Page 135 of Merciless

A sob rips from my throat without instruction from my brain.

Stay strong, Alana. You can do this.

You are better than them.

33

MAVERICK

My heart splits in two as I stare down at Alana sitting on her knees before me in my bathroom with silent tears falling from her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, feeling like the shittiest human on the planet.

She begged me not to fight tonight, but I was a pigheaded, selfish asshole who thought it would be okay.

It was until he stepped into the ring.

Reid fucking Harris.

If I never have to look that prick in the eyes again, it’ll be too soon.

Thankfully, our fathers keep us both busy with our own shit that we don’t really have to spend any time together.

But every now and then, our worlds collide and usually, it ends up with some kind of explosion.

Tonight was no different.

“Mav,” she sniffles, lifting a hand to wipe her wet cheeks.

“I should have listened to you.”

“You couldn’t have known it would have been him,” she reasons.

“I should have just stayed home with you.”

Her watery eyes meet mine and another piece of my heart seems to fall away.

We both know why I fight. Why I need to burn off some steam. It’s an elephant in the room that neither of us has addressed yet.

Alana is still seventeen. A minor. There is no fucking way I’m breaking my promise to her, no matter how hot she might be.

Watching her these past eighteen months has been such an honor. She’s growing in confidence, discovering the young woman she was always meant to be.

I refuse point blank to do anything that could hinder her progress.

Every single night without fail, I wake up to her blood-curdling screams. She begs for them to stop, cries, and whimpers. And there is fuck all I can do about it.

I’d hoped at the beginning that they’d lessen with time.

But they haven’t.

Night after night, those monsters continue to haunt her.

“It’s okay,” she says softly.

After soaking a cotton ball in some warm water, she reaches up and gently presses it to the corner of my mouth.

“You don’t need to do this,” I say, not moving my lips as much as possible.

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