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“The asshole is dead, huh?”
I puffed out a short laugh. “Apparently.”
“Good.” His voice was deep and gruff and sent shivers down my spine.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. Did he want me to talk, to say sorry? I heard his footsteps coming closer and my body reacted instantly, tensing.
“They’re having some sort of ceremony or whatever. He wants me to show up and act like I care that he’s gone.” I turned, not expecting him to be directly behind me. I took a step back, but he reached out and grabbed my arm. His touch wasn’t what I expected, it was gentle, soft. Memories of my dream flooded in and I had to keep my body in check. The urge to wrap my arms around him and just hold him was so fucking strong.
I stared at his hand. “Should I care? Does it make me a horrible person for not giving a fuck that he’s gone?”
“I’d be more worried if you did.” His thumb brushed back and forth against the underside of my forearm, the sensation sent tingles through me. “Marco was not a father. He was a parasite.”
“He’s the reason I’m alive, that I’m here on this earth.” I swallowed. “Don’t I owe him that much, for giving me life?”
“It’s not always about that. It’s about who put in the effort, who cared more about being there for you than whose blood ran through your veins.” I could feel the absolute conviction in his words. He believed what he was saying with everything he had, it made me want to believe too.
“Who put in the effort for you?” I looked up, meeting his deep blue eyes that watched me, taking in every word and movement I made.
Warmth filled me. This was the Blizzard I knew. The man who could see inside my head and know exactly what I was thinking. The darkness had gone from his eyes, a darkness which I had filled him with.
We stood in silence, and for a second, I wondered whether he would open up and share himself with me once again, or whether I’d done too much damage to his soul to ever be trusted with his emotions.
“That other woman in there. That was my mom.” There was a slight crack in his voice at the mention of her. “She hasn’t been around since I was a teen. Up and left, and hooked up with another club. Left me with my dad.”
I nodded. “I know what it’s like to be raised by a single parent.”
He laughed, but there wasn’t even a drop of humor in it. “He spent too much time drinking, beating me and hanging out at the clubhouse to be considered a parent.” I took in a short breath. In that moment, I realized that maybe Blizzard and I weren’t that different. “The club raised me. They showed me what it was like to have a family.”
He released me and I missed his touch instantly, my hand twitched, wanting to reach out and pull him back. I felt the moment disappearing, but I was desperate to have it back. To have just a little longer with him while he wasn’t spitting cheap shots and venomous words at me.
“I need you to understand—”
“I understand.” He broke in. “It’s easy to convince ourselves that we’re doing the right thing when all you can see is the prize at the end and how good it could be.”
I was watching the barrier going back up. He’d let his defenses down, but now he was done. Tears welled in my eyes as I watched him slowly step backward as if he’d been in a dream state when he had come to me and now he was regretting it.
“You were my prize.” My breath caught and I let out a silent cry. “I let you get inside me, inside my head. I let you make me feel something. Now you have to live with the consequences of your actions.” And there it was, the wall was back up and his eyes were narrowed, once again seeing me as a threat. “And I have to live with the consequences of mine.”
He turned and grabbed hold of both door handles flinging them open. They slammed back against the building so hard, I was surprised they didn’t shatter.
And then—he was gone.
Tears streamed down my cheeks and dripped from my face.
I thought that the day he’d been shot was the most painful day of my life.
I’d been wrong, though.
It hurt me to see Gio shoot Blizzard—it hurt more than I could even express in words—but this hurt more because now I knew for sure, he’d had feelings for me. They may have only been small, but they were slowly building and could have been something.
They could have been amazing.
I took a hold of the chair that I’d been sitting on, everything inside me wanting to scream and toss it across the patio.
I could take the broken bones, the burns, the black eyes, but not this.
This was beginning to become more than my heart could handle.
