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“Family?! She’s taking you away from us!” He angrily points at Annika, and I’m going to chop that finger off if he doesn’t calculate his next words. “From me! I… we are your goddamn family, Ronan!”
“Watch your words, brother! You know her well enough by now, or at least you fucking should, to be aware that she is not the type of person you accuse her of. Annika is the love of my fucking life and she’s carrying my unborn baby, your niece or nephew. I will protect them and make sure they are comfortable until I take my last goddamn breath. Maybe even after.”
“She’s ripping you away from your life!” he shouts, and I swear he hasn’t heard a word I’ve said.
Annika’s hand wraps around my bicep, but I’m not sure if it’s because she wants to hold me back in case I jump him or because she needs the support.
“No, Finn. I decided this. I proposed this. I planned every single fucking detail of this. Me, brother, not her! I’ve been through fucking hell when she was taken. Out of all the people in this room,youshould be the one to understand why I cannot risk that kind of danger again. I have to do this for them, for us, for me… and don’t think for a fucking second that this was an easy decision.”
The veins in his temples and throat are bulging, and I’m not entirely sure if he’s going to blow. I can’t quite blame him. But he takes a deep breath, and it’s then I see what that anger shields—pain.
I look at him, remembering the little bundle Mom and Dad put in my lap when Grandpa brought me to the hospital where she gave birth. He was swaddled tightly in a soft fabric, and I saw the ringlets of wild gold peeking out before I focused on his mushy baby face. He opened his eyes, and huge blue irises stared at me with a kind of recognition only blood can understand. I fell for him at that moment. He was mine before he was my parents’. I was barely six, but it didn’t make a difference. He was mine to love and protect.
The only thing he needs protection from now is me. He’s broken… and I’m not going to be here to fix him. He thinks it doesn’t hurt. But explaining my pain to him is futile. It won’t change a goddamn thing. I don’t want to lose him, but he’s pushing me away and I don’t know how to make it better. All these months, I wracked my brain trying to think of a solution for this situation… I found none.
“When?” Vin asks, suddenly pushing air back into the room.
“Today.”
Annika did say she feels terrible to do this a few weeks before Christmas, but I’m looking forward to our first tradition together.
“You mean now.” He gives me that look that tells me he needs the real answer, and I sigh.
“Not right now… but I guess it depends on how this conversation goes.”
Finn scoffs again, turns and goes back to stand behind the sofa. It fucking hurts, seeing that look in his eyes.
“One day, you will understand, little brother.”
The day will come when his heart heals. It’s Vin who speaks when it’s clear Finn is done talking.
“You’re leaving everything behind, this syndicate, all you’ve built…”
“Is all yours now.” I finish his sentence.
“That’s why you didn’t leave earlier,” Carter states, matter of fact. “The business.”
“Not just, but you knew that already, didn’t you? I needed time for myself, time with you… and yes, I needed to make sure I left when I was no longer needed.”
“You’ll always be needed.” Madds rises from the armchair, his anger seemingly gone as he approaches me. He wraps his large hands around my shoulders and looks down at me with a tinge of questioning, but he shakes it away and pulls me into a hug. “You’ll be missed,brother.”
I smile, and it finally hits me… I’m leaving. We’re leaving… These are our goodbyes. It’s not like it took me by surprise—we planned this—but there was no way to plan for the feelings that would come.
“You’ll be missed too, Anni.” Maddox turns to her and pulls her small body and growing belly into him. “That little one too.”
“Please visit. You’ll have to meet him or her. You just have to,” she begs, sadness in her eyes.
“We will,” he agrees, but I’m not sure how true that is.
He tightens his hold around her one more time, then steps away.
Carter comes before me.
“I’m not going to pretend that I understand this… love, this need that all but plagues you, but I understand the need to protect your own, to create a different, better environment for them.”
“One day, your world will turn upside down, and you’ll flip right around with it. You’ll understand then, you’ll see that it’s actually the right way around.”
A crooked smile pulls at the corner of his lips, a rare sight. It’s even rarer for it to touch his eyes too.
