“It felt wrong. When you see someone struggling for freedom in binds your natural reaction is to help them and I couldn’t understand why we weren’t doing anything. Anton was talking at the father while the mother screamed for her children. Anton’s men were all around us and things started to blur. I went to the little girl to free her and was hit for moving. That was when I first realized that we were the bad guys and we weren’t there to help.”
“Still to this day I don’t know what their crimes were against Anton. Whether it was the mother or the father who’d wronged him or even both. All I’m able to remember from that day was when Anton told me that to become a man and have power over others, I’d have to have the strength to do God’s work.”
Tully gasps and her eyes go wide. “No, no. Please tell me you didn’t,” she begs. “Please, Rivers. No.”
My eyes close as I remember the moment that’s haunted me since my eighth birthday. “I told him no. I didn’t want to do it, but he gave me a knife anyway. When I cried, I was yelled at. When I begged, I was hit. When I pissed my fucking pants out of pure terror, I was kicked in the back. I was beaten until I had nothing left to give. That was the moment I realized my father would have killed his own son and out of desperation, I stood, bloodied and bruised, before the woman with a knife in my hand and tears streaming down my face.”
Tully squeezes my hand and I fight to keep control. “I was shaking and there was disgust in her eyes and it took me a very long time to realize that disgust was for my father and not for me. She pleaded with me, she would have preferred to see my father beat me to death than to lose her life and not be with her children. But in a situation where Anton is involved, he will always get his way, even if it meant killing his own son.”
“He told me what to do and eventually, I did it. I killed that woman in front of her children. I stood back and watched how the life drained from her body, I watched Anton’s men take the children, I watched the father realize he was never going to see his children again, and then I watched Anton put a bullet between his eyes.”
Tears stream down her face. “You were only eight.”
I nod. “Afterward, he took me out for pizza as though I was being congratulated for making my first kill, the bastard even had the nerve to give me a birthday cake. I never knew what happened to those children, but from what kind of businesses Anton was involved in, I’d dare say they were sold to the highest bidder. I remember Anton had said now I was a man. I’d seen and dealt death and no one could touch me. I was powerful. I was a Mathers’. His blood and his heir. He kept me hidden at his home until my bruises had faded and I’d finally stopped screaming in my sleep. He told me to never speak of it again and if I did, he would come for my mom. From then on, my real ‘training’ started.”
“No,” she whispers.
I give her a sad smile, trying to remind her that this is all in the past. “It’s ok, I didn’t have to do something as horrifying as that until a was a bit older. One day he had explained it as getting the worst over and done with so I’d never have to fear anything ever again. He’s never been so wrong.”
Her voice breaks as she looks across to me with her tear strained cheeks. “How many innocent lives were there?”
My heart breaks and something inside of me is tears into pieces. “I’ve taken three lives. Each just as horrifying as the last and each for a reason unknown to me.”
“All with your father standing over you?”
I nod my head. “The second one, I had a gun at the back of my head, and the last…” I let the sentence fall flat between us as the memory of what I did tears me apart.
“The last?” she prompts.
“The last he was holding up a photo of you.”
Tully climbs across the seat and places herself in my lap before threading her arms around my neck. Her face buries into my shoulder and she holds on with tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry,” she cries as I do my best to try and forget the images coursing through my mind. “I never should have asked.”
“No,” I tell her. “You need to know. This is the man that I am. This is the darkness that I’ve always told you about. It’s the reason I didn’t want to drag you down into my life. It’s not pretty. The shit I’ve had to suffer through is uglier than anything you’ve ever had to know. You’re pure, Tully. You’re the best damn thing that’s ever happened to me and your light is always what brings me back. I was terrified of letting you in and learning about all the things that I’d done. I’m a monster.”
“No,” she cries. “You’re absolutely everything. You’ve always been everything to me. You were his pawn. He was a monster and you were a child who should have had a parent’s love, but instead you were given someone like Anton Mathers.”
“I don’t think you understand just how grateful I am that your parents allowed me to crash at your home. You have no idea what that meant to me. Your place was my salvation and your smile is what healed me each time I was forced to do something that went against everything that I believed in.”
Tully pulls back until she’s looking at me and presses her lips against mine before closing her eyes and resting her forehead against mine. “You’re a good man, Samuel Rivers. I hope you know that.”
“You know I love you, right?”
She pulls into me a little tighter. “I do,” she whispers. “Now take me home. I think I just want to curl up on my bed and forget the world.”
“I’ve never heard anything so damn good.”
Chapter 11
Rivers
The drive back to Tully’s apartment is silent. The weight and horror that I’ve held onto over the past fifteen years have lifted off my shoulders, but I fear that it’s come down on hers. What I shared with her was only the beginning of the horrendous things that I’ve done, but for some fucked up reason, she needed to hear it. Truth be told, I think I needed it too.
I can’t help but feel as though sharing this part of myself somehow brings us closer together. It’s as though she can finally begin to understand who I am and what made me so damn closed off to the world. It’s as though I’m completely open to her now. No secrets between us.
I just hope she doesn’t think any less of me.
What I told her was heavy and I know she was expecting something bad but I doubt her pure mind has ever considered that it was the kind of stuff nightmares were made out of.
My father turned me into a monster and now she knows exactly what kind of monster I am.
I didn’t realize just how desperately I needed to get that off my chest. All this time I thought I was protecting her when in reality, she was the one protecting me by knowing exactly what I needed. She’s always known and I wasted years of my life not letting her in.
I’ve been such a fucking fool. I’ve always listened to every word she’s said, but when it came to my past, I never actually heard her. Her questions fell on deaf ears and I was determined to avoid it at all costs. Sometimes; I went as far as being an ass about it, but she always stood right by my side, always standing tall.
We make our way up to her apartment and it seems as though it takes forever for Tully to get the door unlocked. The bag of take out is dropped on the coffee table as Tully walks straight through to her kitchen and digs the tub of ice cream out of her freezer.
Without another word, she slinks down the hallway to her bedroom and I follow behind, leaving the already cold food to sit on the coffee table, completely forgotten and disregarded.
We must have been sitting in the car longer than I had thought because the massive clock up on her wall is telling me that it’s nearly seven in the evening. There’s still daylight coming in through the windows, but over the next hour or so, it’s going to drain away and something tells me that she wants nothing more than to close the book on today.
Tully pushes into her room and walks straight over to her bed before pulling off her work clothes replacing them with a pair of tiny sleep shorts and a tank. She’s neve
r been uncomfortable stripping off before me and I can’t help but roam my eyes over her body. It’s still the perfection it was four years ago, only now she’s grown into more of a woman, and fuck me, it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
She slips under the blankets and sits up against the headboard and without hesitation, I step out of my shoes and climb in right beside her, just as we’ve done a million times before.
I pull her into my arms and scoot down in her bed getting comfortable. Her body relaxes against mine and her head falls against my shoulder as she works on opening the tub of ice cream. The second it’s opened; she can’t resist scooping a mouthful into her mouth and holding the spoon between her lips as she reaches for her Netflix remote. Clearly, she has this all down to a fine art.
The TV is put on, but it’s as though she doesn’t have it within her to go searching for what to watch as her hand falls back to the bed with the screen remaining on the Netflix home page.
She stares at it as a deep sigh pulls from within her and I squeeze her waist. “Are you ok?”
She shrugs her shoulders and it’s clear her mind is still plagued by what I told her. “Can you just…stay until I fall asleep?”
My head dips and I press a kiss to her temple. “There isn’t anywhere I’d rather be.”
Tully relaxes just that bit more and we fall into silence, her still staring at the television screen while I stare down at her, re-learning all the lines of her face and taking in all the subtle changes.
She has a few more freckles over her shoulders and a hint of a tattoo peeking out from behind her tank on her back that has me desperate to peel back the material and see what she’s got going on back there. But now’s really not the time…
Fuck it.
My curiosity gets the best of me and I can’t stop myself from reaching across and brushing my fingers down her skin until they’re pushing back the fabric of her tank to expose the words tattooed on her skin.
Tully sucks in a sharp gasp as I read over the words and it’s almost as though she’d forgotten all about the ink on her back.
This isn’t goodbye.
My heart races as my fingers still on her skin. They’re the final words in the letter I sent to Tully four years ago, forever on her skin, tattooed in my shitty handwriting. I did everything that I could to make her feel better about our situation. I told her to move on, I told her to find someone else and to be happy. But then I went and told her ‘this isn’t goodbye’ in my selfish need for her to hold onto me. Hold onto us.
I gave her hope when I knew I wasn’t coming home and that’s something I’ve always regretted. Maybe if I let her know straight up that I wasn’t coming home, she would have found happiness without me. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of pain and confusion that letter must have caused and I hate myself for doing that to her.
I brush my fingers over the ink before leaning into her and pressing my lips over her tattoo. “I’m sorry,” I murmur against her soft skin.
Tully nods while discreetly wiping away a stray tear before snuggling back into my side and pretending as though it never happened.
The daylight quickly fades from the room and before I know it, the only light is coming from the moonlight filtering through the window and the television screen which I’m sure will turn itself off eventually.
When she finishes off the tub of ice cream, she reaches across and puts the empty tub on her bedside table before grabbing the remote off her lap. She turns off the TV and dumps the remote at the end of the bed and instantly curls back into me while scooting down the bed a little further.
Tully’s leg slides up over my hip and I can’t resist sliding my hand up over her thigh as her head falls into my chest, right where it belongs. Her hand slides under my shirt until it’s resting against my chest and my eyes involuntarily close in pure satisfaction. Nothing has ever felt so right.
Right here and now…I’m fucking home.
The room is dead silent until her murmurs have my head snapping down to check on her. “I think Spencer is already moving on with Lacey.”
“What? Lacey? As in my cousin, Lacey?”
“Yep.”
“No. That’s not…no. She wouldn’t be interested in a douche like that. Besides, it’s a bit soon, isn’t it? They’re probably just hanging out.”
She shakes her head against my chest. “He’s not the douche you keep thinking he is. He’s sweet and charming. He was great to me for four years and I treated him like shit. He deserved so much better than that.”
“There is nothing better than you, Tully.”
“Maybe to you, but to him…it’s a different story.”
“How so?”
“Can you imagine being in love with someone who could never feel the same, no matter how hard you try and what kind of life you promise them? Every move he made was for nothing. No matter what he did, I couldn’t give myself to him and he should hate me for that. I wasted three years of his life knowing I’d never be able to give him what he needs when he should have been out there looking for the girl who will.”
I hate seeing her so down about this especially after everything we’ve already talked about this evening. I pull her in a little tighter and splay my fingers over her skin. “You can’t be so hard on yourself for not being in love with someone. It’s either there or it’s not, and with Spencer, it wasn’t. You at least did the right thing by letting him go.”
“But that’s just the thing; I didn’t let him go.”
“What?” I grunt. “Don’t fucking tell me I’m lying in bed with another man’s woman.”
“No,” she says. “I mean that I wasn’t the one to let him go. He ended it with me the day after the wedding.”
“Shit, babe,” I say as a deep regret sinks into my soul. I kiss her temple again, realizing that over the past two weeks she’s been dealing with a different kind of heartbreak than I had been picturing. I thought she would have been the one to end it and Spencer was the one wallowing in a pit of self-doubt, but it’s not. It’s been her all this time and I’ve sat back and left her alone when I should have been right there beside her, holding her up. “You should have said something.”
“Couldn’t,” she grumbles. “I just…I wasn’t ready and besides, I didn’t want you assuming I was single and trying to take advantage of that.”
“I wouldn’t have done that,” I tell her. “I’m more than willing to force you to admit what you’re too scared to think about, but you know I would never make a move until I knew you were ready.”
“I’m not ready.”
“I know, that’s why I haven’t kissed you when every single piece of me is screaming to do it.”
Her head tilts up and her eyes instantly find mine before dropping to my lips. The desire is strong in her eyes and I know she wants this just as badly as I do, but the fear overtakes her. She doesn’t trust me and as much as she wants to give herself over to me, she’s not quite there yet.
Tully looks away and with a guttural sigh, returns her head to my chest. “As long as you need, Tullz. I’ll be waiting.”
“I don’t think I ever apologized for my drunken state at the wedding and thanked you for getting me home safe,” she tells me, clearly trying to skip over the whole ‘I’ll be waiting for you’ bullshit. Though, as much as she doesn’t want to hear it, she needed to know and I have a feeling I’ll be reminding her every chance I get.
“You have nothing to apologize for. You were in shock and clearly, you weren’t expecting me to show up on your doorstep like that.”
“No, I wasn’t, but my behavior was inexcusable. I was nasty and I said things that maybe I shouldn’t have.”
“You said you hated me.”
“At the wedding I did.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
I feel her cringe against my chest and my question is followed by a long pause before a short sigh. “I don’t hate you, Rivers,” she starts. “In fact, I think I love you m
ore than ever. I hate what you did to me, I hate the power I allowed you to have over me, and I hate the way it feels every time I think about it.”
Her eyes fill with tears as she slowly shreds me to pieces “I’m not going to lie because I know you can see it all over me. I love you, so freaking much that it hurts. I’ve always loved you and I fear that I always will, but I don’t trust you. Not anymore. I can’t trust that you’re going to keep your word, I can’t trust that you’re not going to walk away when it gets too hard, and I can’t trust that you’re not going to tear me apart all over again. So, no matter how many times you stand before me promising that you’re going to love me and make it up to me, it means nothing because when it comes down to it, I can never open myself up to you again. You broke me into tiny little pieces and every single day I suffered.”
Her words rocket through me and my heart shatters, but I know this isn’t the end. We’re only just getting started and for once she’s actually sharing what’s in her heart, rather than just yelling at me for the shit I’ve put her through.
In the blink of an eye, I roll us so I hover above her. My hips fall between her open legs and she instinctively wraps her legs around me. “I know you’re hurting and I know you want to fight me every step of the way just to put me in my place for what I did, and that’s ok. If that’s what you need to do, then fuck it, I’ll take it like a man with a smile on my face, but hear me when I tell you that I’m not going anywhere. I fucking love you and I don’t care what you say; you’re my girl. I will make it up to you no matter how long it takes, even if that means fighting you on it for the rest of my goddamn life. I will make it up to you and I will love you every single day of forever. I hope I’ve made that fucking clear.”
She watches me with wide, teary eyes, truly hearing me. “How am I supposed to trust that?”
I dip my face to hers, not quite touching but close enough that if she wanted to, she could crane her neck up and capture my lips in hers. “You won’t, but that’s what time is for. One of these days you’re going to stop looking back and only see what lays ahead, and when you do, it’s going to be me that you see. Every time, Tullz.”
Unstoppable: Haven Falls (Book 7) Page 12