Page 68 of Never Trust the Living (Battle Crows MC 7)

“You ever going to tell me why you can’t sleep by yourself?” he asked. “I’ve asked before…”

He had.

And I’d told him that I didn’t want to talk about it. He’d respected it.

But maybe he needed to know.

“When I was a kid,” I said softly, “Amon used to go out of his way to torture me. One of those ways was when I was sleeping.He’d come into my room in the middle of the night and do things to me. Not sexual things,” I rushed to say when he stiffened. “But things such as I was fairly sure from a very young age that he was going to kill me. He liked to see how close he could get before I’d ultimately pass out. Then he’d do it all over again the next night.”

“Pass out,” he stated.

“His favorite thing to do was hold a pillow over my face so that I couldn’t breathe. I’d eventually pass out and go limp, and he’d leave, only to do it again the next night.” I licked my dry lips, feeling his arms around me tighten. I finished the rest with my face practically buried in his neck. “I think I was close to dying a lot in my childhood. Eventually, our parents were reported. We were taken away from them and placed in the foster care system. When they died, the foster homes became my life. We were separated at first. And I started to think my life might turn around. But then he killed my foster parents. And then I got stuck with him because he was eighteen and petitioned the court.”

“And then he tortured you until he found me,” he murmured. “Then you saved me.”

I sighed into his neck. “I hated him. Still hate him. He’s ruined everything.”

“He did do something right,” he murmured quietly, startling me with his words. “He brought you to me.”

I felt my heart start to hammer. “Bram, are you sure that I’m what you want?”

My hand moved up to his chest and I pressed it against his heart.

It was hammering.

“I’ve never been more sure of something in my life,” he assured me. “Those months you were gone? They were the most miserable I’ve been in my life.”

I couldn’t help saying what I said next. “Mimi would be better for you. She’s not messed up like me.”

“She may not be messed up,” he agreed. “But she hasn’t been who I’ve loved for a long time. You are.”

I felt tears sting my eyes as my nose started to run.

God, I hated crying.

Crying and me didn’t get along.

“Bram…”

“I should’ve told you a long time ago and been completely honest with you.” He started to drag his fingertips up my bare back, pushing my shirt farther and farther up to reveal my bare skin. “But Mimi hasn’t meant anything to me since before I even met you. She was well liked by everyone but who was supposed to like her. Me.”

That was news to me.

“What? Why?” I asked.

He sighed, his fingers continued moving up underneath my shirt to play with the skin along my spine.

“Mimi was clingy. And when I say clingy, I mean she never even let me go to the bathroom without coming to check on me if I was over ten minutes.” He sighed. “And I didn’t like how she had something to say about everything that I did. More importantly, when I told her I wanted to do underwater welding, she completely shut down. Wouldn’t talk to me for weeks. Though, she sure the fuck expected to know where I was every second of every day while she was doing the ignoring.

“Mimi is on some sort of weird pedestal that I’m unable to reach when it comes to my family,” he said. “But she’s not therewhen it comes to me. You surpassed her the moment I watched you stab your brother in the chest. I think I fell a little bit in love with you then.”

I snorted into his neck. “So romantic.”

“That’s me. Romantic Bram,” he teased. “They write books about me, you know.”

“That’s actually Dracula, darling. Not you.” I rolled my eyes.

“Oh.” He hesitated. “My mistake.”

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