Page 35 of Gunner

I can’t look at her. Again. Not with her warmth bleeding into me, hitting my rock bottom, sparking light to chase away darkness where none existed before. She’s goodness and I am struck all over again by the powerful knowledge of how unworthy I am.

“Just one simple act of kindness to fill me up for a lifetime, knowing one was too much, and a lifetime wouldn’t be enough,” I mumble.

She chokes and my neck snaps up so fast, ready to protect her from the harm I’ve caused, but I realize that she’s not dying, not choking on my darkness trying to crawl down her throat. She’s just biting back a sob. Her beautiful, pure heart, breaking for me.

Her palms leave my face and grasp my hands. “You know that can’t infect me? Me, who carries the blood of one of our country’s greatest killers in my veins? My father deals death to innocent people. I don’t have to explain drugs to you. They do far worse damage than anything else I can think of. Drugs ruin lives. They ruin families. They impact generation after generation. Your mother… people like my father are responsible for stories just like yours. I know my father isn’t a good man. I know he’s pretty much the worst, and I still love him. I only ever wanted to grow up and save people, to put some good back in the world, maybe balance things out for him. I was born with blood on my hands. At least you had to earn it. At least your sins weren’t inherited. I am far, far blacker than you will ever know. I don’t believe that I’m a bad person. I’m not unworthy of love. I want the things that other people want. Badly. A happy life. A family. Children. I had a happy upbringing despite it all. By all rights, you should be the one who hates me. It’s so ironic. It’s all twisted together.”

I want to be twisted up in her. I grasp her shoulders and hug her hard against me, the blanket falling away. She gasps but twists her arms around my neck in the next instant and holds on to me like her life depends on it. Once, it did.

I inhale her shampoo. Her perfume. “The most fucked up version of destiny. I knew I needed to save you, but you were never for a man like me. I wanted to keep you safe. It filled up the emptiness in me just to watch you be happy. To live. I’ve calledyou mine, claimed you out there, but the truth is, you’ve owned every bit of me from the second I saw you and I crashed back into my body and after a lifetime, I felt.”

“Feeling is hell. A blessed, horrible, lovely hell. It’s a gift, life, and a curse.”

Truer words were never spoken. A curse. That’s all I can be. I’ve done Diletta wrong, coming here. I’ve done the club wrong and all the men in it. Leaving is the best thing I can do for anyone. Leaving and getting lost.

“Gunner…” Diletta pants. She tilts her face up, eyes swimming, her pain and torment etched all over her face. She arches against me, her lips parting. “Tell me your name. Your real name.”

“Can’t do that.” I need to disentangle myself. Fast. “It’s not safe for you.”

She’s been kind to me. Understanding. She should have been raging mad beyond comprehension, but she opened her heart to me. All I see in a flash is her beautiful eyes, full of life, gold flecks gone dark, all that she was and is and could be, extinguished forever. I can’t bring her harm or death. My instincts might be screaming, mine, mine, mine. protect, protect, protect,but she can never be bound to me in any way.

Fury at the injustice of that creeps up into my chest. I soak it up, needing it for strength.

I tear away from her before she can look at me with those stars in her eyes, like it’s possible to erase the past and change the future. It’s not. Destiny? The only destiny a man like me could ever have is to spread poison on the earth and eventually be put to ground for it. I’m walking death until the reaper comesfor me. I’m not here to sow seeds of happiness, peace, and fucking joy.

My bag is already packed. I tear off Bullet’s too tight t-shirt and grab another out of the dresser drawer. It was near the bottom and has that musty smell of clothes that have been shut in for too long. I slam it on and throw my plain, black leather jacket over it. Snatch up the black backpack with my fake passport and a change of clothes. I’m back to being a shadow, a wraith with no identity. I have my wallet and cellphone in my pocket and in there, is the title to my bike, where I’ve always kept it, along with my other fake IDs—driver’s license, credit cards, the whole works.

That’s all I need.

Thirty-five years old and I could walk out of there with nothing,

Diletta shoots up when she sees me grab that backpack. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Leaving,” I grunt, refusing to meet her eyes.

She hesitates for a single second. Kindness hasn’t worked. Compassion, empathy, pity, soft touches, nursing me back to life. She might as well try violence. It’s usually the only thing that a man like me knows how to respond to.

She flies at me, shrieking. “Testa di cazzo! Stronzo. Figlio di puttana!” She goes for the backpack, tearing the strap out of my hand. I let it go immediately so she doesn’t hurt herself. She swings it and hits me in the side, as she yells.“You’re going to drop this on me and then just walk out of here? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I can’t stay here. Not with a target on my back. You’re right about that. It was wrong. If I want to be more than a killer, I can never have a family. Kindness and love aren’t something I can claim for myself. I wasn’t built for it.”

She tosses the backpack aside, absolutely wild. Her hair is all over, her face a terrible, insanely gorgeous mask of fury and passion. My dick is hard in a second, thinking about pinning her to the door or throwing her down on the bed and burying myself to the hilt inside of her tight, hot heat while she scratches my back raw with angry, terrible claws.

“So after five years you decide to just grow a conscience and a pair of balls? You’re going to be the selfless martyr now?”

I roll my massive shoulders back. This might be the one time in my life I get to stand tall in front of her. She knows the truth. I have nothing else left to give her. Everything else from this point will only be a detriment and a danger. “Yes.”

She shoves me. Or at least she tries. I don’t budge.

She has more than that up her sleeve and immediately drops down into a crouch. She kicks me straight in the shin and makes sure I take the stiletto heel. Hard.

I hiss, but don’t give her anything more.

She comes at me again, beating on my chest with her fists. She even times one well to my still healing shoulder. It hurts, but it’s nothing compared to the bomb blast crater that my chest has become.

As soon as she winds down, her shoulders heaving with the effort, I step aside, pick up the backpack, and start for the door.

She doubles around, racing for it, and throws her whole body against it to keep it shut. “Figlio di puttana!”She screams again. I’ve heard that curse a few times in the past, cursing me as the son of a whore. It might be correct, but every single person who has ever said it to me has wound up unconscious, missing a few teeth, or with bones broken through their body.

---