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I moved over and wrapped my arms around him, needing to comfort him and myself. He tensed under my touch, but I didn’t back away. If he was going to share this with me, then I wasn’t letting him suffer alone.
“I was fifteen when he brought home the first male. He held me by the throat and slammed me against the wall when I refused to let the man touch me. That day, something snapped inside of me. I hadn’t known it was there. But I became someone else. I wasn’t the boy who was afraid of his father or death anymore. I was someone else. My father was on the floor, unconscious, when the haze finally cleared, and I stood there, staring down at him. There was blood coming from his nose. For a moment, I thought he might be dead, and I didn’t care. The man he’d brought in to fuck me was gone. I sat there, watching him breathe for over an hour. Trying to decide if I was going to let him live. If he hadn’t opened his eyes when he did, I can’t say I wouldn’t have taken the gun he liked to threaten me with and used it on him.”
I buried my face in his neck and inhaled deeply. His arms slipped around me and held me against him.
“I walked away that day after he stood up, wiping his bloody nose, threatening me. I packed a bag with the only things I needed and left that house. With nowhere to go, I slept at a park that night, and the next day, Blaise found out I was homeless. He talked to his dad, and I was moved into a man’s house by the name of Waylon August. He was in his late sixties, but he’d been born into the family. He wasn’t in great health, so he wasn’t active within their ranks. He became the father my real one had never been. He liked you. Warned me you were too damn young, but he understood it. Two years ago, he died of a heart attack.”
I pressed a kiss to his chest. He had lived through hell and survived. The family had saved him. They’d been there for an abused kid with no one. I could understand that. I wished I’d known earlier. I wouldn’t have questioned so much. There was darkness in this life they chose, but it didn’t have their souls.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I worship you,” he replied.
Smiling, I tilted my head back and stared up into the eyes of the only man I could ever love. I didn’t understand how I’d left him before. That haunted me—the cruelty of my behavior five years ago. I was thankful for the accident. Thankful that I hadn’t woken up as that same selfish person who had been able to walk away from this man.
Forty-One
Shiloh
When Sunday finally arrived, I dreaded it. I knew the fight with Gage was coming about my returning to my apartment and job. We hadn’t talked about the future or anything beyond the present. Gage hadn’t wanted us to leave his room most of the time. My cheeks heated at the thought of how he’d taken me this morning in the shower. We had been in our own little world for two days.
Gage, Levi, and Huck had unexpectedly left on some business after breakfast. Trinity had said that happened rather regularly. We cleaned up the kitchen, and I went to get a shower, then pack up my things while Gage was gone. When he did get back, I’d be ready to leave. Not that I expected him to take that well.
Once I was finished, I made up his bed and straightened the room before heading back downstairs. When I reached the bottom step, the closed door that I had seen the guys coming and going from often opened, surprising me. None of them were here.
Blaise Hughes filled the doorway, and his eyes locked on me. “Shiloh, I need to speak with you,” he said, stepping back and holding out his hand for me to enter the room I’d been told by Uncle Neil on day one not to ever go inside of.
I wasn’t sure if I was more nervous or curious. Blaise wasn’t someone I’d gotten to know, and although he wasn’t as large as Huck, he intimidated the hell out of me. I glanced around, wondering where Trinity was but I didn’t see her.
Stepping past Blaise, I saw what was clearly an office. I’d kinda suspected as much already.
“Please have a seat,” Blaise told me, then walked over to sit in a leather chair across from a sofa.
I had expected him to take the chair behind the desk and for this to feel more formal.
I sat down on the sofa, feeling awkward. This was strange, and I didn’t understand why he wanted to speak with me. Why couldn’t he have done this when Gage was here? In fact, why was he here when the others were gone? My mind started going in several different directions, none of which made me feel good about this.
“The workings within this family are a dynamic that most wouldn’t understand. With power comes difficult decisions, and in order to keep the balance, there are secrets. Lies are told, and things are done to protect our own. Even if that means hurting them to save them from themselves.
“I’ve had very little interaction with you since you arrived back into Gage’s life. It was a choice I made because I was protecting my wife from any attachments that could hurt her later. You see, I did know you before. Gage didn’t do many things without you by his side. I was the one who stepped in most times to keep him from ruining his fucking life over his jealousy where you were concerned.
“However, last night, when we walked into that room and you had no fucking idea we were there, I heard you. You were willing to give your life in order to protect Gage and me. But that isn’t why we are having this conversation. You begged for my life to be spared because of my wife and child—the two people who are the reason I wake up in the mornings—so they wouldn’t lose me. If there were magic words into my vault of secrets, you spoke them.”
Blaise held out his hands, and then he smiled. Something I had never seen the man do. It was … surreal.
“I have a truth that you’ve earned. One about yourself. About your past. One that I was waiting to share with you until I felt like you were ready for it. This won’t be easy to hear, but I believe, in some ways, it will also give you some peace.” He paused and picked up a glass sitting beside him and took a long drink before turning back to me.
“You and Gage were fucking toxic. Not because of who you were, but because you were still a kid and he was obsessed with you. The level of his obsession with you was more than any teenage girl could handle. You didn’t understand the depths of it. You weren’t mature enough to see what you were doing to him. He was going to lose everything, and after the fucking hell he’d lived through, growing up, I couldn’t let that happen.
“When he burned down the frat house, I knew that was it. Not only as his friend, but also as the future boss of this family, I had to save him from himself. I wanted Gage not only because he was one of the most lethal weapons we had, but he was also one of the best friends I had. Losing him because of his obsession with you wasn’t something I could let happen.
“You were a wreck when you found out he’d been arrested. I waited for you in the parking lot of the jail where they were holding him, knowing you’d show up. When you did, I stopped you and led you to my car. Your eyes were swollen and red from crying. I told you I needed to speak with you about a way to help save Gage. That was all you needed to hear to leave with me.
“It was then I threatened to leave Gage behind bars, disengage him from the family, and turn my back on him if you didn’t leave town. I explained that you had become a weakness for him and I couldn’t allow that. If he chose you, then I was done with him. There would be no more saving him or stepping in. The years he’d spent proving his loyalty to the family would mean nothing. The only way for my father to step in and get him out of the mess he was in would be for you to leave, tell him it was over, that you didn’t love him, and not return. No contact with him. Nothing.”
Blaise paused, then sighed. “You wrote the letter to him while you sobbed.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You weren’t a selfish bitch. You gave up the man you loved to save him. To protect him. The person who woke up in that hospital didn’t have a change of personality. You were the same Shiloh; you were just grown up. The teenage girl who hadn’t understood Gage or life in general was gone. She had existed before the accident. But without the memories to haunt you, to keep you living a life you didn’t want, you had the courage to walk away from the things you didn’t want.”
I sat there, unable to speak. Form words. I just stared at him. My emotions were all over the place. What should I even feel right now?
