Page 60 of Fight for You

He places something flat in my outstretched palm.

“Open your eyes, baby girl.”

They flutter open, landing on the small patch he placed in my hand. It’s a skull with wings, a single word across the top. Kratos. His MC.

“Oh,” I whisper, tears stinging my eyes.

“It’s one of my patches,” he says. “I want you to wear it.”

“Cade.” My fingers close around the patch as I lift my gaze to his. My heart is in my throat, beating wildly.

He’s always fought so hard to keep the MC stuff separate from me. I’ve never been part of it, never felt like I had a place in it. He started it to protect me, but I was never allowed to know anything about it.

This feels like the keys to the kingdom.

“I’m going to love you forever, January James,” he says, his voice somber. The same vow reflects in his eyes. “This is my promise to you. When you’re old enough, when you’re ready, that patch will be a ring.”

“I’ll wear it forever,” I sob, throwing myself into his arms.

The day he left, I ripped the patch off my jacket. I didn't want anything to do with the MC. I didn't want anything to do with their bullshit. I turned my back on all of it.

The MC destroyed us.

Even now, I think it's destroying us. I just don't understand why. All day, I've tried to figure out why he thinks he's responsible for what happened and what he could have done that was so bad.

I still don't know.

“It's not mine, baby girl,” he whispers, meeting my gaze. His eyes are so stark, so bleak it hurts to look at him. “It's his.”

I drop my gaze to the patch, see the way my hand trembles. A thousand different emotions course through me, each more painful than the last.

“Titan,” I whisper, my voice shaking.

Cade groans, a broken, devastating sound.

My gaze flies back to his face. I never knew sound had a look, but it does. The exact noise he just made is painted across his face. Torment rages in his eyes, so damn much of it I want to fall to my knees under the weight of it.

How is he still standing? How is he still breathing?

God, it hurts to see him like this.

“Cade,” I whisper, my throat raw and my heart bleeding for him. He’s always been larger than life to me. I knew he was hurting. Since he’s been back, it’s impossible to look at him and not see it, but that was just a drop in the bucket compared to the well of grief and tidal wave of torment raging through him now. He’s kept so much hidden, fighting alone.

I didn’t know.

He jerks away from me, stumbling back a step.

I follow him, determined to...I don't know. Console him? Help him? Carry his pain for him? I don't know. I just know that seeing him in this kind of agony is unbearable.

“Don't,” he growls, throwing a hand up as if to ward me off.

I don't listen. I can't. His pain is my pain. It's been mine for seven fucking years. I need him to share it with me. That’s all I ever needed.

I push my way into his arms, wrapping them around him.

He stands rigid in my embrace for a long moment, his breath a harsh pant. And then he groans like he's dying. Before I can even process it, he has my back pressed to the wall, his hand around my throat. He’s shaking. So fucking hard. There’s nothing recognizable in his eyes, nothing human. It’s just pain and the flames of hell burning him alive.

I know exactly what that feels like. I’d kill to make it stop.