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I didn’t know her.
Did I? Did I not know she’d do this all along? Were there warning signs I should’ve seen?
Cade Bryant is a fighter. I always supported that. So tired of boys harassing her because she’s so fucking stunning; she learned to protect herself when I couldn’t. And she’s wicked smart.
Fools think beautiful women have no intelligence. Bullshit. The beautiful need it to survive the threats that come their way.
Like hell, I don’t know that reality, too.
This island, Hilton Head—she knows its every dark corner and luxury location. The water surrounding it, she grew up on it. Between her mother, our former Sheriff with an iron fist, and her dad, who spends his days on a boat, Cade is perfectly trained for this one act.
How to get away with murder.
“No matter how much you hate me, Redix, for whatever I have to do.” Her hands shook while she started packing. “I’ll never stop loving you.”
When she cries, my heart has no restraint. I’ll do anything to make her smile, to make her better. But I watched tears pouring from her beautiful eyes that afternoon while she piled stuff into the suitcase.
And my pain dulled. It was that wicked numb I’m addicted to. The one I sought for nine years. The one I find at the bottom of a bottle. The one that’ll kill me if I ever touch another drop again.
After what she did?
That temptation dangled over my tongue. Liquor never lets me down. It delivers freedom from this pain. Forever.
“Leave,” I told her, and that terrifying urge to drink again. “Leave and never come back.”
Who was that for?
Her. Me. Our past. My addiction. Her crime.
I turned my back on her and walked to the sliding glass door to the pool outside. Slamming it back so hard behind me it cracked, and I didn’t give a shit.
I had to find my sanity, my sobriety. It’s all I have left.
We don’t call or text. We avoid each other.
Cade’s a ghost, and our fight, our new secret… it haunts my soul.
“Redix?” Mike asks again as our circle gets impatient with my heavy silence. “Would you like to share or pass?”
“I pass.”
I can’t talk about it.
Not even if I need to.
I hate Cade. I hate her for making me feel this way because I love her. Because this feels like a disease threatening to end us, and I don’t know what—or who—can heal us.
Still, I’d never hurt her, even by divulging to this group sworn to secrecy that she committed murder for me.
That truth is my new demon.
My eyes lift from staring at the floor, and this place returns. In this sanctuary in a church with light streaming in through stained glass, I get lost in the dazzle of jeweled colors in the window before I look back at the crowd and the woman sharing now.
“Hi, my name is Karen, and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hi, Karen,” we reply.
Her eyes find mine, and she softly smiles.
