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CHAPTER TWO

LIAM

ABOUT SIX YEARS AGO

“You’re a fucking asshole, Liam,” Ella crossly proclaims, without making eye contact with me. With her back turned away from me, she pulls handfuls of clothes from the dresser and haphazardly tosses them into the suitcase strewn open on the bed. She drops her current armful to the quickly growing pile as her angry, tear-filled eyes meet mine, and she huffs, “Really?”

“Really, what , El?” I shrug, knowing exactly where this argument is going. The same place it always does. Only this time, it’s worse.

“You aren’t going to say anything!” she exclaims, throwing her arms into the air.

Standing from leaning against the door frame, I cross the room to close the distance between us. I cup her face and gaze down into her hazy green eyes— knowing damn well what she wants to hear— I exhale, “What do you want me to say?”

Ella is practically perfect— everything I didn’t know I wanted— a well-educated, dominant queen in her work life who is an impeccable submissive. Her long and lean, athletically toned body is built for the pain she loves to receive from me. The gorgeous woman staring into my eyes has only one flaw. She wants the one thing in this world I can’t give her.

The one thing I’d never give any woman.

“I’ve told you, El.” I slide my bloodied hands from her cheeks, inadvertently leaving them stained with a ruddy hue. “They’re my family. I know this life scares you?—”

“Scares me?” she snaps. “Fucking look at yourself.”

I don’t need to glance into the mirror to see what she’s demanding. My shirt is torn and stained crimson. The blood covering my hands is my own, from clutching to the—now-sutured—knife wound above my right hip.

“I love you, Liam. I want to be your family,” Ella sobs as she wipes the tears running down her blood-smeared cheeks. Her eyes run over my tattered appearance, and she sniffles. “But I can’t do it like this.”

“El, baby, I didn’t say it would be easy,” I try to console her, “but look at Dec and Sarah. They’re married. They’re having a baby. The two of them are so fucking happy.”

Ella shoves herself from me, and she mutters, “You all are really that oblivious.”

“Oblivious to what?”

“Sarah is fucking terrified!” she shouts. “She married Declan because she loves him, but don’t for a second think that she doesn’t worry each and every time he walks out of their apartment. She lives with the very real fear that he won’t come home and that she’s going to wind up raising that baby all alone.”

“She would never be alone,” I gruffly correct her. “None of us would let that happen. While we could never replace Declan, all of us would step up to be a father.”

Closing the lid on her suitcase, tears continue to stream down Ella’s face as she zips it shut. “That’s just it, Li?—”

“What?” I ask for clarification as she slides the heavy suitcase off the bed. It hits the hardwood floor with a thud. The sound reverberates around the silent room, followed by the clicks of the telescoping handle and the heart-wrenching sound of the wheels dragging along the wood.

“I want to marry you, Liam,” Ella says between sobs. Stopping before me, she stares up at me with teary, bloodshot eyes as she releases the suitcase. She drops her gaze to her hand and swallows hard as she grasps the diamond adorning her ring finger. While slowly pulling it from her digit, she repeats herself, “I want to marry you , Liam. But I don’t want to wind up with your brothers as my consolation prize when you don’t come home one night.”

Gripping my hand, she places her engagement ring in the center of my palm and closes my fist around it. She lifts it to her face and places a soft kiss on the back of my hand, whispering, “I love you, Liam.”

“Fuck, El.,” I plead as she drops my hand. “I love you.”

Ella grabs her suitcase and drags it to the door before pausing on the threshold. Without turning back to face me, she mutters, “I know you do, Li. But sometimes… Love isn’t enough.”

Unable to move from where I stand for fear she’ll shove me away, I beg, “Don’t do this. Please, El.”

Rooted in place, Ella’s hand tightly grips the suitcase. She lets out a deep breath as she lifts her head and rolls her shoulders back, leaving her standing tall in the doorway. After clearing her throat, her tone is devoid of emotion when she requests, “Don’t contact me. Just let me go.”

As much as I want to chase after the heels clicking through my apartment, I do as she asks .

Clutching the ring, it tears into my palm. Droplets of fresh blood trickle from my grasp and run down my arm, but I can’t feel the pain. My heavy footsteps carry me across the room. I reach the doorway to the hall just in time to hear the front door latching.

“El…” I call, clinging to the hope that she wasn’t able to find the will to actually walk from this apartment— and from my life— only to be quickly met with devastating silence.

“Fuck!” I roar, driving my bloodied fist through the wall.

Walking back into the bedroom, I pull open the drawer to the valet sitting atop my dresser and drop the now sticky, crimson ring into it. Pushing it shut, I exhale the breath I’ve been holding.

Never again.