Eventually, she did, spotting me on the side of the road before leading me on a street chase, intent on losing me.
After realizing it was a pointless crusade I was not backing away from, she pulled over and came out swinging with war in her eyes. Delivering death blow after death blow, her stinging heart voicing every brutal delivery. My emotions were so all over the fucking place that I acted a fool by allowing them to cloud my judgment. Instead of behaving or saying what I should have, I was apologizing one second, filled with pride the next for her fiery return, and rock fucking hard after her wicked display of backbone and voicing as much. “You’ve come a long way.”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
It was, and admittedly ill-timed. Her reception pulled me in and drove me to kiss her venom away, while her vicious backlash fueled me to try and bridge the separation.
During that exchange, I knew I would love her through every bit of whatever our future brought—owning it to Tobias and taking any penalty my brother doled out. I told her as much with my declaration. “I have to let you go for now, but I don’t fucking want to . . . I don’t have a choice, but everything I do now, it’s for you.”
She fought me brutally, but in the end, I knew there was forgiveness there—in both our hearts, we were far from over. Even with the hard-edged, internal change in her makeup from the damage Sean and I caused, it was evident she was ready to face my brother—if it happened—and whatever hell he brought with him.
That I was ready for, that I was prepared for. What I wasn’t prepared for was the complete and utter devastation that greeted Sean and me when Tobias finally arrived back in Triple Falls before he, too, openly cracked in front of us.
“This was for Maman and Papa, Dom. We were so close, brother. Why?”
His voice was ragged and broken—decimating. Even as we stood, lined up like the soldiers he raised us to be—chins lifted to accept our fate while determined to plead our case—in seeing the damage we’d done, we both faltered. The more he unraveled, the more our argument paled, our fight lessening as he leapt between agony and fury—both devastating. “Tell me, brothers . . . word for word, how you deceived me for three months.”
Our sentence passed? Ten months. Ten fucking months.
Three times as many as I admitted we’d been deceiving him, adding another to ensure we knew just how much his faith in us had been destroyed.
“Tell me every single thing you did, every purposeful lie you told me, every move you made to betray me this way, to keep me in the dark, and then . . . tell me how you love . . . tell me you love me.”
With our every objection refused and dismissed—even after openly admitting we loved her—we agreed to his soul-crushing sentence.
What he told us next had us reeling. Before we’d had a chance to intercept, Tobias had outed himself to Cecelia. Sean and I firmly believed at the time that collision annihilated any hopes we had of convincing him of her place with us. That he saw what I saw when he laid his eyes on her. That he perceived her as a na?ve and innocent girl with no business in our business, no place in our world, and no promise. He had not a single fuck to give about any of our admissions because he couldn’t see past his devastation.
“I can’t even fucking look at you!”
He hasn’t since. Not once.
Drunk to the point of nearly passing out, his words and mindset were crystal clear. As Tyler drove Tobias away, we chose his sentence and the club, our brothers, and our purpose, believing if there was a way to get her back, to lessen its length, we’d find it. That Tobias would forgive us, reduce our time, and bring us home.
It was his ultimatum of no contact with her that had us raw as we tied up any loose ends before we broke our lives down into boxes. Sean and I turning over our townhouse keys to Tyler as movers herded our shit out to storage until our future was decided. My suspicions were that Tyler was already living elsewhere and remained tight-lipped about it during the move. Neither of us gave him shit about it because he spared us his own backlash for his strained relationship with Tobias, along with a promise to vigilantly watch over Cecelia.
This is all we could ask for because even as he did promise to guard her, we didn’t get to know anything else.
But it was the last day—the day we were leaving for the airport, that refused and still refuses to release me.
“RB just texted,” Sean says, checking his burner behind the wheel before turning his engine over. “Cecelia’s at the Apple Festival. Alone. I’m going.”
“No,” I jerk my head, even as my heartbeat ramped up.
“I have to, man,” his voice a plea. “I have to see her. Give her something,” he snapped as he pulled out of King’s garage, turning in the direction of Main Street—decision solidified. “Ten fucking months, Dom.”
I lost that dispute before it started, too lost in my own shit to put up much of a fight—all of it drained from me with the dread of the months ahead. My real battle began as I sat idle in his Nova, hand on the handle as hellacious minutes ticked by and our flight time drew closer. Mere blocks away, she was somewhere in the crowd, aware of the truth about my parents and Tobias’s existence, aware that we lied and manipulated her, but unaware of where we were going and for how long. Forbidden to make her cognizant unless we want our wings clipped. The only thing I urged Sean to tell her and he refused before exiting. “I’ve already told her that day is coming, and she’ll wait, Dom. She will.”
After ten minutes in that fucking car, the overwhelming urge to leave her with something from me had me stepping out just as Sean stalked back down the alley to his driver’s door, looking as fucked as I felt. His return had my heart hitting concrete that I missed my own window. We had a plane to catch, and if we missed it, we may never fly again. My dashed hopes had me spiraling until I turned and saw Cecelia racing straight toward us.
Toward me.
Stopping feet away as she looked up, and our eyes connected.
“Please, Dom. Please don’t go.”
Turning toward the window, instead of the late-night backdrop, all I can visualize is that sun-drenched day in an alley thousands of miles away. A moment in time I can’t get back, no matter how fucking much I want it. I don’t even have to close my eyes to see it vividly—long hair blowing around her face, watery blue eyes pleading as tears for me roll down her cheeks, hands pressed to her chest with her confession.
“I love you.”
It was the opposite of what I expected.
It wasn’t anger that greeted me when she cornered Sean and me in that alley but a mix of determination and vulnerability in her expression before she fell apart with her confession. We’d readied her as much as we could without the full truth, but judging from the look of her, she was suffering as much as we were. She knew the truth about our deception, and she still loved us.
Loved me.
There was no trace of hatred for the fact we’d wronged her so horribly, lied to her, deceived her. She tracked me down. She’d followed Sean to make sure I knew she loved me. That no matter where I was taking that love, she was willing to let me pack and part with it, even if I didn’t deserve it.
All I can see is anguish twisting her flawless face, the desperation in her voice as she moved toward me, and I jerked my chin, refusing her, denying us both as my brother’s warning played barrier.