Page 83 of Fight for You

As soon as he touches me, I feel better. Stronger. Like whatever he's hiding from me isn't so bad and we can make it through unscathed. Except that little voice of doubt keeps niggling, whispering that I need to look before I leap, or we'll both end up shattered into pieces all over again.

"I never knew my mom's parents," he says when I don't say anything. "From what I know, they weren't great parents. They treated her like a possession and expected her to be exactly who they wanted her to be. She didn't agree, so she ran away the minute she turned eighteen. She had me a little over a year later. Even after my dad ran out on us, she never looked back."

I run a hand through his hair and cuddle up against his chest, trying to comfort him. I never got to know my dad. He took off on my mom when I was just a baby, but I never spent much time thinking about him. If he wanted to be a part of my life, he had plenty of opportunities. Listening to Cade talk about his family makes my heart hurt for him, though. His dad left him, and then he lost his mom. He was so young. It really isn't fair.

"Her parents died when I was little," he says, rubbing my back. "I never met them. But Ma Lucia knew them. She was my mom's nanny when my mom was a little girl. She practically raised my mom because mom's parents—my grandparents—were too busy with their own lives to spare much attention to the baby they brought into this world."

"I'm sorry," I whisper and press a kiss to his chest.

"When my mom died, someone contacted Ma Lucia after they couldn't find my dad. I guess it was in my mom's will that I should be given into her care if anything ever happened. Ma Lucia picked me up at the group home a couple of weeks after the accident. She told me about my grandparents and how they treated my mom. She told me they died when I was little." He takes a deep breath. "She didn't tell me they were rich."

I tip my head back to look up at his face. He's pale, his eyes haunted. His face is pinched, his lips compressed into a thin line like he's trying not to throw up.

"I didn't know about any of that when we were growing up, January. I just knew my mom was dead, and Ma Lucia was my family. That you and Titan were my family."

"Of course we were your family," I whisper to him, trying to ease his mind and erase the pained expression on his face. I focus on him and only on him, pushing all those emotions trying to break to the surface back down into the little box where they belong.

"The day Ma Lucia died, Titan told me that we were drifting apart. That you and I were going to get out of this neighborhood and leave him behind. He was so sure it was going to happen," Cade says, his eyes far away. "I tried to tell him that shit would never happen, but he wouldn't listen. And then the hospital called, and you came out to tell me I needed to go."

I remember that day. I was so mad at Titan for going through my stuff. We were watching television, and I asked him to get my backpack to show him something. He came out of my room five minutes later with my birth control in his hand, yelling at me about being too young to have sex. I tried to tell him that Cade and I weren't sleeping together, but he didn't want to hear it. He called me a slut.

I slapped him. I was so upset with him. He wouldn't stop shouting at me like I'd done something wrong. As soon as I hit him, I felt bad about it, but then he said he was going to kill Cade for touching me and tried to leave to go find him. There was no way I was going to let him ruin their friendship for no reason. I don't even remember throwing the remote at him, but I did.

The next thing I knew, Cade was there, running interference like he always did. Except it was different this time. I'd never seen Titan so angry before, and I knew things between the three of us would never be the same.

"When we got to the hospital, Ma Lucia told me about my grandparents," Cade says. "She said they were millionaires." His voice drops to a whisper, so faint I barely hear him even though I'm sitting on his lap. "She told me they left it all to my mom when they died."

I don't know what to say to that.

"My mom never touched the money," he says when I don't respond. "She didn't want anything to do with it. She…" He stops and swallows hard. Takes a deep breath. "She left it all to me."

"What…" I'm the one who stops this time. I have to lick my lips to work moisture back into my mouth. "What are you saying, Cade?"

"I'm saying that the day Ma Lucia died, I found out I'm a millionaire," he says, holding my gaze. He still looks haunted, like he's terrified of what I'm going to think or what I'm going to say. "I didn't want the money. I didn't ask for it. All I knew was that the people who hurt my mom left behind all this money she didn't want anything to do with. Ma Lucia was dying. Titan was so sure we were going to disappear and leave him here. I didn't want the money to change us, so I never said anything. Not until…" He shakes his head, immense pain reflecting in his eyes. "I never said anything because I didn't want to lose the only family I had left."

"Oh, Cade," I whisper, not sure what else to say. He had to have been so confused and afraid, finding out he had all this money while the woman who raised him was dying in front of him.

He loved Ma Lucia intensely. Losing her was hard on him. I can't imagine what was going through his head. It hurts to know he kept this secret from me for so long, but I don't blame him for it. I'm not angry at him over it. I wish he would have told me so he didn't have to carry that burden alone, but the money wouldn't have mattered to me. I never cared about money. All I cared about was him.

He picks up the sheaf of papers before dropping them in my lap. I don't look at them, though. Nothing they might tell me will impact how I feel about him. I loved him when he was just the sweet little boy growing up in poverty right next door to me. I love him now that I know differently. I've loved him a thousand different ways, and I always will. All the money in the world won't change that. It can't.

"I've only touched the money twice," he whispers, still not looking directly at me. "To pay for…" He stops and swallows. He opens his mouth and then closes it again like he's trying to find a way to force the words out. "To help pay for…"

"The funerals," I whisper, saying out loud what he can't. The words hurt like hell. All those old wounds, all that pain I've been refusing to think about or deal with for so long, creeps a little closer.

He nods. "And once after I left, to make sure Ma Lucia's house was taken care of. I couldn't sell it and I didn't want it to fall apart, but I couldn't come back. You told me to leave, and I…I couldn't come back."

"Why couldn't you come back?" I ask, knowing we can't put this off anymore. He's so damn sure he couldn't come back. He has to tell me what he's been hiding, what made him feel that way. I have to know.

"Because I'm the reason they died, January," he says, his voice breaking. "Your mom and Titan were murdered because of me."

Chapter Sixteen

Cade

Then (Age Twenty-Two)

"You asked her to marry you?" Titan asks as soon as I step out onto the front porch and close the door behind me. He's standing on the far side, his arms braced on the railing and his back to me. His head hangs low between his shoulders. Defeat radiates from him.