Page 75 of Fight for You

I don't have to guess to know what she's thinking about. She isn't sure if she wants me here or not, isn't sure what she should want. I hurt her this weekend. That wasn't my intention, but that's what I did anyway. I was selfish, putting my fears above her needs. And now she's struggling, trying to figure out where we stand or where she stands with me.

Yet again, I've made her think I don't want her when the exact opposite is true. I want her so goddamn badly the thought of losing her for good is, quite literally, the worse scenario I can conjure up.

"Since she is here, in a place of blackness, here I stay and wait," I say softly.

She lifts her gaze to mine, a question in those pretty eyes.

I grab the hem of my shirt and pull it up over my head before dropping it and turning slightly so she can see what I'm talking about. "Your name on my side," I explain. "That's what's hidden in the letters. It's part of an untitled poem by Stephen Crane."

"What does it mean?" she asks, her curious gaze locked on the swirl of the words.

"It's what kept me alive for so long," I confess, watching her as intently as she watches me. "Being without you was hell, but I fought to survive because of you. Because so long as you were alive and breathing, I was determined to keep myself that way, too. I know you've been hurting, but you were never alone, January. I've been in the dark with you, waiting."

"Why?" she whispers.

"Because I never stopped loving you. Because it was my punishment for ruining your life. You keep thinking I don't want you, that I left because I didn't love you, but you're wrong. I left because the thought of you hating me tears me apart." I reach for her hand and place it on the jagged scar that runs across my side. "I got this a little over a year ago when a gang decided they were going to gang rape a fifteen-year-old who thought she wanted to join up."

Pain flares in her eyes, and her hand trembles on my body.

"I seriously injured four people and killed three others that day, sweetheart," I confess, my voice soft. Before she can react to that, I move her hand, putting it over the scar across my abdomen. "I got this one when a guy a lot like Kaleo decided he wanted to make a name for himself by taking me out. I killed him and the eighteen-year-old kid he brought along to help him."

"Cade," she whispers, but I don't let her finish.

I need to get this out before she says anything. If I don't, I'm not sure I'll be able to do it at all.

I drop to my knees in front of her and place her hand over the two scars on my chest. "I got these trying to take down a motorcycle gang. Before I passed out, I killed the guy who shot me." My hand shakes when I move hers to the last bullet wound, the most recent. "I got this one trying to rescue my friend at the DEA, Tristan. The same psycho who kidnapped his wife tried to kill him four months ago. The bastard's girlfriend shot me. I killed her, too."

That's the one that still bothers me. All the rest, I did what I had to do to stay alive. But killing a woman fucked me up a little bit. I think it always will.

"These are from a broken beer bottle someone stabbed me with," I murmur, moving on to the two small scars near my collarbone. "The cartel member who did it is still in prison for the attempted murder of a law enforcement officer. This one," I tell her, placing her hand over the one on my sternum, "is what happens when you aren't careful. Some nineteen-year-old kid barricaded himself inside a woman's house after shooting and killing two rival gang members. I went in after him. Thought I had him subdued, but I didn't see the knife in his boot. He stabbed me and then grabbed the woman, intending to kill her. I shot him."

Tears well in January's eyes, and her hand trembles as she explores each scar with tentative fingers. "None of that was your fault," she whispers as her little hand slides across my skin, leaving me aching with need. "You were just doing your job."

God, she's so innocent, so trusting. I pull out the note Kaleo's boys left for her to find. The one I stole to keep my secret. I hold it out to her.

Ask him who he killed.

She peers down at it, frowning in confusion as her eyes track across the scrap of paper.

"This is who I am, baby girl. It's who I was long before the DEA put a badge in my hand and told me to have a go at keeping Seattle's gangs in line. I'm a killer," I whisper, my voice hoarse. "The day before I left Los Angeles, I murdered three people. I don't regret it. I'm not sorry. It doesn't haunt me."

"Why are you telling me this?" she whispers, searching my face for some answer I'm not sure I know how to give her.

"You wanted to know why I'm so goddamn afraid you'll hate me," I tell her, keeping my gaze locked on her face. My throat burns like fire. "The three people I killed then, all the ones I've killed since…I don't regret it. If I had to do it all over again, I'd make the same choices. I'm not a good man. The only reason the DEA put a badge in my hands is because I'm the only thing motherfuckers like Kaleo are afraid of. I'm the monster who keeps the other monsters in line, and I'm the one they answer to when they step over that line."

"You aren't a monster."

There's so much you don't know. Things that would horrify you if you did."

Those deaths aren't the worst of my sins. They aren't the ones that haunt me.

"You're wrong, Cade," she says, sliding her hand up my chest to my shoulders. Her other joins it before she slides off the couch, wrapping her body around mine. Her lips ghost across my chest, pressing kisses into my skin. "There's nothing you could say that would ever make me hate you. I know why you killed those men, and I don't care. If you're bad, then so am I because I've always known you were the one who killed them, and I kept that secret for you."

"Ah, sweetheart," I groan, trying to find the strength to tell her the parts she doesn't know.

"I lied to you," she whispers into my skin, those soft lips roving everywhere she can reach. "I can't fall in love with you because I never fell out of love with you to begin with. I've been waiting to be yours again for so long. Don't make me wait anymore. Please."

Christ. She's killing me. Each word that drops from her lips tears at my resolve until it's shredded into nothing. It's in tatters around me, unable to withstand the power she has over me. My body, my heart, my soul…every piece of me belongs to her. It has since she was four years old, racing toward Titan.