Page 24

DEACON

She left a white piece of paper on my desk, drawing the proverbial line in the sand on where we stood.

I didn't sign the damn resignation letter because this wasn't the end for us.

There never will be an end to us, not while I still live and breathe.

The skyscrapers in Bracken City dazzle in a dramatic abstract of neon from where I'm standing.

Looking at the city from behind my glass wall makes me want to smash another glass of scotch against the floor.

This city was supposed to bring me and Winter together. It was supposed to pave the way for the happiness I never allowed myself to have when it came to my mate, but instead, it's done nothing but drive a bigger wedge between Winter and me.

I take a chug of the scotch from the glass in my hand, the burn that scratches my throat doing nothing in quenching and filling that pit inside my chest that bottoms out all the way to my gut.

I hold the glass in one hand and my phone in the other.

Breathing out a resigned and somewhat hopeful sigh, I repeat the same fucking drill I've been doing since Winter Cavanaugh and my boys walked out of my life without so much as a backward glance.

I dial her number.

With bated breath and the instant hammering of my heart against my ribs, I wait for her to pick up.

I wait to hear her voice as the sound of her phone ringing from the other side echoes in my empty apartment.

I've called her almost ten times, and somehow, longing and desperation have me thinking that maybe she'll pick up the phone this time around. Maybe she'll hear me out. Maybe she'll finally pick up the phone and call me a bastard, and I'll be here to take the brunt of her words, grateful she’s even speaking to me.

You have to pick up the phone, baby.

“Hello, you've reached Winter's voicemail. I can't pick up your call right now, but in case it's an emergency, text me!”

She doesn't pick up.

That same daunting voicemail of hers has slowly become a broken record I can't shake from my system.

I’m halfway through the second glass, contemplating getting a third, when the buzzing of the doorbell pulls me from my catatonic state.

It must be Martin. The only person crazy enough to come to my apartment while I'm feeling this murderous would be him.

My glass in hand, my feet tiredly move to the door. The joke's on me, though, because when I open the door, the last person I expect to see is the five-foot-two woman with tears twinning her eyes, standing on the other side of the door.

At first, I thought that my missing her, coupled with the alcohol in my veins, was messing with my mind and that I might be imagining her.

Yet all thoughts about her being a hallucination are completely erased when she walks inside my home, jabbing an accusing finger in my chest.

“It wasn't you. Tell me it wasn't… that you would never— you would never do that. That you didn't do that.”

Pain and disbelief bleed into her voice, her bloodshot eyes and puffy nose telling me she's been crying for hours.

“Winter.”

Any attempts of trying to pacify her and explain the Crystal situation are shot down when a stream of tears rolls down her cheeks, cutting me deeper than those voicemails.

“That night, the day of the fire, tell me you didn't kill them. You weren't involved in the fire that took my parents, right? You would never hurt people who did nothing to you, right? Tell me you weren't involved.” Her voice is as brittle as thin ice, her words hitting harder than a freight train.

My muscles tense, the pain that’s cutting her right now is the same pain sluicing through me like a serrated blade against my flesh.

Questions about how I should answer her and where she got the idea that I would kill her family churn my mind, but at the end of the night, the truth hangs between us like a match about to light aflame and detonate everything in its wake.

This is what I wanted to avoid when her family died. That look…the one that sears on my skin as she stares at me like the biggest monster, she’s had the cruel fate of meeting? I never wanted that.

Holding the glass in my hand tighter, I can almost feel it wanting to break from the pressure. I take one step towards Winter. Words I never thought of ever saying to her eat away at my tongue like I just drank a gallon of acid.

“Winter, if you could just calm down, I'll explain everything, baby.”

She takes a step away from me like I've just scalded her skin and ruined everything she thought and knew about me.

“Oh, Goddess. Jake was right.”

Jake? Her brother?

“You killed them! You fucking monster, you took them away from me, didn’t you? You fucked me in the woods like I was a trophy you’d won while my parents were… in our house, getting devoured by the fire that you’d sent people to cause. And all for what? Because you couldn’t have me the way you wanted?”

The cat’s out of the bag, sure.

But her facts aren’t right, and I can’t stand by and bite down her accusations like they aren’t piercing my chest.

Placing the glass on the floor, careful not to spook her more than she already is, I take a step toward her.

“Don’t come any closer. Don’t come near me. Jake was right. He was right from the very beginning, and I fell for your trap over and over again, failing to realize that you are not the man I thought you were. My parents were good to you, Deacon. They welcomed you into our home. They treated you like you were their son. And Jake? He was your best friend!”

“I never wanted to hurt them, Winter. I never wanted to hurt you.”

Their deaths hit me just as hard that night. The guilt of knowing they died because of me has been weighing me down for years. I haven’t forgiven myself for that till now.

“You took them away from me!”

My fists clenched, the need to wipe her tears roaring stronger than everything inside me, I spill the truth I've kept for years to protect her.

“My father killed them. I found out on the same night we found your house in ashes.”

“You are lying. You are trying to cover your tracks! You are trying to make me believe you as always. Jake said you would do this…he said—”

“Jake?” Mentioning my best friend brings an ache to my chest. He died because of me. “Winter, Jake’s dead.”

“You would have loved that, wouldn’t you? To know that you killed him and I would never get to see my brother again?”

I don’t understand a word she’s saying, but it doesn’t stop me from telling her a truth that will make her hate me more than ever.

“My father killed your family because of me. He’d warned me to cut all ties with you the minute I told him you were my mate when I turned eighteen. I tried to stay away, Winter. But how could I when you were there? You were everywhere I looked, and everywhere I breathed. You were in my damn mind, baby, and I didn't want you out of my system. That night? The day of the fire? I followed you because that’s what I had always done.”

Her voice is nothing shy of a whisper as she shakes her head, preferring not to believe my words because I'm the bastard who’s hurt her all her life. That’s what she knows, and I’ve never tried correcting her.

“I followed you to make sure you didn’t get into trouble. Going back to the village and finding Jake and your parents like that? Their deaths were on me, but it still hurt not being able to protect them, baby. My father killed them as a warning to me. If I didn’t let you go, you would be next. I couldn’t let him kill you. I couldn’t take that kind of hit, so I rejected you to keep you safe. And it’s one of the worst things I’ve ever done, but given a choice, I’d do it again.”

Bridging the gap to wipe the tears on her cheeks has her slapping my hand away.

“You…you are lying!”

“Not about this, Winter.”

“No, you have to be lying because Jake wouldn’t lie. Those scars on his face are real. The trauma of what you put him through is real. Why would he lie? Why would my brother lie to me about you starting the fire that night?”

Emerald green eyes meet mine, and a frown creases my brow as the truth hits me all at once.

“Jake is alive?”

“Alive. Unwell. Traumatized. Jake is alive, but he’s barely there because of you.”

“How? I-I saw the records… he was declared dead. My father, he—”

“If your father did this. Suppose I buy your truth. Suppose I believe your words. Why did you never tell me? Why did you keep me in the dark about everything?”

“Because I love you! What would I have said to you, Winter? That Foster Cross was an unhinged bastard who would have snapped your neck rather than let you be my side? That he was bitter because once upon a time, your mother had rejected him? Would you have remained quiet if I told you my own father killed your parents?”

There’s the look.

Angry and betrayed.

Crushed and disappointed.

Her eyes are void as she stares at me, seeing right through me. She walks away from me, and I hold her wrist, trying to prevent the inevitable.

“Let me go because it’s over between us.”

Disgust lies heavy in her words, and I try to look past it. She’s hurt, but that doesn’t mean she hates me.

“I never killed them. Whatever Jake has told you, whatever he thinks I’ve done. My only fault was trying to protect you from the pain. If we could speak to Jake, I could explain—”

“Explain what? It doesn’t matter what you say because the bottom line here is your father killed my parents. It doesn’t matter what Jake thinks right now because your blood slew my blood! There’s no going back from that.”

“Don’t do this to us, baby.”

Fuck holding her wrist. I pull her to my chest. I hold her tight. I wrap my hands around her thin waist, feeling her back stiffen from the action.

“Deacon, let me go.” She struggles in my arms, her tears warming the side of my cheek that’s stuck to hers.

“I’m not my father, Winter. I’ll never hurt you. I’ll never hurt the boys. You? Baby, you are my whole damn world.”

“You…You are…”

Winter never gets to give me her words because her back collapses to mine, and she passes out.

***

“D-Deacon? What…what happened?”

Wrapped in my arms, her palms on my chest, Winter searches my face in confusion, and I soak in her beauty like a sponge because imagining her not with me tears me apart.

I push a few strands of hair from her face, kissing her forehead.

“You fainted.”

The memory of what happened to her an hour ago comes to her, and I can feel her trying to push me away.

“It’s almost midnight, and I'm not letting you walk out of here when it’s that late, baby. You are still upset. I know that. I also know everything you heard tonight was a lot to take in, which is why we are going to sleep, and tomorrow, first thing in the morning, we’ll go to Jake. I’ll explain everything that happened, and we can find out from him who put the idea that I killed your parents in his head.”

The submissive part of my mate that’s too tired to fight agrees with me, but the other part of her that’s too stoic to overlook anything makes her palm rest on my chest, her eyes flitting to mine.

“You are right. Jake is good. He would never think that. So, someone had to put that idea in his head. We have to find that person, Deacon.”

“We’ll find him. Together.”

Stubborn and trying not to let the words of us being together mean something, Winter repeats after me.

“Together.”

I wrap my hands around her cautiously, knowing that she might push me off of her or try to pull away.

To my surprise, she falls asleep on my chest without making a hassle, and I listen to her snoring the night away.

I might have her now, but I can’t shake the feeling in my gut that tells me whoever put those ideas in Jake’s head is set to ruin me. The question is, who is he?