Page 175 of Piece Us Together

He releases my hand to grab at me again, nails scraping and digging in.

“He wanted Trav to kill him. He—he begged.” He starts shaking again. Gasping. “He wanted to die. My baby brother wanted to die. He just wanted to fuckingdie.”

“But he didn’t,” Nolan says. “Hedidn’t. He’s safe now. He survived, Mais. Hesurvived.”

“He’ll never forgive me. He—he hates me.” He looks at me. “He hates me. And I deserve it.”

“No, Maison. You don’t.”

“The party—they threw a party, at the end. I sat there and fucking—I fucking watched while they—and I just—just sat there, pretending to be bound when I wasn’t, just—just watching—just left him—right there, I was right there, and I fucking didnothing!”

“Woah, wait—you were bound? At a party?”

“Pretending to be.”

“How? Why?”

Maison closes his eyes. “It was a way to get all the biggest names in one place. Capturing me, putting on a show, passing me around, making me watch them hurt Carter—it was their idea of a party. We needed them all in one place.”

Passing me around.

Making me watch them hurt Carter.

“They—wait, you were…” I don’t know how to ask it. I don’t know if he wants me to.

“It wasn’t—” He stops himself, shaking his head. “It was fine. I knew what I was getting into. No one even ended up really touching me at the party. It was the night before, when I was first captured. They—they had their fun. It was just one night.”

I catch the look on Nolan’s face. Maison is lying.

He calls himself out for it, though. Without looking at either of us. “It wasn’t fine at all…”

“Oh, Maison…”

“The scars, on my back, they’re from that night. They—” He pauses, his fingers finding my shirt and clutching the fabric like he’s terrified that I might leave. I hope one day I can get him to believe that no matter what, I’m not going anywhere. “There wasn’t a clock or—or windows. I don’t know how long it went. There were—there must have been dozens. Some came back for seconds. I thought—I mean, Jake was there, he had to make sure it wouldn’t go too far, but toward the end, I thought maybe I was going to die.” He shudders. “I wanted to die.”

I feel the first of what will likely be many hot tears fall down my cheek. I just hold Maison tighter, not wanting him to see it. “I’m so fucking glad you didn’t.”

He shudders, gasping for breath.

“I’m glad too,” Nolan whispers. Then, with a hitched and forced laugh, he adds, “And not just because you saved me.”

“Yeah?” I ask, even though that doesn’t surprise me in the least. “Our boy saved you, darling?”

“He was at the party. We spiked the drinks to make taking them all down less messy. Some of the guys were helping victims whose owners made them drink some too. I found Nolan. He was—” He shakes his head, pressing himself tighter against me.

“I was strapped to a bench,” Nolan explains. Then he meets my eyes. “Blindfolded.”

Blindfolded.

The trigger for Maison sayingred.

Oh, my poor boys.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, even though it feels like not nearly enough. “God, I’m so sorry. I’m so glad you’re both okay now.That you’re safe. That I got to meet you and fall in love with you and now I get to keep you.”

Maison lifts his head then, his expression twisting when he sees the tears on my face. I let him wipe them away with shaking fingers.

I realize as I watch him take care of me that this is the reason Maison carries so much weight on his shoulders, and the reason he won’t let it go even though it’s crushing him. He doesn’t think he deserves forgiveness. He doesn’t think that what happened to him was enough, compared to what he thinks he did to his brother, to others. He’d called himself a bad man and I knew he believed it, just as much as I knew he was wrong, but I didn’t realize it ran this deep. I didn’t realize he was poisoned so far down.

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