I’d fucked up. And she’d bled for it.
I walked back to her bedroom, the apartment dark, the D.C. street sounds lingering in the background. I froze when I crossed over the threshold, moonlight spilling through her window.
Fuck me.
She lay on her back, her body sprawled out over the covers. She was a tiny thing, just a few inches over five feet, and yet she still slept like I remembered. As though the bed, like life, was hers for the taking. How many nights had I woken to find her legs entangled with mine, her arm thrown over my chest, her small frame pushing me over to the corner?
I wished I could go back to those moments, wished I could freeze them, hoard them, savor them. I’d thought I’d known how good I’d had it back then, but I hadn’t had a fucking clue. I’d been so young, so focused on a future that had seemed bright—a job I loved, a girl who was my whole world—that I’d never considered that with one explosion of gunfire, it could all be taken away from me. Never imagined I would go years without touching her, holding her. Her love had been the only sure thing in my life, and without it I’d come unmoored.
I sank down in the chair opposite her bed, my gaze running over her body. Her blonde hair was the same length it had always been, just at her shoulders, the ends curling slightly. Her face was the same as I’d remembered, her heart-shaped mouth parted. She wore a different pair of shorts and a tank top to sleep in than the night before, showing off her lean body made strong by a lifetime of playing sports, and the tight curves I’d run my hands over so many times that I knew each dip and peak, each smooth expanse of skin.
A knot formed in my throat, the perfect counterpoint to the boulder lodged in my gut.
This felt like déjà vu, like we’d gone back in time and were just two people in love. It was dangerous. Dangerous to forget all the reasons why I wasn’t good for her. Dangerous to forget how high the stakes really were. My gaze drifted to the lump on her side underneath her tank top, the spot where someone had stuck a knife inside her, to the bandage that was there because once again I’d failed her, and that was enough to remind me of all the reasons why I needed to stay the hell away from her.
Today, I’d gotten her stabbed. How long would it be before I got her killed?
Chapter Six
Rumor has it that Senator Reynolds has started an exploratory committee to vet his chances at running in the next presidential election …
—Capital Confessions blog
Kate
My eyelids fluttered open, the ache in my side waking me, my mind cloudy with sleep and drugs. I reached for the pills Blair had left on my nightstand, and my gaze settled on Matt slouched in the leather chair opposite my bed. He stared back at me.
“Are you in pain?”
I nodded, the lump in my throat suddenly making it hard to speak. I hadn’t cried once today, but for some reason, tears threatened at the sight of Matt sitting in my bedroom.
He’d come back. It was real. It hadn’t been a dream.
He rose from the chair, all long limbs and ease. At some point in the day he’d changed into jeans and a dark T-shirt, the fabric highlighting his impressive biceps. He stalked toward me, stopping at my nightstand, grabbing the bottle of pills and twisting the cap off, taking out two and handing them to me along with the glass of water Blair had left for me.
Our fingers grazed each other as I took the medicine from him, that little brush of skin enough to make me think that maybe I wasn’t feeling so foggy after all. Was it anticipation or nostalgia or some heady combination of the two that had my body gravitating toward his? Did he feel it, too?
I swallowed the pills, handing the water glass back to Matt, purposefully letting my fingers curl around his, testing his reaction, waiting to see if I was alone in the arousal spreading through my body.
Matt turned away, but I reached out, my hand on his elbow holding him in place. If he didn’t want me, fine, but I wasn’t going to let him run from this without a fair fight.
“Will you sit with me for a bit?” I asked, the heat from his skin seeping through my fingers.
He stiffened, as though his body was poised somewhere between fight and flight, but he didn’t pull away. A small sense of triumph filled me when he nodded, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to my legs, close but not touching.
“Were you there when I fell?” I asked. “Are you the one who called the paramedics and stopped the bleeding?”
He nodded, his jaw clenched.
“Thank you.”
“For what? Nearly getting you killed?”
“You didn’t nearly get me killed. You didn’t stab me.”
“I should have protected you more.” He tore his gaze away. “I had my eyes on you the entire time. You were in the crowd and I saw you stumble, and I thought that you’d just tripped, and then the next thing I knew, your body hit the pavement. The guy was a pro and he was prepared. I told you I’d have your back, and when it came down to it, I didn’t.”
“Do you think I’m angry with you? That I blame you?”
He made a frustrated noise. “You should be angry with me. You should fucking blame me. You wouldn’t have gotten involved in any of this if it weren’t for me.”
He’d always been protective, but this was extreme, and there was no way I was going to let him use some sort of misplaced guilt as yet another barrier between us.
“Are you kidding me? I’m involved because someone sent me information on what happened in Afghanistan. Someone wants me to be involved. That’s not your fault. Just like what happened to your friends isn’t your fault.” My tone softened, trying to figure out how to get through to him without ripping open the gaping wound that seemed held together by a Band-Aid and avoidance. “It isn’t your fault that you survived, either.” I reached down and squeezed his hand, curling my fingers around him as though I could pull the pain from his body. I’d experienced my fair share of loss, but watching someone you loved punish himself and suffer was its own special brand of torture. I wanted to fix him; I just didn’t have the tools to do it.
Seconds passed, the night stretching between us, before Matt spoke.
“We could go around in circles about this, but we both know that you never would have been involved if not for me. You’re in this because of me. So don’t tell me I shouldn’t feel responsible.”
“You’re not.”
“I am.”
I’d forgotten how stubborn he could be; unfortunately, we had that in common as well.
“Look, I’ve been stabbed today and fainted. As fun as sitting here arguing about who’s responsible for this is at three a.m., can we save the fight for the morning? Or never. We have bigger problems, namely the fact that any proof I had about our fathers’ potential involvement in your unit’s ambush in Afghanistan is gone. And it’s not like I can get in touch with whoever was sending me the information in the first place. It’s kind of a one-way street there.”
Matt let out an oath, jerking his hand from mine, breaking the connection between us. He rose from the bed, six feet, two inches of fury, pacing the length of my bedroom like a caged panther. He stopped and faced off against me, hands on his hips, his expression seriously pissed.
The fact that I was becoming majorly turned on probably said a few things about me and my propensity to court trouble, but whatever. Matt in a good mood was hot; Matt in explosive mood was rare, but when it happened, I could never resist the urge to crash into him and give as good as I got.
“You’re joking, right?”
Oh yeah, my body was definitely awake now.
“You can’t be serious. After everything, after you were fucking stabbed, you honestly think the smart idea is to try to get in contact with this person? They’ve put you in the line of fire; the last thing you need is for them to send you more information.”
“Those papers are the only leverage I have.”
“Wrong. Those papers are a death sentence. You need to distance yourself from this. I don’t kno
w, go out of town or something.”
“I have a job. One I worked my ass off to get.”
“Please tell me you applying to the CIA didn’t have anything to do with this, that you weren’t hoping you’d stumble upon some information about what happened to my unit.”
Ugh. He knew me too well.
“Me applying to the CIA didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Is that really true?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“I forgot how stubborn you could be,” he muttered. “Although, I didn’t think you were this stupid.”
Oh, hell no.
He didn’t get the high ground here, not after everything that had happened between us. I might have been able to accept his reasoning for why he didn’t tell me he was still alive—even as I hated it—but his choice also meant he didn’t get to judge my choices. We all did what we had to in order to get by.
“Stupid? I’ve been taking care of myself for over three years. I’ve been on my own, doing just fine without you. You left. You didn’t bother telling me you were still alive, didn’t try to take me with you. You don’t get to judge my life choices or have an opinion on the decisions I’ve made. You gave up that right when you basically ended our engagement without any care for how I felt about it. I’m not an eighteen-year-old girl anymore. I don’t need you taking care of me, not that I really even needed it then.”
His brow rose, spiking my temper, the gesture having me vacillating between wanting to smack him or press my mouth to his and have my way with him.
“Really? Because in two days you’ve had your apartment broken into and been stabbed.”
“It’s not like I asked for those things to happen. Besides, I’m fine. I’m not going to pretend the last few days haven’t been rough, but you know what, I’m still here and I’m not backing down.”
“Maybe you didn’t ask for this, but you jumped in without looking, risking your life in the process. This isn’t a fucking game, Kate. Do you not get how high the stakes are? How far these people will go to get what they want? Do you really think either one of our fathers has any sentimentality where we’re concerned? If you get in their way, they will destroy you. Period. And don’t mistake it, you are in their fucking way.”
He didn’t get it. Things were different now that he was back, now that there was more to me than the vengeance that had fueled me for years, but he didn’t understand what it had been like for me, how my world had ended when I’d learned he’d died. Maybe I should have moved on like Blair had wanted; maybe I should have become a better person who learned from the experience and had found a way to carry my grief with me rather than allowing it to stoke a fire inside of me. But I hadn’t. That wasn’t me. I was a fighter, and when I’d lost him, for better or worse, the fight was all I’d had.
“What life? Do you have any idea what it’s been like for me? Any fucking clue? You want the truth? I haven’t cared if I lived or died for a long time. I lost everything when I lost you. The only thing that kept me going when I couldn’t take it anymore was the idea that my father would pay for what he did to you. Maybe that makes me a horrible person; maybe it’s my flaw. But regardless, it’s there inside of me. This is mine. You don’t get to try to protect me and take it away from me.”
Matt
I’d never considered telling Kate I was alive. Ever. I’d spent weeks in Afghanistan fighting for my life, hiding from the people who’d wanted to kill me. When I’d finally been healthy enough to move, when I could have reached out to her, I hadn’t been willing to put her life in jeopardy. And in those moments when I’d missed her, when the ache of never seeing her again had been unbearable, the thing that had kept me going was the idea that she was somewhere happy and safe.
I’d kept a mental tally of her life events in my head—thought of when she’d be graduating from college, imagined her getting her first job. The image of her moving on had kept me company, my constant companion.
I’d never imagined that she’d given up like this. The Kate I’d known and loved had been fearless, full of life. I hadn’t imagined that my death would destroy her, and when I added up all I’d lost along the way, the weight of that alone tipped the scales.
“Were you watching me on the street yesterday?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Did you do that a lot? Watch me?”
More than I should have.
“I wanted to know that you were safe.”
Need you to be safe.
“How often?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t keep track.”
I didn’t know how to explain to her that the sight of her kept me going when I felt the walls closing in, when I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t say it because as soon as the thought hit me, I realized that all of the things that had kept me sane were the same things she’d lost. I’d found peace in her life and she’d lost hers with my death.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, my head in my hands. “I don’t know what to do anymore.” I lifted my head and my gaze met hers, my body so tired. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought it would keep you safe. Now I just feel like I fucked up everything, and for what? We’ve lost years together and now you’re exactly where I never wanted you to be.”
“What if we left? Right now. What if we just disappeared? Together. You’ve stayed alive this long. How much harder would it be if it were the two of us?”
“And do what? What kind of life would that be?”
“A life together. Better than what we have apart.”
“We’d be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.”
“I don’t care.”
“I care.”
“Then what? What do you want?” she asked, frustration in her voice.
I wanted to rewind the clock. I wanted to peel the skin off of the man who’d stabbed her. I wanted to keep her safe.
“I want you to be safe.”
“I want the same thing for you, but this won’t end until we expose their crimes. I’ll always be a loose end. You’ll always be a loose end.”
“We don’t have any proof.”
“So then we get proof. Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way. Maybe I should be focused on getting closer to my father.”
A knot formed in my stomach. “Absolutely not.”
“We really need to do something about this habit that you have where you want to tell me what to do.”
I glared at her, torn between the urge to kiss her or strangle her. “You drive me fucking crazy.”
“Trust me. Likewise.”
“I don’t see how throwing yourself deeper into this is going make it safer for you.”
“‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’”
“Not when it’s your life on the line.” I knew Kate—she wasn’t going to let this go. Fuck. I didn’t want her anywhere near this. “I still have some contacts in Afghanistan. I’ll put some feelers out, see if anyone can give me any intel on this warlord, see if we can try to find a link between him and either one of our fathers, or if we can find anything to tie them to the weapons.”
“In person?”
I nodded.
“So let me get this straight.” Her voice rose. “Me getting close to my father is too dangerous, but you going back to the country where you were nearly killed and what, canoodling with warlords, is somehow a great fucking idea?”
“Sadly, I feel safer with a warlord than I do with your father.”
“I’ll cede that point,” she muttered.
“I need to go, need to handle this. It’s the best lead we have. Please promise me you won’t do anything crazy. I don’t want to be worried about you while I’m gone.”
“Are you coming back?”
The doubt and hurt in her voice pierced my heart. She fucking owned me. Always had. There were no boundaries with her. She wanted something and I gave it to her. Always.
When we were kids, it had crep
t up on me. She’d always been there in the background, hanging out with us, wanting to play the same games, more interested in being outside with the guys than playing with her sister. I’d always picked her first when we chose sports teams because she was fierce as fuck, always admired the way she threw herself into everything with reckless abandon. She never wanted us to take it easy on her because she was tiny, never minded getting dirty, rarely cried when she was hurt. Some of the others used to give me shit for being best friends with a girl, but I hadn’t cared. She’d been more fun than any of my other friends. And then, the summer before my freshman year of high school, we’d been at the beach one day, and I’d looked over at her, and she hadn’t been my friend anymore. She’d been everything.
I’d waited for her. Waited for four years, waited for her to grow up, waited until she was ready for what I wanted from her. Until her sixteenth birthday. Until I claimed what had always been mine. Until I won her heart.
So yeah, there was no question—I was hers. Even if all that I had to offer her were shards and fragments of me sloppily glued together in a crude approximation of the man I’d been, one I feared wasn’t good enough for her by half.
“Yes. I’m coming back.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She swallowed and then she reached out, beckoning me closer.
I knew what she wanted, had felt it lingering under the surface since the moment she’d woken up and her brown eyes had locked on to me. My chest tightened, my voice hoarse. “I don’t want to hurt you. You could open your stitches.”
I was probably a giant pussy for admitting it, but she terrified me. She felt breakable and delicate, and even though I knew how tough she was, she didn’t understand how dark my world had become. The hands that had held hers, that had known every curve of her body, had been covered in blood more times than I cared to count. I didn’t want that part of my life touching her, didn’t want to drag her down with me.
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