Page 109 of Borden 3

“Not if it kills you first.”

If it kills us first…

I couldn’t bear to say those words, but I didn’t need to.

He understood perfectly.

His eyes looked bloodshot. “You regretting it all?”

My brows furrowed. “What?”

Now he wouldn’t look at me as he pointed to the floor. “This.”

This.

He meant us.

I swallowed, my mouth opening. There was a moment of hesitation. He caught it, but it wasn’t what he thought it was. His face fell, and he stood up, pacing now. Helpless, I watched my husband as he deteriorated in front of me. “Borden—”

“I knew it was only a matter of time,” he said. His composure was all gone. His shoulders tensed. He fisted his hands again. “It’s why I pushed you away all that time ago.”

“It was different then,” I returned. “You didn’t want a repeat of Kate.”

“This IS a repeat of Kate,” he vehemently returned. “Except you’re dying while you’re alive, and it’s tearing me apart.”

“It’s been a bloodbath for months! I am trying to deal with it the best I can, Borden—”

“You don’t even turn to me!”

“You’re never around!”

His eyes widened. “Because I’m trying to fix this!”

“By finding other ways to hide your dirty money?” I argued, my face twisting. “We’re right in front of you, Borden, but all you do is breeze through the room, pretend everything is alright when you’re secretly burying bodies—”

“I’m fighting on all fronts, Doll,” he retorted, chest moving rapidly. “Blood flowing in the streets, flowing from my men, and I gotta watch the light leave your eyes every time you look at me? Forgive me for not wanting to involve you in that terror—”

“I never said that!” I hissed. “Don’t put words in my mouth. Somewhere along the way you stopped coming to me, too, Borden. You stopped letting me know how ugly it was getting. You can’t shoulder it all yourself. You keep trying to put out fires, but the inferno is getting out of hand. You can’t do this alone anymore!”

He spread his arms wide. “I have no choice!”

“Then you are seeing the consequences play out in front of you.”

That stopped him dead in his tracks. He tilted his head, peering down at me solemnly. “You think I don’t know that? You think it hasn’t been fucking with my head, Emma?”

I watched him now as his face tensed. I didn’t get a chance to respond as he paced the room. With all that rage and pain in him, the room felt so small with him in it.

“Borden—”

“I can’t live through today again—”

“Calm down—”

“I thought he took you,” he said, his words flooding out of him, growing louder. “I got a fucking call that you were gone and I thought I’d lost you, Emma. Thought that was it. Thought of how I was going to send our little boy somewhere very far away from here. Somewhere nobody would ever find him!” Suddenly he slammed a palm against the wall nearest to me, breathing hard. Bumping his forehead to it, he shut his eyes, his voice breaking. “Then I thought of eating a bullet, alleycat. Because I am poison. I am fucking death to whoever gets close. I can’t have anything good in this life without digging myself into a bigger fucking hole. I always wanted to be a better man. Always wanted to be worthy of your love, but I can’t get it fucking right. I’ll always be that fucking kid on the streets.” He nodded to himself, believing his words. “That hopeless fucking thug, chasing his high, hoping one day that shit would kill me.”

He turned his head to look at me, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “I can’t get it right, baby. I can’t get it fucking right.”

My eyes ached. “Borden, stop.”

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