Page 30 of Dark Biker Protector

"What do you mean?" he asked, though he slid his eyes away from mine as he spoke.

"Whenever this stuff comes up," I pointed out. "You always talk as though...as though you’ve seen something like it before."

He fell silent for a moment, and then let out a sigh. Dropping his chin to his chest, he began to speak – slow, halting, clearly struggling with saying it out loud.

"There was something," he admitted. "There was...someone. A long time ago."

"Who?" I whispered to him, linking my fingers through his. I could tell just by looking how hard this was for him to put into words, and I needed him to know that he was safe with me – that I wasn’t going to throw this back in his face. I just wanted to understand him better. I wanted to know what he had been through that had left him with so much pain when it came to shit like this, that had driven him to help me when I had needed it most.

"My sister," he admitted, finally. "She...she was in a relationship with this guy. Liam. I guess he started off pretty good, but then he...turned on her."

"Turned on her?”

"Started to get possessive, at first," he explained, haltingly. "Started out like that. And then...he was physical with her. And she kept making excuses for him, over and over again, kept telling me that I just didn’t get how hard this was for him, how much he struggled with all of this shit. It didn’t matter how many times I told her that she needed to get out, she would always protect him. And she would always go back to him..."

His voice cracked. I reached up to stroke his cheek, silently letting him know that I was here for him, whatever he wanted to share with me. It was clear, just from the look on his face, how hard it was for him to admit all of this – how hard it was for him to look back over this painful time in his life and come clean about the way everything had gone, the way he had been hurt.

He paused for a moment, and then pulled himself together and forced himself to keep going.

"And she came to me, this one last time, after he had assaulted her," he continued. "And...and I should have got her to stay. Fuck, I should have told her that I would never let her go back to him. But I was young, and so was she, and she thought she knew better – she thought she could handle it, whatever shit he threw at her. She never could have imagined that it would turn out the way it did."

"The way it did?" I prompted him. He let out a shaky breath.

"He attacked her one night, after she went back to him," he told me, his voice low. "And he killed her."

My heart stopped when he said that part out loud.

"He what?" I gasped, my head spinning. He looked over at me.

"He killed her," he repeated himself, slowly. Like he was just coming to terms with it himself, just handling the sheer horror of what it meant to say those words out loud. "He killed her, because he knew that it was the only way he would be able to keep her. The only way he would be able to make it so she could never escape him."

He fell silent for a long moment, and I saw a tear roll down his cheek. I had never seen him cry before. He had always been so strong, so stoic, but talking about his sister, it was obvious he couldn’t contain the pain of it any longer.

"I should have done more," he continued. There was so much pain in his voice, it ached to hear it come out of his mouth – ached to hear him blaming himself so brutally and so completely for it. When I knew it wasn’t him to blame for this, not a chance in hell.

"You couldn’t have done more," I told him. "You did everything you could-"

"If I had just-"

"You couldn’t have changed her mind," I told him fiercely. "And you couldn’t have stopped him, either. I know how men like that work. I know how they – I know how they function, how they twist things up so you feel like you have no choice but to go back to them, to be there for them, even when you can tell that you’re being crazy. It’s a headfuck."

He lifted his head to look at me.

"I couldn’t let the same thing happen to anyone else," he murmured. "That was why I got involved with you, when this all started. I guess...I saw some part of my sister in you. And I knew I couldn’t let you get hurt the way she had."

I swallowed hard. It was all starting to make sense to me now. It hadn’t just been about me, all of this, it had been about him too – it had been about him, making amends for what had happened to his sister, when he had lost her all those years ago. I could only imagine how much pain and how much of his past this had brought up, but he had been there for me through all of it, through every moment of it. He had never let it get in the way of doing what I needed him to do, and God, I was so grateful, I didn’t know if I would ever be able to put it into words.

I pressed my forehead to his.

"You don’t have to carry the weight of all of that alone," I murmured to him. "I’m here now."

"You shouldn’t have to-"

"You’re not making me," I pointed out to him gently. "You’re not making me take this on. I want to, Chuck. I want to be here for you. You were here for me, when nobody else was, you helped me when it felt like everyone else had turned their backs on me. I want this, Chuck. I want you."

He lifted his gaze to meet mine again, and I could see something shift inside of him – something, maybe, beginning the long path to forgive himself for everything that had happened with his sister. I knew it would be a long time before he was truly trusting in the fact that he’d done nothing wrong, but at least I could start to nudge him along that path. At least I could begin the journey for him.

He gazed at me for a long moment. And then, all at once, he said the words that I had been feeling for so long – the words that, despite my profession, I’d never had the nerve to put out there myself.

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