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WES

“ F uck!” I tore at my hair as I paced my bedroom.

“What the fucking hell!” I yelled at nothing.

Nothing but myself. Nothing but my own idiocy.

Because this whole fucking thing could have been avoided if I had manned up and told her the truth from the beginning.

Dropped to my knees and told her what I’d done.

Who I’d been to her. What we were before she ever even realized that I existed.

But because I was too much of a coward to admit my own fucking guilt…

Too afraid that she wouldn’t want me anymore if she knew I was the cause of Chase’s death…

I’d kept it from her, and now I’d lost her, anyway .

I curled my hands into painful fists and dropped to my knees. The strain in my face and tension throughout my body warned that I was going to explode.

But it was my fault. It was all my fault. And I deserved her rejection.

“I hope she dumps your sorry ass, Wes. Because at this point, you deserve it. ”

That’s what Edith said. And she was right. She was always fucking right . This was me . This was my doing. And all I could do was hope and pray and fucking beg the stars that she would come back to me.

Because Mara was my everything. I’d given everything up for her, wore a crown I never wanted, just so I could rescue her.

“Christ, please , don’t let this be the end.” I curled my face in, shoved my hands through my hair and caved into myself.

I wasn’t one for deity, but I’d pray to every single one if it gave me a chance that Mara would forgive me.

Because my worst nightmare had become a reality, and this time, a bullet wasn’t going to solve the problem.

This time, there were no cliffs to climb, no ocean waves to battle, and no demons to outrun.

This time, there was only one monster to face. And that monster was me.

***

Three days.

Three days went by, and she refused to see me. She refused to see anyone .

She ate all her meals alone in her room and refused to answer the door whenever someone knocked. Edith had reached out several times. On the first attempt, Mara asked her if she knew. When Edith admitted that she did, Mara stopped responding to her too.

She stopped talking to Matias.

Wouldn’t return any of Chelsea’s messages.

I was completely blocked.

At one point on the first day, Edith tried to let herself in, but the door was locked. I almost broke it down by the end of the second, but my mother scolded me, hissing that if I broke a door in her house, there would be hell to pay .

Imagine that? A grown ass man—the fucking President of the North—being reprimanded by his mother. Fuck me, it couldn’t have been worse.

“You made a mistake, my darling. The only responsible thing to do now is accept its consequences.” That’s what my mother told me. To lick my fucking wounds and deal with it.

The angst was killing me.

The whole thing was making me want to tear my hair out. To split open my veins and bleed out the poisonous bitter past, because I wanted nothing more than a chance to start over. To try again knowing what I did now.

But life doesn’t work that way, does it?

You don’t get to rewind and try again.

All you can do is accept that you’ve made a mistake and find a path to soldier on.

That’s what I did. That’s what I tried to do…soldier on.

Because that’s all I could do.

As the sun set on day three, I was coming back from a visit to Fort Warren with Krous and Nora to see how the Libertarians were settling in.

They were scrappy in their fighting techniques, used to working with far less, and accustomed to guerrilla warfare-style tactics.

But they were adapting well. Giza remarked that training the Northern soldiers in these styles could be beneficial since we were still severely outgunned.

Krous agreed. As such, Nora’s colonel stationed at Fort Warren consented to work closely with Krous to help our forces learn their strategies and techniques.

It was hard to stay focused on war when I was writhing inside from heartache.

And coming home felt even worse, knowing that she was so close but further away than she’d ever been.

Because every time she clung to life, Mara still loved me.

And every time she pushed me away, her heart still wanted me .

But what was happening now felt like shards of glass pumping through my blood, nicking my veins, causing me to bleed out while never spilling a single fucking drop. I was trying to be good, trying to give her the space she so clearly wanted, but this…this was fucking hell.

I stepped into the foyer, pulling off my coat and handing it to the butler when a shadow crossed the room and snagged me by the collar of my shirt.

“?Qué hiciste?” Javier’s grip yanked me to his face, and his scowl would have curdled the blood of a lesser man. “What the hell did you do to her?”

I shoved him back, hard . “Get the hell out of my face, de la Puente.”

He stepped back, but never stumbled. Brows drawn into a deep V that crowned eyes black as obsidian. He pointed an accusatory finger while his other hand curled into a tight fist, causing tendons and veins to bulge up his arm.

“What did you do to her, Calvernon? What the fuck happened?”

I scowled, taking several steps parallel to him like a tiger pacing a cage. “That’s none of your fucking business, de la Puente. And may I remind you that this is my house.” I faced him straight on. “Don’t you ever put your hands on me again, got that?”

Javier never moved. He stood in a position ready to strike with eyes that watched me like a hunter.

“Mara de la Puente has always been my business, and she’ll continue to be my business until I give my last fucking breath.

I don’t care who the hell you are. All I care about is what you did to her,” he sneered.

“And so help me god, si tú la tocaste…if you touched her, I’ll fucking kill you.

I’ll destroy you right here, right now.”

His eyes accused me of something I would never do to her.

And that made me boil over. “If you think I would ever do anything to hurt her, you’re a fucking idiot.

I’d give my life a thousand times over if it meant keeping her safe.

So don’t you dare insinuate that I would lay a finger on her without her fucking consent.

Do you hear me? Do it again and watch what fucking happens—”

“Then why is she locked in that room?” he yelled out, cutting me off as he pointed up the stairs.

“Why won’t she see or talk to anyone? Because you were the last one to go in there, and the last one to come out.

What. The fuck. Happened ?” It was a demand, not a true question.

Javier’s eyes revealed his cards, telling me everything inside of him.

He was scared…just like I was.

He cared…just like I did.

He was angry…just as I was at myself.

And he wanted answers.

I couldn’t blame him for that. I couldn’t blame him for demanding answers from me. And I couldn’t blame him for the murder in his eyes, and the desire to tear me apart because of what he suspected I did to her.

Had I not done the same thing? Did I not murder my father in cold blood as he ate his last meal because of what he did to her?

I did.

And I would do it again.

And again after that.

I would commit that crime as often as necessary if it meant saving her. The weight of those sins would always be worth it to me.

Because she was worth it. She had always been worth it.

“It’s not what it seems,” I told him, feeling the tension slowly leave my shoulders.

And then I laughed—a sardonic, cynical sound escaping me as I shook my head with the bloody irony of it all.

That’s exactly what she told me before she stunned me in Telvia.

It’s not what it seems . Now here I was, telling her cousin the exact same thing.

“You better tell me what the hell that means, Calvernon. Because I’m about five seconds away from slamming your face into stone.”

I wasn’t afraid. Not of him. Pain didn’t frighten me anymore. Death seemed merciful at this point. I was afraid to live. Of living a life where Mara never forgave me for what I did. That scared me to my fucking core.

“You’d be wasting your time, de la Puente. There’s nothing you could do to me that I wouldn’t be willing to do to myself.” I shifted my eyes to the ground, knowing that it was stupid to do so when a threat stood right in front of me. But I wasn’t afraid.

I looked up. Read the confusion in Javier’s eyes. “I’ll tell you, and then you can deliver whatever punishment you see fit.”

The onyx shimmered as though it were glossed with slick black oil. His gaze narrowed, and I only chuckled. Then I told him what happened.