Page 54 of Breaking Blaze

“You can’t blame me for shit, boy. You’re the one who ran away to play sailor. You’re the one who stuck your dick into every cunt in town, leaving that sweet piece to watch you manwhore your way through life. It wasn’t me who lied to myself over and over again about how I was doing it for her—but we all know you were doing it for you, you spineless shit.”

Blaze roared, blistering wrath searing his veins, boiling the acid in his gut until his tongue was bubbling with it.

“If you hadn’t—”

“I’m dead, boy! Stop blaming me for the shit your life has become. Time to own up. Time to man the fuck up. Time to realize that ghosts are smoke and bad memories.”

Struck dumb by the words—words that sounded far too familiar—he sank to his knees, his body like the pulp, ground to nothing.

The voice drifted, haunting. “You made her bloody, son. You did that. Well done.”

A scream blasted from his throat and he shot up. Trembling in the dark of his office, his wide eyes taking in everything; the desk where Brigit had kissed him, the filing cabinets now holding a copy of a contract that should have had him celebrating, the couch where he’d been sleeping the last three nights…. It was all familiar. All fucked up.

Shuddering, he swung his legs off the couch and slammed his forehead into the heels of his palms, rubbing at the phantom ache between his eyes.

He couldn’t breathe. A tank was parked on his chest, squeezing his lungs and heart until he suffocated. Until his blood stopped pumping through his veins.

“Fuck!” he bellowed into the stillness. He gasped for a breath, closing his eyes against the memories of the too real dream. A dream where he’d confronted the monster who’d made him. The monster who’d been haunting him for too long.

His father, Bill Harris, had been dead for six years—his booze-soaked carcass finally giving up after Blaze had already been an enlisted sailor for a year. By then, the immediate threat against Anna had past, his dad’s threats rendered harmless, but he was still sworn to serve another three years. And so, he sucked it up, gave his time and body to the US Navy, and once his time was done, he’d come home to her.

By then, though, the ghost of a dead man had rooted itself so far into his thoughts and life he couldn’t shake him loose. And so, instead of finally telling Anna how he felt, taking her into his arms and winning her first kiss, he’d gone the easy route, the one where the ghost was silent. He’d plowed through women, seeking numbness, seeking a release that never came. Sure, he fucked and filled condom after condom, but none of those women could ever come close to the woman he really wanted to be with. But he kept going. Kept hiding behind his near nightly female mistakes. Kept telling himself that each one of those women was capable of filling the empty place in his soul where Anna should have been.

“I’ll take her, too, boy…because you’ll be too much of a coward to keep her….”That voice…the one that had been haunting him, taunting him for too long returned. This time, however, the words were different. Startling. Terrifyingly true.

His father hadn’t done a damn thing to hurt Anna, but Blaze sure had.

Then, like a battering ram, AJ’s words slammed into him.

“…he’s dead. He can’t hurt you. He can’t hurt Anna. Nah, that’s all you. Believing that because you come from shit you are only ever going to be shit, so you don’t deserve to be clean…put all that shit aside and take and cherish the goddamn treasure you’ve been offered.”

Anna was a treasure. The greatest treasure he’d ever known. No, he didn’t deserve her. No one did. But no one would ever love her, cherish her, adore her like he would. It was impossible. She was his everything.

“Goddammit,” he roared, jumping from the couch to begin pacing the length of his office. The soft light of the dawning sun fluttering through the half open blinds to kiss the surface of his desk…his filing cabinet…his couch. As if gently cleansing each surface of the ugliness that had tainted it.

Grabbing his keys from the hook by the door, he slammed out of the building and strode to his truck, his steps sure, his purpose goddamn necessary for breathing.

He’d fucked up. He’d hurt his Anna, but he was going to make things right.

He had to.

He’d die otherwise. A broken man.

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