Page 39 of Alpha On Top

Tickling his back, I twisted my head away from his. “Will you tell me why this is happening? I know you think it's better that I don't know, but I need to know what you're protecting me from. Please, just tell me what happened so I can understand.”

Rolling off of me, he peeled the condom off his cock and dropped it into the small trash can beside the bed. Laying down beside me, he pressed his palm to his head and held it up.

His eyes darted around my face, concerned and afraid of the words he needed to use. “I want to tell you, I just don't want you to be scared.”

“I'm not scared, Porter, I want to help. Whoever it is, they don't frighten me.”

“It's not them I'm talking about. . .” Pausing, he dropped onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. “I'm talking about me. I don't want you to be afraid of me.”

“You're never going to know if I will or not unless you tell me. Let me decide if I should be scared of you.”

Sighing hard, he stuffed his hands under his head. “I was a hitman for the mob, Emery.”

“A what?”

“I killed people, a lot of people. But I'm done with that, and I have been for a long time. The problem is, those men—my boss, they want me dead. That's how it works, you don't just decide you're done and walk away. I tried to leave, and now they're after me and anyone they think I care about. Which includes you too now.”

“But we just met, and I didn't do anything to them.”

“They don't give a shit about that, it doesn't matter. That's why I have to protect you, that's the whole reason I took you.” Turning onto his side, Porter softly touched my ribs, tracing one bone at a time. “If I had let you go home, you'd either be dead already or held captive as bait.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We're not doing anything. You're going to rest and get better, and I'm going to kill each and every last one of them. They've already taken so much from me, I won't let them take you too.”

“So last night, you were at the club—”

Cutting me off, he blurted out the truth. “I was hunting, but I didn't think anyone was there.”

The way he said it sent shivers up my spine. The hate had returned, the coldness revived and growing as he thought of the men who were after him.

“And your family? They know about all this?”

“I had kept it a secret for a long time, until the night it all came crashing down. I left, I tried to hide, leaving and going invisible with the hopes that they would just move on. But it doesn't work that way. They went after my family trying to get to me. They killed my brother, Emery, they destroyed my life. Now they have to pay.”

Scrambling to sit up, I nervously played with my fingers in my lap. “So they know we're here, they can find us?”

“No not here, my parents moved away, they did everything they could to stay safe. But my brother wouldn't give up on me. Franco told me he had gone out one night to look for me, that he needed to know I was alright. They found him, they were waiting for one of us to make a mistake.”

“Oh my god, Porter, I'm so sorry.”

Shaking his head, he tilted to look up at me. “Don't be, it's not your place to be sorry. You didn't do anything wrong.”

“I know, but that's so sad. When did it happen?”

“I took off about a year ago and went into hiding. I thought that would stop all this, I thought that if I was out of the picture that they'd leave my family alone. But it didn't work that way. My brother died three months ago, and it still doesn't feel real. This all feels like a bad dream, but it's not, it's my life.”

“What happened?” Holding up my hand, I said, “I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me, that was a dumb question. I'm sure it's hard to talk about.”

Pushing out his bottom lip, he shrugged his shoulder. “It's fine, I've already told you more than I had planned on. I was five when my mom met Franco. . .”

Using my hands, I turned on the bed so I could look at him as he told me his story.

He started in the beginning, about how his stepfather had been a dick and treated him like an outcast. There was so much verbal abuse from his stepfather, it stung. I felt for him, I cried for him.

The tears rolled down my face, falling weightlessly onto the blanket and disappearing into the cotton.

How do you deal with that?

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