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I choked on a sob at the thought, curling into myself and sliding down the cabinets as sadness swallowed me like quicksand. My body never hit the ground, though. Before I could push him back, Liam was cradling me in his arms, rocking us back and forth while his hands smoothed out my hair. I needed it to smooth out the wrinkles in my heart.
Never again will I love this fiercely.
I was nothing but a weak girl, giving in to the only person with the ability to both break me and mend me. I wanted him. I wanted him to be mine. Only mine.
But he was taken.
“P-please. I’m begging you. I can’t do this. Please leave.” I sobbed uncontrollably, my whole body shaking to the rush of tears that bled straight from my heart.
He was both my drug and sobriety. The water to my desert. The oxygen to my lungs.
But I had to let him go. The longer he stayed, the harder the goodbye. I needed a clean and quick cut before I gave into temptation again.
“I hate you.” I lied, but the truth cut like sharp edges, and I had already bled out.
“I know.”
Liam kissed the top of my head and held me tighter against his chest. His strong grasp was all that was holding me together at this moment. It was where I belonged. Where I felt safe. But it wasn’t my place to be. It belonged to another woman.
His fiancé.
I allowed myself to calm down in his arms, lying on the floor of my kitchen, trying my best to regain the ability to speak.
Time stood still as he held me, maybe taking pity on me or maybe just another harsh reminder that this was the end. My end. Who would I be after this? After him? Was there even such a thing?
I sat up straight, wiping my tears with the back of my hand before I spoke again.
“You said you didn’t want to hurt me. So don’t. Your touch hurts, your presence hurts, your kisses hurt, Liam.” I blurted with a new flow of tears as company for my pained words. “Please leave, Liam. Please stop hurting me.”
Without a word, Liam stood up and scooped me off the floor. He took me to my bedroom, and gently placed me on my bed and turned to leave, only to pause by the door. In two lunges, he was back by the bed again, his lips crushing onto mine in what felt like goodbye.
Bitter and cruel in its sweetness. Harsh but tender in its silent deliverance.
His mouth worshiped mine with a tenderness that contrasted with the urge of the tips of his fingers that bore into my skull.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered against me as he pulled back, walking away and taking a piece of my soul with him.
So this is what dying inside feels like.
Chapter 32
Liam
Seeing Jamie hurt was pure agony. Seeing her hurt because of me had me tipping into a kind of madness that saw no boundaries. The Amatos could go fuck themselves. I couldn’t give a shit if they came to my apartment in the silence of the night and stuck a bullet in my damn skull.
I deserved it.
For every tear she shed, for every sob that shook her. I fucking deserved it.
After leaving Jamie’s apartment, I called Matt and told him exactly that. There was absolutely no way I was going through with this sham. I was all heart at the moment, clarity surely wasn’t playing this hand.
So leave it to Matt to paint a fucking picture from Hell and show me exactly why I couldn’t pull out. My Omertà had nothing to do with it this time. They had leverage that gripped me by the balls harder than the threat of a six-foot-three body bag with my name on it.
Jamie.
They knew about her. They knew about my obsession with this angel and that I had dragged her into this hell pit of my own making.
That fucking bartender, Jack, somehow caught wind of the predicament hovering over the Battaglia cosca and decided to rat us out. Apparently Jamie had made an impression on him, too, for him to be so revenge-hungry. Or, then again, maybe it was because I had his fingerprints scraped off every damn digit that dared to touch my girl. He was lucky he was wearing shoes, or that would have been twenty instead of the mere ten I had commissioned.
