Page 138 of Boy of Ruin
I don’t want to think about the fact he was Jeremiah’s fucking father, too.
I don’t want to think about the Forgues.
That fucking…cage.
The things I did to him.
In the end, he deserved them…didn’t he?
“Did you mean what you said to her?” Mav asks me.
I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about and I start to tell him exactly that, his hand still on the back of my neck, but he interrupts me.
“Did you mean you love her? Do you love her?”
Cold floods my core, my skin tingling. I think about my words to her, before we started fighting again, when she was crying in my lap.
“I love you, baby girl.”
My throat closes up, that ache in my chest back. She’s not with him anymore. She’s on my street. With Ella. Being watched.
She’s back with me, but why does it feel like we’re further apart than we ever were?
Mav’s fingers dig into my skin. “Did you mean it?” he snarls.
I uncurl my hand, glance at the X on my palm.
It means something to me, even if it doesn’t to her. That shit means something to me.
“Yes,” I tell him without looking at him. “Yes. I love her. I fucking love her. And I hate it, you know?” I lift my gaze, dropping my hand by my side as I meet my brother’s gaze. “I hate that I think… I think I’d even…” I swallow down that lump in my goddamn throat, trying to hold it together. Keep myself sane. “Sometimes, Mav, I think I’d even let her go with him, if it made her happy.”
I hate myself for saying that.
I want to hit myself.
Hurt myself.
I want to be stronger. To keep her with me always.
And for now, I will. She’s in danger while someone is after all of us. Until we find out where Elijah’s wife is, who killed the guard, who took Sid’s pictures, who seems to want to get to all of us, I can’t let her go.
But after this? If there’s a way I could let her be with him, and ensure she was safe?
I’d probably take my own life, because I never really had much to live for anyway.
But I’d let her go. Be happy.
“Yeah?” Mav asks, snapping me out of my misery. “You’d let him raise your kid, too?”
My lips curl up in a sneer with that question. I shrug out of his grip, and he lets me go. Stepping back, toward the cathedral, I shrug. “I don’t know, Mav. Not so sure its fucking mine. You know how my wife is.”
With that, I turn my back on my brother and walk into the church that I love to hate.
I adjust my grip on the bar, trying to breathe as my shoulders ache, my muscles throbbing. Staring at myself in the mirror, my body stretched taut, that scar from my piece of shit half-brother a visual reminder of just how much I hate him, I pull up one more time. My chin clears the bar, sweat beading down my back, my entire body trembling as I slowly let myself lower down.
I count to ten, closing my eyes, forcing myself not to clench my jaw. Not to grit my teeth. To think of nothing but the pain in my body, the feel of myself growing stronger.
At ten, I let go, dropping down to the floor of the gym in the basement.
