Page 114 of Double Standards

“I get it,” he sighs. “You think pushing her away keeps her safe.”

“Yes,” I bite.

Max takes a seat on the couch beside me, his arm outstretched on the back, listening intently.

Trigger glances in his direction before returning his attention to me. “You’re not a bomb, Axel.”

“Bullshit.” I finally look at them, eyes burning. “Everything I touch, I ruin. My family. This organization. Her. You saw what happened. That could’ve been her!”

“But it wasn’t,” Trigger points out, his tone sharper now, slicing through the haze of liquor and self-loathing I’ve been drowning in.

“You almost died in front of her,” Max says quietly. His voice is steady but laced with something softer—disappointment,maybe. Worry. “You don’t push someone like her away like she doesn’t mean everything.”

Silence follows, heavy as lead.

I lean forward, elbows on my knees, the bottle dangling from my fingers. I can’t look at them. Not when the truth is pressing against my ribs, threatening to crack me open.

Trigger shifts, boots thudding against the hardwood as he stands. “So what, you’re just gonna rot here?” he spits. “Let her believe you don’t give a damn? That she was just another casualty in whatever twisted war you’re fighting with yourself?”

I flinch at his words.

“She’ll move on,” I mutter after a beat, my voice flat. “She’s smart. She’ll find someone who?—”

“—who isn’t you?” Trigger snaps, cutting me off. His sneer fades into something closer to fury. “Yeah, maybe. But she won’t love him like she loves you. You think that's kindness? You think letting her go is noble or some shit?”

“She’s better off,” I growl, jaw clenched, eyes burning. “I’m not safe. Not for her. Not for anyone.”

Max shakes his head slowly. “You’re not giving her a choice. You’re deciding for her. That’s not love, Axel. That’s fear.”

Trigger crosses the room and yanks the bottle from my hand, tossing it across the room with a crash of shattering glass. “You can keep lying to yourself, bro, but don’t you dare lie to her. Don’t pretend this is about her safety when really, it’s about your guilt. Your shame. You want to hate yourself? Fine. But don’t make her pay the price for it.”

I close my eyes. Cassie’s face floods my mind—those tear-glossed eyes that tremble in her voice, the way she waited at my door like she still believed in me.

And I sent her away.

Like a fucking coward.

Trigger’s voice drops, low and cold. “She’s still out there, thinking you don’t give a damn. And if you let her keep thinking that, then maybe you don’t deserve her after all.”

The words land like a punch to the gut.

And this time, I have nothing to say.

I stand, blood roaring in my ears. “It’s not about kindness. It’s about survival.”

“Then stop pretending it’s noble,” Trigger says. “Because right now, it’s just cowardice.”

Trigger storms away, slamming the door behind him. The house trembles beneath his rage.

Max stands up next, lingering a second longer. His presence looms over me like a cloud, a threatening shadow of reason. “She’s not your weakness, Axel. She’s your anchor. And you just cut the line.”

I stare down at my shaking hands.

When the door clicks shut again, silence rushes back in.

I didn’t just lose her.

I let her go.