Page 80 of Judas (The Lito Duet #2)

Chapter thirty-nine

Havok

D ead. He’s a dead fucking man.

If time travel existed, we would go back to the forest to the exact point where my rifle was trained on him.

Then, instead of being idiotic and wanting to get answers to shit he’s refused to remedy, I would have painted Nadia with his brain matter.

But it doesn’t exist, and I’m standing here looking at her in her horror-stricken face.

Ready to rip him limb from limb, yet I have to wait for her accusatory stare to pull away from me all while trying to keep mine impassive and calm to prevent setting her off even more.

Sly, bottom dwelling, soul sucking fucking parasite.

All I can do is stand here. Teeth grinding against one another, every muscle in my body so tense that if they were rock hard, they’d surely shatter.

Motherfucker doesn’t have anything to lose; I shouldn’t be surprised that he ran his mouth to Nadia but here I stand corrected.

Furious, stunned, and in shit deeper than I am tall.

No matter what, I can’t look at her. Seeing the devastation, the way she’s shivering with what I’d consider wrath, and waiting. Waiting for her to go nuclear on me.

It’s no fucking secret that we don’t know each other like we use to—hell, we didn’t really know each other then, either.

She was young and I was a lonely sap set on toying with her as hard as she was toying with me.

Doomed from day one. I’d never give her what she wanted and needed other than holding her hand and fucking the hell out of her when I could.

Then, she wouldn’t get anything substantial in return.

We were stupid as shit. There was so much time to learn who she was, show her the fucker I could be, before bringing our daughter into a world as shitty as ours.

Terrible choices, one right after the other, have brought us to this point, including the murder of Sadie’s adoptive parents.

But you know what? I’d do it all over again.

I could say it was love that drove me, but putting it that way makes me look like a kiss ass.

Truth is, I did it out of selfishness. Everything.

For my entire fucking life I made choices to benefit myself; bringing my woman and child back to me will forever be the one level of selfishness I will paint as a gold standard.

Nothing short of total planetary annihilation will stand between me and my family.

The person who decides to get in the way will end up under the ground.

So yeah, Lucien can throw me under the bus. Rat me out to Nadia—I don’t care. The sacrifices I would make for her are endless.

Reigning in my anger is a whole other problem.

It’s been an ongoing issue I’ve tried working on since coming out of the pit.

Disdain and rage do not begin to cover the amount of hatred I have for this sack of shit.

I have seen it slip through when I’m in the middle of a job, usually manifesting in more brutality and tunnel vision, but in those moments I chose not to shove it to the size—I relished it.

Now? He’s only made it worse.

Still, I cannot bring myself to glance at her.

Damn woman knows it too, since she decides to step directly into my line of sight.

Blotting out the silhouette of the scumbag brother she now seems to care for.

She even goes as far to tilt where we fall eye to eye and what I see hurts—hurts as much as I’m sure she’s hurting.

Betrayal sits in those stormy hurricane hues.

My throat dries up with a quickness, as if we are standing in the middle of the Mojave and I just sucked in the first breath after being submerged for too long.

Lucien is smirking off to the side—exasperating troll. Yet the strain of the air is pulling me apart, feeding the guilt.

“Would you like to clue me in on what in the hell he is talking about?” Her tone is chilling, contradicting the distress in her expression.

When I don’t respond right away, a brow arches at me, followed by a slow disbelieving nod.

Nadia goes to turn away; assuming she’s going to crawl right back to Lucien, I reach for her arm and grab the elbow bringing her right back to me.

She can be mad, hate me for not telling her, but she’s not allowed to side with him.

It’s one thing to mourn the lives they had as children and want to protect them, but this is not that time nor place.

We’re fucking adults, even if we are all three emotionally stunted. Lucien will suffer the consequences for his actions, and apparently so will I.

“Nadi—“

“Don’t fucking touch me!” she shouts, wrenching away from me and taking a step back.

This time not turning away so she can keep her eye on me—where I can’t touch her without her seeing it coming.

Lifting my hands in surrender, I stay rooted in place and let her fume.

This shit is going to come to an explosive head because if I know her like I think I do, that hard-ass ‘protect myself, fuck life and everyone in it’ side of her is about to show up.

“I’m sorry,” is all I can seem to mutter to her.

“Y… you’re sorry? For what exactly, Kace? Lucien seems to think you did something to Sadie to…” She stalls, the words getting caught in her throat like they’re too unbelievable to utter. That if she speaks them, then what Sadie has done becomes real or becomes a fact.

“For touching you without your consent.”

“Oh that’s fucking rich.” Words fade from a huff into an uncomfortable laugh. “Trust is a very fickle thing.”

“I told you there are things I cannot talk about and this is one of them.”

“SPARE ME the bullshit Kace. This isn’t some underlying black site, wannabe top secret complex with militaristic grade warfare going on. This is my daughter’s life! If you know something about the death of her adoptive parents, you better fucking say something. So help me God…”

Her face is flushed, the heat of her anger showing up in a red hue across her features which seem to accent the deep color of her eyes as they narrow on me. Fingers twitching at her sides, ready to find something to take her anger out on.

Lucien draws my attention over to him when he speaks, all smug and goading.

“Time’s ticking, pretty boy. It would be awful if I had to tell her all because you want to be a little bitch. It’d make my year to see her hate you.”

Refusing to engage with him, I keep my eyes on Nadia. Hate rolls off me in waves, right along with heat as my blood pressure increases. Was I fucking stupid for not disclosing shit earlier? Yeah, I guess.

“I did what was necessary to keep her safe.”

Nadia visibly bristles, her top lip curling with disgust at the half-attempt to explain. The smile she gives shortly after is what makes me worry the most. I’ve seen that look on her face—I’ve seen Lucien give the same one.

“Keep… keep her safe. Well then. We sure as fuck have seen how that panned out, haven’t we?

Lucien?” she calls, turning her head to look at him next.

A hand waves at me near-dismissively. “You hear that? Safety. Please, Kace, just how does murder equate to safety?” she hisses, rounding to face me again.

“I’m not going to discuss anything more in here. We can go somewhere else or not talk about it at all.”

“You do not make the rules anymore—your decision making privileges have been revoked. He already knows, and you’re making it seem like it’s true.

Might as well fucking say it because if you haven’t noticed, my daughter is in the hospital because of this!

She hasn’t been safe since her parents died! ”

“She’s never been safe, Nadia! Not the way you think she has. Goddamnit,” I bellow back at her.

The words make her more visibly angry; a vein shows up along her forehead, stretching from her right brow up into the hairline at the center of her skull.

“Yeah? And if that is the case, why didn’t you go for her?

You were out, alive, apparently doing your own thing when you could have just shown back up to the world.

A true ‘rose from the grave’ like a damn phantom, and raised her yourself.

But no, you scurried around the underbelly of criminal organizations and changed. You’re not the man I fell for!”

“That man is dead, Nadia!” I shout in return, not wanting to add fuel to the fire but that anger I mentioned before is starting to boil.

“If I would have told the world I was alive, the Governor would have come for me again. I’d have to continue living on the run.

That’s not the life Sadie deserves. Yeah, there were times where I thought about giving all of this shit up and fighting for custody, then waiting for you, but it would have required DNA testing and I couldn’t! ”

“So what did you do then? Huh? Lucien insinuated that you did some heinous shit, come out with it. You’re not getting out of this shit. I want answers, right now, or when Sadie gets out of the hospital it will be the last time you see us.”

“Don’t threaten me with my daughter, Nadia.”

“SHE’S MINE! Fuck you, Kace. I carried her and grieved you at the same time.

I gave birth to her without you. The medical staff practically ripped her out of me, wiped her down with wet naps, and handed her off.

I didn’t even get to hold her before she was gone.

They took her from me when I never truly wanted to give her up.

You had the chance to be there, to be her dad…

and you blew it. Tell me what you did! Tell me, right fucking now. ”

Nadia’s shaking with unbridled rage. It bothers me more than I let on by the way I’m standing stark still in my spot and refusing to back down.

I have a feeling she’s going to be mad at me either way, maybe even hate me, take our daughter, and leave to spite me.

If that happens, I’d rather she choose to do it because of the truth.

Not due to me omitting things that led us here.