Page 98 of Call You Mine

That still didn’t mean I’d have a fucking clue what to do.

I couldn’t be a father, not the kind any child needed. Trust me, she was better off without me. But didn’t that make me just like my father? Would fear and fury make me turn into the fucking bastard?

As I watched Wynter walk out of the bar and my life with my baby in her stomach, that’s exactly what was happening. I was turning into my deadbeat father by letting it happen.

I wouldn’t become him. I couldn’t do that, though I also couldn't be what she wanted me to be, what she needed me to be.

I cradled my face in my hands and screamed as I ran my fingers through my hair and pulled, before charging through the bar and out the door. There was glass shattered everywhere. I knew I’d have to come back to clean that up or at least tell Jade what had occurred here tonight before she came in to open in the morning.

Once outside, I searched for her, looked around the empty parking lot, and found nothing. She hadn’t brought her car tonight and I couldn’t figure out why. I ran down the street from the bar until I found her pacing back and forth down the quiet and empty street. It was dark, the street lamp above her flickering in the night, dimming the same way the light in her was disappearing.

“Get your ass back to the bar Wynter,” I demanded, unable to see her out there all alone. “You can’t be out here by yourself.”

“Go fuck yourself, Damon,” she spit back at me, venom on her tongue as she spoke like I’d been the one to ruin shit tonight. She didn’t listen, so I went to her, grabbing her by the waist to tug her toward me, but just as I did, a car came speeding at us, breaking just before it nearly hit us.

Ace leapt out of the car and ran straight to me as I dug my fingers deeper into Wynter by protective instinct. Scarlett came next, distracting me for a moment as she, very pregnant, waddled out of the car toward Wynter. “I’m sorry Wynter, I tried. He wouldn’t let me leave without him.”

I didn’t see it coming, my eyes on Scarlett and the way she was staring worriedly back and forth between Wynter and me. Ace rushed into me, the element of surprise in his favor, and slammed his furious fist into my jaw. It didn’t take long for me to get a hold of myself and what had just happened. I went afterhim, just as hard, and the two of us slammed our fists back and forth into one another like it had been long overdue.

The pain didn’t register. My rage clouded my entire being as I threw myself at the fucker, slamming my fist into his pretty face repeatedly, until we were both drawing blood.

Since the day I met Ace Servite, I have hated him. Everything he stood for called to something in me that made me so angry. So much power, yet he was played like a fucking puppet and hurt people I cared about. And now he was getting between me and my woman.

Beside us, I faintly heard Wynter scream, but I couldn’t really tell if it was her or what she’d said. Blinded by my fury and the way absolutely everything in me hurt, I kept swinging, not caring what part of him I hit. I just needed to get this out of me and fighting, slamming my fist into something, was the only way I knew how.

The metallic twinge of blood sat on my tongue, but it only kept me going.

Both Wynter and Scarlett were screaming for us to stop, but neither one of us listened. We couldn’t see Wynter as she came closer and begged us to stop. “For fucks sake, stop!” she cried out one last time before everything went completely quiet—the moment my blaring fist slammed right into her beautiful unsuspecting, and undeserving face.

My angel, I’d just struck her and ruined any good let in me. Not that there was any, really. But I ensured my descent to hell with that searing touch on her skin.

Ace was the first to react, leaving me to run to his sister's side. But I couldn't move, couldn’t breathe—my lungs burning like they were being torn apart. What had I done? My hands shook, my entire body vibrating with fury and shame. Until I went completely numb, numb at the sight of my girl, my baby on the floor because I had put them there. Blinded by my ire, Ihad done the worst thing I ever had done in my entire life. I had just fucking hit a woman—not just any woman, but the one I loved—the one carrying my child inside her.

If this wasn’t a fucking sign from the universe, I don’t know what was. Was this our future? Would this occur every time I lost control? I was a monster. That was no secret. A fucking temperamental and volatile beast. A dragon by nature—made to maim and destroy.

Wynter didn’t deserve that, and neither did her innocent child.

“You’ll stay the fuck away from her, Drake,” Ace shouted out, bringing me back to reality. “Or I promise I’ll fucking murder you myself.”

He didn’t have to threaten me. I would have gladly done the same thing myself. Ace wouldn't have to worry because after today, after this moment, I’d never see Wynter again.

My eyes couldn’t stray from hers. I couldn’t look away from the tears staining her eyes, the swelling underneath which was changing color. Black and blue, the same way I felt inside.

“Ace, please, let’s just go,” Scarlett begged him, tugging on his arm as he helped Wynter up. She got up, and they hesitantly dragged her to the car. Everything inside of me ached to stop her. I couldn’t live like this, not with the uncertainty her confession left me with. Who was her husband? What was his story? Why was she running? Had he hurt her? And the one I knew was tearing through every part of me—was the baby mine?

I got one last thing out before I completely succumbed to my madness. “You can’t leave me like this Wynter,” I told her, my voice so low I almost didn’t register it was really me who was talking. “I need to know.”

With one hand on the door handle of Ace’s car, beautiful clear blue eyes turned and looked at me. The sorrow in themmade my heart shatter all over again. “Then ask Damon. One last thing you get to ask me before I disappear and you never hear from us again.” Her words hit me straight in the chest, although I knew I’d have said the same thing. “Before I disappear, and you never hear from us again.”

She was leaving, walking out of my life for good, but wasn’t that what I needed her to do? Then why did I feel like she’d just ripped my heart out, thrown it on the floor, and smashed it with the edge of her heel?

Lost in my thoughts, I couldn’t think of which question to ask first. There were so many things I wanted to know, but I knew it wouldn’t make a difference if she told me everything. I could never trust Wynter again. So I aimed for the truth. “Who is he?” I asked, the need to know who he was, the man who’d just stolen everything from me. But he hadn’t, really, because Wynter Servite never belonged to me—not when she was his first. Not when she still belonged to him.

She visibly swallowed back her tears, her fears, all the bullshit lies she told me every time I held her in my arms—the night she swore to be mine forever. “A monster.”

LosingWynter was worse than I ever imagined it could be. Then again, it had only been a mere two hours without her, and my life already felt emptier than it ever had been.

Like a piece of me was missing, torn out of me and in its wake left a gaping hole that would never be full—never healed.

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