AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Freddie freezes, pausing the sizzling sensation for a second. “Do you remember what I told you about my family being in an accident?”
Something about that sounds familiar, but the memory hides behind a veil like I’m remembering a scene from a film I haven’t watched since childhood. I nod, anyway. Darkness stirs behind Freddie’s eyes. Is it regret? Sadness?
“It was my fault.” His words are barely audible. He’s not just talking to me now, but to himself. “It’s my fault they’re dead.”
My heart skips a beat—not because of Freddie’s omission, but because it’s something I understand. Better than anyone.
“What happened?”
I expect him to dismiss my question and tell me it’s a story for another time, but he doesn’t. He sighs and looks at his scar, wincing in invisible pain. My tits are practically falling out of my bra, but he doesn’t look at them as his gaze moves back to my face. His past mistakes haunt his amber eyes, and their sparkle dulls.
“I used to be in the police force,” he explains. That doesn’t surprise me. From what I’ve seen, Freddie makes the rules. He likes routine and giving orders. “But I quit the force and moved overseas to Italy. My mother is Italian, hence the slight accent.”
“You hadn’t been back in the UK long when I first met you,” I recall.
Freddie nods while I stroke his shoulder, encouraging him to continue.
“I moved my parents and sister out there to be with me,” he explains. “They were all the family I had, and I bought a beautiful Italian vineyard. It was small, yes, but it was our slice of heaven. It was the most beautiful place on earth…” A small smile dances over his lips as he replays the memory, and then they set into a grim line. “But I got mixed up in the wrong crowd. I started dealing weapons and upset the wrong person.”
My stomach churns. I’m too familiar with the sickening dread that comes from knowing your actions wiped the person you loved the most from this world. You live in a vortex of what-ifs and maybes. Forever sentenced to a purgatory of regret and self-torture. Confined to a prison in your head with a life sentence and no prospect of escape.
What if I saw through Spencer’s bullshit? Daisy had warned me. I ignored the red flags because he wooed me with grand gestures and false charm. She wanted me to leave him, but I wanted to see the best in him.
What if I never got into the car with her that night? I could have got the train early the following day after staying in the hotel with Freddie. Would Daisy have survived? Would Spencer have found another way to get to me that didn’t involve her, or would Freddie’s bones be turning to dust in a cemetery instead?
“I got home from work one night, and I’ll never forget the silence,” Freddie says. “It was eerie. The house was a hive of activity usually. My mum liked to cook, and my sister always found something to argue with my father about. But when I got back that day, there was nothing. Stillness. Then I found all of them. Dead. Gunned down. They had no way of defending themselves. They didn’t even know what I did for a living. They thought I was doing something for the British police, but I stepped on someone else’s turf and paid for it. They paid for it.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I whisper, even though it’ll change nothing. He’ll always blame himself. That’s what we do.
“I didn’t protect them,” he says fiercely. “And I’ll never forgive myself for it. That’s why I started the Dukes. I couldn’t protect my family, but I could protect other people.”
Even murderers and rapists like Spencer?
Would Freddie kill me to protect him?
His mission is noble, but it’s misguided. You can’t protect everyone. It’s a fool’s errand. I prefer to take out the problem. The fewer evil men walking the streets, the less pain and suffering there is. I want to remove the source of people’s fear. Nothing is better than knowing you’ve eliminated a threat.
“My scar,” he continues, “is a reminder of what happens when you make mistakes.”
There it is. Freddie and I are alike, even if we are working for opposing sides. He caresses my cheek, running his rough hands across my smooth complexion.
“I will protect you with my life,” he promises. “I mean that. I’m not losing you. I’ve let the people I care about down before, and I’ll never do that again.”
“I know you won’t,” I say because I know it’ll be me lettinghimdown.
Sooner or later, when Freddie finds out who I am, he’ll want to protect his men from me.
CHAPTER24
FREDDIE
I’ve not spoken about my family for years. I push it away, seal it in a box in the back of my mind and fasten it with chains. Forgetting is easy. Detachment is what my years of experience have trained me for.
“I know what it’s like to lose someone you love and be left alone.” Rose’s voice trembles with emotion, layered with a deep pain that only someone who has gone through the same can detect.
I see her pain. I understand it, and I want to fucking erase it. She’s safe when she’s with me. I’ll make sure she wants for nothing because that’s what she deserves. A home. Maybe that’s what I want too…
The Dukes are a family. My family. Seb is my best friend, Bram is a brooding figure I can’t imagine life without, and Callen… well, he’s just an arsehole, but all families have one of those. But I’ve been missing something, and reuniting with Rose makes me realise what that is. It’s her. She fills the empty void.
