Page 69 of Smith

“You don’t?—”

“You’re my brother, so I mean this with love and respect—shut the fuck up and listen to me, Smith. You pulled her out of that shithole. You were living your own nightmare and you still had it in you to get her out. You couldn’t control the situation, no one could’ve. That was on Valerie and her mother. The mom stayed with a man who beat her and her daughter. I get people can’t always leave, I get it’s not easy. What you don’t get is, you had no control over that.”

Jesus fuck he had to stop.

“Jonas—”

“You had her free and clear of her father. She went back. Her choice, Smith. None of this shit is your fault.”

I could take no more.

“I didn’t try to stop her,” I contradicted. “I made some half-assed attempt but I didn’t try very hard. I could’ve but I didn’tbecause I’m a selfish prick who was worn down by years and years of her shit piling on both of us. So don’t tell me I loved her. If I’d loved her the right way she’d still be alive. If I loved her, I would’ve stopped her from going back. If I fucking loved her I would’ve gone with her. I let her leave me. I let her go back to that piece of shit and waste of space brother of hers on some misguided quest to save a brother who’d already turned into his father.”

“Smith—”

“This conversation is over,” I decreed.

“Fuck,” Jonas grunted.

Fuck didn’t begin to cover the shit that was clogging my brain.

Old memories mingled with new circumstances, reminding me I was a total asshole. Aria needed to run as far and as fast as she could away from me before I fucked up her life the way I had Rie’s.

I didn’t have it in me for the long haul.

I quit when shit got to be too much.

I made stupid decisions and they cost the people I love pain.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“What in the Sam fuck is going on?”

Zane’s boom made me jump.

“Smith…zoned out,” Kira told him.

Was that what we were calling Smith completely disengaging from the room? His eyes hazing over with pain. His departure from the present so ominous the temperature in the room dropped to near freezing as he relived some unknown terror.

Smith hadn’t zoned out—he’d time traveled to a place of suffering and trauma.

“Aria?”

Zane had softened his tone and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

“Yeah?”

“Honey, look at me.”

I was looking at him. Straight into a pair of concerned blue eyes.

This wasn’t good. Wherever Smith went, Zane knew the road he’d gone down, and he knew it wasn’t a good place to be.

“I am.”

“No, Aria.Seeme.”

I didn’t understand the difference, I was looking right at the man.

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