Page 14 of Hate Me

And then we sat together awash in celebration mode and levity, enjoying one another’s company, and refusing to let all the rest in.

At least for the night.

4

~Caleb~

The last two years had certainly been one hell of a whirlwind.

I’d done a lot of things, I’d been a lot of things.

And through it all, the struggle, the doubt, the highs and lows, I’d finally found my way.

The sad thing was, the actual career aspect had been what I’d set out to do two long years back before that fucked-up night had thrown me off course, before it had thrown everything off course.

Talk about taking the long way around.

Then again, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to find a balance to that sick and twisted part of me that had been unleashed after that… massacre… I’d perpetrated.

I’d even been able to help others through their dark and fucked-up sides.

Specifically, and my most notable achievement in that area, had been the man who’d become my close friend and ally—and a lot more than that.

Asher Monroe.

He’d come to me struggling with his dark side and fortunately for him it had occurred at just the right time when I’d finally developed the tools to conquer my own. We’d become close following that, although he’d had to go home to Hexwood and then I’d been immersed in setting up my rehabilitation facilities to help those who’d suffered abuse like my sister had. Time had gone by with us at a distance until he’d called me up needing my services to see to the victims he’d been liberating from taking down the Infidels’ human trafficking network. I’d even participated in the final takedown which had ended the entire operation. Albeit not the Infidels organization itself. No, as punishment, they’d taken Asher, the heads, one being his own father, Carson, had tortured him. So I’d stepped in with my hacking skills to help his boys find him, and we’d managed to pull him out.

Although my part of the mission had been completed, I’d remained. Here in their safehouse. I’d been concerned that the abuse Ash had suffered in captivity would reawaken all that darkness in him.

And in a sense it had.

The problem was, he’d had me undo the mental blocks I’d put in place that helped him to control it, because he wanted to transcend that suffering and bring the full force of that brutality and power with the coming final battle against his enemies.

While I understood his reasoning, especially after everything he’d suffered through recently, it did burn that he’d had me undo everything I’d helped him put in place to control that beast within him.

And now his boys, Jonah and Killian, were worried as fuck about him being in this state. Their woman, Aurora, would be too, once they were finally able to track her down and bring her back to them.

Wild times. Intense fucking times.

I returned my attention to the book I was trying to busy myself with while we were in this downtime state before shit hit the fan all over again.

I’d found it amongst the many books in the small bookshelf over on the other side of the living room. Back at Hexwood House, there was basically a library’s worth, but here at the safehouse a lot was limited, as it needed to be. But Ash needed to have them on hand, reading was one of his hobbies and escapes, along with his whole abstract painting thing.

While I usually preferred a good sitcom to wind down, I’d take a book over nothing else. Although, this particular one wasn’t really working for me. It was too depressing, and I’d wanted to veer off that track. Maybe the title, Great Expectations, was supposed to be ironic or something. Who fucking knew?

Well, the guy who I clocked in my peripheral vision now walking into the living room.

I saw him checking me out lounging back on the couch reading with my legs resting on the coffee table in front of me. His eyes wandered all over my vibrant snake tattoos on display in my white muscle tee, then they traveled down to my gray sweats, before taking in my tousled and kind of wild blond hair, the way it looked in my downtime where I just shoved a hand through it and that was the extent of it.

I finally looked up at him, my eyes connecting with his sexy silver orbs briefly, before I took in the fact that he looked like his normal self again. His inky black hair, shaved short on the sides and tousled on top had his fancy mousse styling it, and he was back to his hot-as-sin black jeans and dress shirt combo, the whole ensemble emphasizing all that toned muscle.

I gestured to the open book in my hand. “Does this get less depressing as it goes along?”

“It’s a dreary world being depicted by Dickens.”

“Even so. By the way, this Estella is a piece of work. Then again, she was twisted into that by Miss Havisham from a disturbingly early age.”

“So that absolves her of her cruelty and actions?”

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