Page 128 of Jagged Souls

“Would she really want this?” I ask, my voice breaking, splintering into a million jagged pieces, my walls no longer up to keep the judgment out. “Can she survive this?”

Or will I be saving her, only to gift her with decades of pain? I can feel the agony she’s in. It jerked me out of my pitiful sleep, this soul-wrenching madness, this desperate need for it to stop. He is breaking her, killing her, leaving nothing but a husk behind.

What if I bring her home, and I just end up imprisoning her like Antonio has? Forcing her to endure something she doesn’t want to for my own selfish needs? I might be doing it out of love, but for her, will it be any different?

“When Lou was born,” Dayne says slowly, his words no less impactful from that creeping hesitation, “Micha became a mother. In that same moment, she lost hers and her father. She suffered that grief alone for years. Stefaan was going to marry her off, wipe his hands of her, and she convinced him to let her stay and train as an assassin. She suffered the cruelty of that training for Lou. For herself too because Lou was all she had. She was just a child.”

He hesitates for a moment, letting his words carry. Like stones placed upon my chest, they crush my lungs, hinder my ability to breathe.

“Then she cared for me,” he says softly. Another pause. “And the kids that no one wanted, their names plucked from boards they never should’ve been on.” From forums on the dark web, offering up money for their deaths.

Mother’s words of why she had chosen Micha in the first place come back to me: because she saves kids rather than kills them as her reputation says.

My chest tightens as I realize she has an entire part of herself, a secret so entwined with who she is, and I know nothing about it.

I never won her trust enough to know.

But fuck, do I want the time with her to win it, to have the chance to prove my loyalty and devotion to her so that she wants to share these things with me, so that she trusts me to fight to protect the things she loves. The people she loves.

But I won’t be selfish with my decision.

She is begging me to do this thing for her, to listen to her cries and show her mercy.

A tear slips down my cheek as I feel her scream, feel her tearing apart at the seams. She’s fracturing into too many pieces to save.

But I don’t know her like Dayne does.

So the choice will be his.

Whether or not my wife lives or dies.

My throat closes as I desperately wait for his next words.

He takes his time, giving weight to his thoughts, and my heart beats faster with every passing second.

“As long as she has someone to fight for,” he finally says, “she will survive this.”

I shudder, breathing out hard. I feel as if all my blood has poured out of my limbs, leaving me hollow and exhausted. “She has you,” I rasp, thankful as all fuck that she has him. “And Lou.”

Dayne stares at me, cautious now, wary. Like fingers reaching for a gun. Hairs rising to tell him something is wrong. Off. Not quiteright. “And you,” he says slowly. A question hidden in those two words.

I lift my head now, look him right in the eyes.

Micha told me never to tell him, knowing he’d try to kill me, then die by the reaper’s hand, but he needs to know. He needs all the facts to make his decision, needs to understand all the pain Micha is going through. It isn’t just Antonio that has broken her; it is me.

And she might not be able to heal from her trauma when she’s living with the cause.

The silence rune hums around us. He can kill me before Khalid ever realizes we’re fighting, but if he thinks that is the best decision for Micha, then I will let him do it.

I would die for her a thousand times over if it would help her heal.

My voice raw and honest, I say, “Perhaps not. I’m the one who tortured her, not –”

With a roar, he lunges for me.

I have time to bolt out of the chair, roll across the floor, and pull a knife, but I don’t. Even knowing the pain that’s coming, recalling Jona’s screams as he ripped off his own dick, I stay seated until both of Dayne’s hands wrap around my bare shoulders and yank me to my feet.

Burning pain explodes down my arms and arcs through the rest of my body. Each tiny bolt is precisely controlled to do the most damage, to fry my nerves without removing their ability to feel pain. I seize up, my muscles locking as thousands of needles stab me in a thousand locations, each one heated like molten metal. The pain is excruciating, but my jaw is locked so tight, I can’t scream.