Page 4 of If You Fight

Chapter Two

Ryder

Serena’s eyes filled with tears. “I need you to understand what I’m feeling now. This wasn’t just a fight that got out of hand, Ryder. He pushed me down those stairs after I told him I was pregnant. He wanted me and our baby dead. I don’t want to be a victim this time. Can you still love me if I’m not going to be just a victim for once?”

I smoothed her soft brown hair back off her face and looked into those sad, dark eyes so full of emotion. “I never loved you because you were a victim of what your father did or what Oliver did, Serena. I love you because of who you are. Because you’re gentle and kind in a world full of people like them.”

Squeezing my hand, she said, “I’m still that person, if only with you, but he took our baby from me and I can’t forgive that and I can’t let it go.”

“I just don’t want to lose you to this.”

She wiped away the tears from her cheeks and took a deep breath. “You’re not going to, Ryder, but I’m tired of living my life in fear.”

I stepped away from the bed, hating what I was hearing. The beautiful soul I’d fallen in love with was hardening over before my eyes. Her father and Oliver had succeeded in forcing her to be like them.

Callous and vengeful.

But what would happen to us when she became that person?

“Why did you walk away?” she asked as I stood at the window looking out toward the nearby mountains still dotted with the reds and golds of the fall season.

How much I wanted to take her in my arms and run away into those hills until we reached a place no one would find us. We could leave our pasts behind and start again. Now as I looked toward the horizon, I worried when we finally did get the chance to do that, we wouldn’t be the two people who’d first dreamed about running away together as we lay in each other’s arms in that bed in the guest room all that time ago.

“Why aren’t you angry like I am, Ryder? He killed our baby. I thought you’d be furious.”

Inside, rage bubbled up, touching every part of me. I spun around to face her, letting her see for the first time how what he’d done made me feel.

“I hate him, Serena. I hate him like I’ve never hated anyone before in my life. It wasn’t bad enough that he had you there in his bed, but then he took our baby away.”

“You want to kill him, don’t you?”

I wanted to kill Oliver with my bare hands and knew exactly how I’d do it. No pushing him under the water in a hot tub or a gunshot to the back of his head. No, I wanted to do to him what I’d done in The Pit because what he took from me made me feel like I used to when I fought.

Like an animal fighting for its very survival.

After what he’d done to Serena and the baby she carried, only one of us could remain in this world. Either he disappeared or I did, but I wouldn’t be able to continue living with him walking around like he’d gotten away with his crime.

Quietly, I admitted to her for the first time what we never talked about before. “I’ve killed other men for your father. He’ll be no different.”

I watched for horror to fill her eyes as she finally understood what kind of man I truly was, but it never came. Instead, she simply shook her head.

“I don’t want you to be the one who does this, Ryder.”

Walking back to the side of the bed, I searched her face for the answer to why. Why couldn’t I avenge the death of our child?

“What does it matter if it’s me who does it? You’ll be free and I would have protected you, finally.”

“Is that what this is about to you? You being some big protector for sad, pathetic Serena?”

My emotions spun out of control after everything that had happened that day. “I promised to protect you and I failed! How do you think that makes me feel?”

Exhausted from my failure once again to protect her from being hurt, I sank down in the chair next to the bed and hung my head. I understood that she didn’t want to be a victim anymore, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to protect her because she was the woman I loved.

She gently stroked her hand across my back as I sat there hating what was happening to us. “Ryder, I don’t need you to protect me. All I need from you is your love.”

Looking back toward her, I asked, “What if I want to protect you? What if that means something important to me?”

Her hand trailed down my arm and she weaved her fingers through mine, squeezing our hands together. “There was a time that all I thought I needed was someone to protect me, first from my father and then from Oliver. In fact, if you had asked me this afternoon if I needed you to protect me, I would have said yes. But something happened when he pushed me down those stairs and I lost the baby. I woke up in this bed and all I knew for sure was I never wanted to feel that weak again. I never wanted to feel like I had no power ever again in my life. I won’t.”

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