Page 16 of Scars He Gave Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 2)

“What would my mom do?” he asks. “She can’t pay for me to go to college.”

His mom. The one topic he refuses to broach. She’s had cancer for a long time, multiple bouts of it, and every time it goes away, I hope that it never comes back. But it always does. This round is the worst yet.

I can see him fighting the emotions. He thinks of himself as a warrior. Too tough to cry. Too tough to show his feelings, even to me. But something must have happened recently. A bad doctor’s visit, something like that. His lower lip is trembling no matter how hard he tries to stop it.

“You can tell me anything,” I whisper to him. “It’ll be okay.”

He stares up at the ceiling. I take his chin in my fingers and make him look at me.

“It’ll be okay,” I say again.

He shakes his head. A tear spills out—a lone tear. I kiss it away.

Tommy’s never been much for words. So when he kisses me fiercely, I know that this is his way of communicating with me. The sex that follows is different than any of the sex we’ve had before. It’s passionate and emotional, but also sweet. Almost tender.

We come as one, foreheads pressed together. Then we curl up together, him spooning me from behind in his strong arms. I’m wearing his t-shirt because I love smelling him all around me, feeling like he’s hugging me from every side.

As we’re drifting off to sleep, I hear his phone start to buzz on the nightstand. He goes to reach for it, but I pull his hands back around me. “Leave it for the morning,” I beg. “It’ll be fine. Just hold me.”

He looks at me, sighs, and comes back to wrap me up again. We fall asleep like that. It’s the best moment of my life.

I wake up in the early hours of the morning. I’m cold, shivering. I hear motion. The rustling of cloth. Rolling over and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I see Tommy stepping into his jeans and putting on his boots. His movements are tight and angry.

“What’s wrong?” I ask blearily.

It’s like someone replaced Tommy with an ice-cold marble statue that moves and breathes and looks exactly like him. He doesn’t so much as blink to acknowledge my presence.

“Tommy, what is it?” I ask again. I sit up and try to wrap an arm around his neck. He throws it off.

Panic is rising in my throat. I get out of bed and come around to kneel in front of him. But when he finally looks at me, I wish he hadn’t. His eyes are blazing with cold fury. I recoil, terrified.

“Please talk to me,” I beg.

When he does, his words are brutally clipped. “My mom needed me last night. But I ignored her call. Because you asked me to. She’s in the hospital now. It doesn’t look good.”

There’s no question who he blames for this. The hate in his face says all the words. “She needed me. And I was here.” He stands up straight. “She had to wait an hour for an ambulance because I was here fucking you. Instead of where I should’ve been.”

He looks at me, sees that I’m wearing his t-shirt, and scowls. It’s the cruelest thing he’s ever done to me.

He stomps out of the room bare-chested. I follow him. Tears are flowing down my face now, a waterfall of them. I couldn’t stop them if I tried.

We go down the stairs, out the front door. He’s halfway across the lawn to where his car is parked before I find my voice.

“Tommy!” I cry out. He stops but doesn’t look back. “I love you.”

Tell him, pleads the voice in my head.Tell him your secret. He has to know.

But I can’t. I just can’t do it.

He gets to his car, climbs in, and speeds away without saying a word.

I don’t see him for ten years. It hurts for a long time. I learn to live with the pain. I don’t have a choice; I’m sure I’ll never see him again.

Until he bursts out of the closet on my wedding night with a gun in his hand and pure fire in his eyes.

5

Corinne

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