Page 80 of Covenant

I frown up at him. “My brother?”

“Yes.” He rolls his eyes and I fight the urge to pinch his side, just like I used to. But instead, I ball my hands on my lap. “Your brother. Tell me about his accident.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I want to know everything I missed.”

Those words hit my chest and I inhale deeply. Fuck him for making me feel things, for making me want to share this intimate part of me.

I shouldn’t, but I do anyway.

“He was in a car accident. Stupid friends driving like idiots after a big game. His leg got smashed under the dashboard when they hit a tree. They couldn’t save it.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry.”

“It is what it is. Or at least that’s what Jackson says. It’s why I left work that day. He was airlifted to a hospital. I thought he was dying. I thought I was losing him?—”

Matthias is quiet, saying nothing as the rain pounds down outside.

“You should know this, given it’s why I was fired. I left and didn’t explain where I was going. We were in the middle of court and I just walked out. And when I got back, I heard that you terminated my contract.” Matthias inhales as if to speak, but I stop him with a wave of my hand. “And Jen, when she realized I needed to care for him full-time, she left.”

I don’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to know how she screamed at me. How she tried to manipulate me into leaving my brother in that fucking hospital, to just wash my hands of him.

“I always hated Jen,” Matthias says, staring at the opposite wall.

“You didn’t even know her.”

He grunts. “I just got a vibe that she wasn’t good enough for you. I didn’t like that.”

For a moment, I don’t know what to say. “Guess you were right in the end. She couldn’t stand beside me when I needed her most. That’s fine though. It’s not like anyone else did either. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Jackson pulled through. Everything else was taken from me, but I didn’t lose him.”

Matthias’s hands flex open and closed. “I’m sorry, Wy.”

“You should be,” I bite out, feeling that bitterness move through me. This is why I don’t want to talk about the past with him. Any part of it. Because it leaves me feeling raw and angry. Because it makes me feel angry, ugly things, when for the first time in a long time, I’m feeling the opposite. “You made an already horrific situation a million times worse by firing me. I get it, I do. And I shouldn’t have expected you to make an exception for me but…”

My voice trails off as I realize that’s exactly what I expected him to do. I expected our shared past to mean something. For him to fight in my corner just as he once had.

Instead, he betrayed me.

Again.

I should’ve known better.

“I—” Matthias clears his throat and his arm brushes against mine. “Wy, I didn’t fire you.”

“Don’t,” I say warningly, feeling my eyes start to sting. I can’t do this right now. I can’t listen to any more of his lies.

“I won’t. I can’t. I want you to know this. I promise. I didn’t have anything to do with it. The executives decided on it, and when I returned from abroad, I tried to reverse it, but you’d already left.”

“You’re lying,” I whisper.

“No. I’m not.” I can feel his gaze burning into the side of my face, but I don’t let myself look at him. “I need you to believe that I’m not. I went fucking crazy when I came back and found out what they did. Believe me. The last thing I wanted was for you to be out of the job on top of everything else.”

I let out a shaky exhale and squeeze my eyes shut, but it’s too late. Everything I’ve been trying to suppress comes rushing back to me.

The phone call. The clinical voice describing the accident, urging me to hurry to the hospital.

Running out of the courtroom. Not stopping until I saw my brother’s broken body in that hospital bed. Collapsing in a chair. Refusing to leave until they confirmed he’d pull through.

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