Page 139 of Hate Me

There’d been a lot of talk in the house lately of Bastian coming so close to graduating and it had inspired me—well, lit a fire under me—to start thinking about going back to college again. Not Luxe, though. No, where I should have been in the first place before I’d made that detour out of fear.

The weight that had been lifted off me when I’d finally put Jett down after so long was unbelievable. For the first few days, I’d had trouble processing it. That it was finally over.

I no longer had that fear that he’d inspired in me, looking over my shoulder and always worried that he’d come at me again once I rebuilt my life, that every time I got back on track, he’d rip it all away. He couldn’t now. He was gone. Absolutely gone.

There was nothing holding me back now.

Nothing stopping me from moving forward.

I just felt so… liberated.

And I was determined not to stop with that now.

The only cloud over the bright new day that had come was the fact that I couldn’t share in any of it with my dad.

I couldn’t tell him that I’d gotten justice for Mom.

I couldn’t show him what I was working on.

I couldn’t tell him how much the guys had helped me, how much they meant to me.

I couldn’t show him that the four of us belonged together.

All I could do was miss him.

And hope that one day he’d be able to channel all that rage and grief, like I’d been learning to do, into something far less destructive than he was currently engaging in. Destructive to him, because he wasn’t processing it, just using his high-stakes and extremely dangerous black ops work to shove it down, to not feel any of it.

So long as he did that, he wasn’t only lost to me from a distance perspective with him being deep cover, but he was also lost to me emotionally.

It was similar to how Bastian had shut down for so long and now I could see just how hard it must have been for Caleb and Caspian when they hadn’t been able to reach or connect with him during that time.

Maybe one day my dad could turn it around like Bastian had.

“I’m so proud of you. You’re more than even a survivor, Sky. You’re a true warrior.”

Those words of my dad’s had kept me going through a lot. When I hadn’t been able to draw strength from myself, I’d drawn it from him—from those words.

Every now and then, when the world got in the way, you needed a reminder of who you really were at your core

And that was mine.

“Skylar?”

I blinked at the sound of the familiar voice, realizing I’d stopped sketching, and had been staring into space for God knew how long.

“Hey,” I answered, looking up at Caspian now standing over me, his hands shoved in the pockets of his black suit pants, pushing his matching tailored suit jacket back kind of like a cape. His black and silver tie was perfectly positioned as usual, a focal point against the crisp white shirt beneath. He had his long hair styled in a half-up, half-down do this time.

He looked as sexy and as formidable as ever.

Before I could stop myself, I was literally licking my lips at the sight of him.

Being outside on the grounds was also bringing up some dirty memories of that night of our hunt too.

“You’re home early,” I said, rising to my feet with my sketchbook and pencil in hand.

I stretched onto my tiptoes and kissed his cheek and he wrapped an arm around me, nuzzling against me in that affectionate way of his.

“I’ll finish up in my office here later on,” he said, as we pulled apart. “I wanted to make sure I returned before it got dark.”

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