emerson again. Her delicate skin was as soft as I’d remembered. The memory of her so fresh in my mind after ten years it was astounding. There was nothing about this woman I could forget.

And I’d tried. I wanted to forget. I’d spent years doing whatever I could not to think about her. To stop myself from wondering where she was and why she’d left me.

Emerson Pierce was my own personal hell. The agony of her betrayal still as sharp as it was the day I’d come home and found her gone.

“Come on.” I tugged her arm, forcing her out of the car.

“You’re hurting me, Thaddeus. Can you give me a second, please?”

Pain tore through my chest hearing her call me by my full name. No woman since her had called me Thaddeus. I cringed every time I heard one of my teammates call me it, which thankfully wasn’t often. And every time someone did say it, I’d be taken back to a moment in time where I could picture Emerson breathe my name and flash me one of her pretty smiles.

Fuck.

I didn’t need this. Not now. Not ever.

“Thad.”

“What?”

I continued to pull her alongside of me and told her, “My name is Thad.”

We got to the open doorway when she wrenched her arm from my grasp and her back shot ramrod straight.

“What?”

“Jesus, woman, are you hard of hearing?”

“I know what your name is. What I don’t understand is, why you’re telling me what it is.”

“Whatever. Just get your ass in the house.”

“Were you always this much of a dick?”

“I don’t know. Did you always make it a habit of sleeping with scumbags who peddle flesh?”

Hurt flashed in Emerson’s eyes right before they narrowed.

“You don’t have the first clue about what you’re talking about.”

“Right. Get your ass in the house,” I repeated and stepped forward, forcing her move farther into the room.