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The feminine gasp makes my stomach drop. What the fuck?
The body drops to the grass, soft groans escaping. Running up to them, I remove the hood and mask off their face to see who it is.
What the ever-loving fuck.
I immediately recognize the shocked, pale face below me.
Jenny Collins. Scott’s girlfriend. What is she doing out here sneaking around like a thief with a bat? Why did she swing it at me in the first place?
She’s fucking fifteen. I just shot a child. The shot wasn’t fatal, but how in the hell am I going to explain this? She’s just a kid.
“What the fuck, man?” Scott yells from behind me. Turning, I find him holding his phone up, recording. I’m so fucking screwed.
I relivethe worst night of my life for Tara, detail by detail, making sure not to leave anything out. “He planned the whole thing. He wanted to get a video of a fifteen-year-old girl kicking my ass. I swear on my life, I didn’t know it was her. She was reaching for her phone, but I couldn’t see anything. It was so dark and she was dressed like an intruder. I thought we were in danger. I thought she was going to shoot me.”
Tara’s been still this whole time, just listening. I’m glad she let me get it out, but I need her to say something. “Please say something,” I beg.
Her head turns, her emerald eyes searching my face. For the first time since I’ve met Tara, I can’t tell what she’s feeling. Her gaze is blank while she processes. “There’s no way you could’ve known. He knew it was fucked up and still let it happen. He wanted to mess with you, and that’s on him.” I’ve had this argument with myself for years. I blamed myself, and I still do most days. “What happened after that?” Of course, she wants to know that, considering my shot wasn’t supposed to be fatal but here we are sitting in front of her headstone.
“She was fucking anemic… she bled out before help could get there. They said she already had blood issues, and the rapid loss made it even worse for her. I didn’t know that, and neither did Scott.” Memories of her blood gushing through my fingers as I tried to stop the bleeding play through my mind. “I did everything I could, but it wasn’t enough. I killed an innocent girl who had her whole life ahead of her. She was so fucking young, smart, and talented, and I took it all away.”
Tara stands from my lap. She’s going to leave. She thinks I’m a monster. I’m a murderer. Why would she want to stay here with me? I understand, but it fucking hurts. I close my eyes to lessen the pain of watching her walk away.
To my surprise, her warm body covers mine once again. When I open my eyes, I find her pretty greens staring back at me. She’s straddling my thighs with all her attention on me.
“Oh, Rush…” she breathes.
“You’ve told me the worst of the worst that you’ve been through, so I thought you deserve the same. While mine isn’t as bad as yours, the guilt almost killed me at one point. Some days it still gets to me in ways I can’t express. I’ll never forget her lying there with blood pooled around her as life left her body.”
Tara shakes her head. “No… don’t do that. Don’t try to devalue your situation just because you think it’ll hurt me. You went through hell just the same as I did. Fuck, Rush, I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
They tried to charge me with her death, but Scott, the fucking bastard he is, finally fessed up that he was trying to play a prank on me and that I genuinely thought it was an intruder. After he coughed over the video, they realized what I was saying was the truth. With enough money, they made all their problems disappear and Scott never got into trouble for what he did. They let me go after that, which I gladly accepted so I could escape that hell.
In a weird roundabout way, all of this has led me to where I am right now. I started fighting underground after that, which is where Nix found me. If he hadn’t taken me in, I wouldn’t be sitting with this incredible woman right now. Tara is selfless and the most caring person I’ve ever met. She could easily laugh in my face about how my life hasn’t been as bad as hers, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t compare tragedies because they all affect us differently, and we process them in our own way.
“It was the worst night of my life. I’ll never forget it.”
She looks deep in thought. “I understand that. I don’t think we’re ever supposed to forget the pain we suffer. We’re supposed to grow stronger, which is what we’ll do. We’ll make it through.”
I squeeze her waist, pulling her closer to me. “Together.”
She leans in, pressing her soft lips against mine to reassure me. Her sweet taste hypnotizes me from the very first touch, and I let out a moan.
She pulls back. “For what it’s worth, I don’t believe for one second you’re a murderer.”
My heart fills with warmth hearing her say that. She might think differently when I get my hands on Zayan, though. I never wanted to kill that girl or anyone else, for that matter. But him—I’d kill him in a heartbeat for what he did to Tara.
“Let’s get home so I can have you in my bed all to myself, big guy,” Tara says with a mischievous smile.
She’s my favorite distraction.
My cock thickens, painfully pressing against my zipper, but I agree with her. “Let’s go, baby.”
* * *
Restlessness consumes me,and I can’t fucking sleep. Today brought up everything I’ve tried to bury away and hide, but it needed to be done.
Tara lies on her side with her head on Reilly’s chest, sleeping peacefully. Her nightmares have slowly been fading over the time since she’s been back. She’ll occasionally have one, but the two of us can calm her down and get her back to sleep.
