Not My Heart to Break (Merciless World Book 3)

by W. Winters

  Occasionally I glance at the backpack in the passenger seat, the money I stole from him. When I get to a motel hours and hours away with sleep dragging me down, I finally check my phone for the first time since I left.

  There’s nothing from him. Nothing after the texts I sent him to come home and that I wasn’t okay. He saw them though. He saw but he didn’t answer.

  Derrick messaged me, though. Reading his text sends me into another sobbing frenzy on the scratchy sheets of the motel.

  Tonight is the first night of many where I simply cry myself to sleep, hating who I am and how little I’m worth. And it’s the first night in years that Seth doesn’t message me back. He never messages me back.

  Seth

  Fuck.

  “No, no, no.” With my hands running down my face I keep praying to whatever God would even bother to listen to me to make Cami wake up. To make this entire night go away. Erase it from fate’s plans. None of this should have happened.

  “Please, God,” I beg, but no one’s listening to me.

  Derrick hasn’t moved. Not an inch. His body is over Cami’s, his forearm resting above her head. His face is near her stomach, and his shoulders heave every so often. I’ve never seen the man cry in our entire existence, but he cries for her.

  “We’re too late,” I tell him again, with a dry throat and hope he hears me this time. My fist slams against the wall when he tells me “no” like this isn’t real. The pain of my knuckles bashing against the wall isn’t enough. The pain is miniscule compared to everything else. So I do it again and again, letting the anguish wash over me. The drywall cracks and crumbles so easily.

  I don’t even realize I’m screaming until Derrick yells at me to shut the fuck up.

  Picking up his head, he stares at me, both of us breathless, wounded and guilty.

  “This is because of me,” he tells me with red eyes. The pain is etched in every feature of his expression. “She’s dead because I couldn’t—”

  “She’s dead because Mathews wanted to hurt us. They wanted to steal from us. They wanted to kill her.”

  “It’s on me,” he emphasizes, lowering himself until his forehead rests on her stomach. “She died because of me.”

  “We’ll get them back. We’ll make them pay.”

  Time passes in silence.

  “Where’s Laura?” he asks cautiously. He didn’t see the note when we came in. It’s the first thing I saw. The blood, the trail of it to the safe. The emptied backpack.

  “She took off,” I answer him and I swear the confession strangles me. Each word tries to choke me, hating the very thought of it.

  “Where she’d run to?” he asks and the lack of contempt, the lack of sympathy… he doesn’t get it.

  “She didn’t run from them; she took off for good,” I explain. It hurts more than I thought it would to say it out loud. “She left me.”

  With bewildered eyes he shakes his head and that’s when I turn away from him, leaving him where he is over Cami and walking away. I have to wipe my face with my forearm as I head back to the kitchen and to the front of the house.

  I feel restless, anxious, tormented and angry. It turns to pacing, thinking about how to get revenge against Mathews for hurting Laura, for trying to steal from me, for scaring the one girl I’ve ever loved away from me.

  I can picture Laura finding Cami; that breaks me down to nothing. I am nothing when I imagine that scene. I know how she would have reacted. But I can’t see her emptying the backpack and shoving the money inside. I can’t see her packing up her things. I can’t picture her leaving me.

  Never did I think she’d leave me. I can’t imagine it, even though it’s already done.

  The ghosts in the living room call to me. She wanted me to leave. I did this. I did all of this.

  Another vicious scream tears from my throat as I swipe my arm down the counter. My body’s hot, my head feels light and I do it again. The bang and clatter of the broken glasses and pans hitting the tiled floor urge me on.

  I destroy everything, everything I touch, why should this place be any different?

  It takes me a long moment to realize she took the cash and what the consequence of that is. I needed that cash. We needed every fucking cent of it.

  “Fuck!” I scream out the word, but it doesn’t make anything better.

  This is what it feels like to be at rock bottom.

  It takes a long time for me to actually cry. To let it all out and feel the deep-seated pain in the very pit of my stomach. For me to accept that Cami is dead and Laura is long gone.

  Getting revenge for Cami is the sole focus of our crew.

  That’s the only thing that keeps Derrick moving. The guys are silent. Everyone is. No one asks where Laura is either. They know she left; they don’t know about the money though.

  If I told them, they’d want to go after her. So instead I have to be smarter, harsher, more violent to get the message across.

  She screwed me. Laura screwed me over when she left. She left me at my worst, and made everything harder. I have to tell myself she couldn’t have known, but that only helps for so long.

  It takes hours of standing in a scalding hot shower to try to wash it all away, the pain of what I’ve caused, the agony of what I lost. It doesn’t leave me though. There’s no cleansing these sins.

  When I fall into bed, I take her note with me. It crinkles when I grip it, no matter how much I try to let up on my grasp. I can’t help it; I hold it with everything I’ve got.

  I have her note, and the messages she sent.

  The dim light from the phone is the only light in the room, and I stare at it for hours. Reading the texts about her doctor’s appointment, then about Cami. I reread the lines she sent, wanting me to come home. Needing me.

  Instead I was out, making a hard life even harder. Getting us into deeper shit.

  All the while she was dealing with a dead girl whose blood is on my hands.

  There’s a mix of regret and hate.

  As the weeks move on, I get colder, harder. The realization of what I’ve chosen fuels me to do unspeakable things. Mathews never stood a chance. Neither did Fletcher.

  Laura doesn’t text me again other than to tell me she’s sorry and I don’t respond to that message. She doesn’t come back to Tremont or anywhere within a five-hundred-mile radius. Well only once, and it wasn’t for me. A year had passed and she came back for a single day, hoping not to run into me even though she stepped into my territory, into my bar. I knew it when she saw me there, bumping into me by accident, that she wanted to leave without running into me.

  That hurt stays long after she’s gone. I thought I wasn’t capable of feeling like that anymore, until she showed up.

  Derrick keeps tabs on her. He has since she left.

  The regret fades. The hate takes over.

  I loved her more than she loved me, because I never would have left her.

  Every day that passes, I start hating her more.

  She said she loved me and she left.

  She stole from me and she left.

  She never looked back; she just left.

  She should have known one day I’d come back for her. I’m going to make her feel the same regret I feel.

  Eight years later

  I wonder if Laura knows it’s me, for about half a fucking second. The way she averts her eyes and refuses to look at me gives me the answer I’m looking for. The East Coast has been good to me. I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself, but it’s where Laura ended up.

  It’s pitch black and the stores in the shopping center are closing down. I’ve been parked here for a good three hours now, just watching. It’s what I’m paid to do and what I need to do tonight.

  I’m supposed to watch Jase Cross’s girl. I’ve been working with the Cross brothers ever since I left Tremont in Derrick’s hands. There was no one left to kill there, no challenges to face. So I followed Laura, keeping my distance and getting comfortable.

 
; Fate’s a prick.

  She’s with the girl I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on. I suppose it makes sense. My life’s a sick joke.

  Fuck, just looking at her dredges up everything. Every splinter of emotion I thought I’d long buried. The sick concoction of it all slips into the crevices of my bones as my eyes wander over the curves of her collarbone.

  Then lower, to the dip at her waist.

  It’s hot and cold. Anger then lust. Fuck, I can’t keep still in this piece of tin knowing she’s right there. So damn close, I could go get her if only I wanted to. Some moments I do, but I don’t know that I’m ready yet and I need her to come to me. A piece of me needs her to be the one to come to me.

  Her eyes catch mine once, then twice. She turns stiff in the car across the vacant parking lot.

  I bet she thinks I’m here for her. She thinks this is about her, and maybe it was when I first moved here. Now though, I have plenty to keep myself occupied here before I attend to her.

  If she thinks what’s between us is over, she’s wrong.

  If she thinks I’m going to let her get away with it, she’s out of her fucking mind.

  The wine bottle is nearly empty in her hands as she sits in the driver’s seat. I’ve been watching her and Bethany, Jase’s girl, drink at the bar, go into a shop, drink at another bar, and go into another shop all damn night. They’re both on the verge of fucked up when Bethany knocks on my window, wanting a ride.

  The slow smirk is hard to hide when I roll down my window. She thinks she can trust me. She hasn’t learned that in this life, you can’t trust anyone. Not even the ones you love.

  Bethany’s a sweet girl but oblivious. It’s nearly sick how much I revel in her unsuspecting question to simply take them home.

  Bethany gets in easily enough, feeling safe and secure because she knows her boyfriend is my boss. She knows I won’t do a damn thing to hurt her.

  She has no idea what I want to do to Laura, though. She isn’t aware that I know her. I know Laura more than I know anyone.

  The click of Laura’s car door echoes in the empty lot as does the staccato of her heels as she makes her way to my car. I remember those blue eyes spearing into mine when she peeks at me through her thick lashes.

  She gets in without a word, but the air burns hot. Her friend is clueless. Utterly unaware.

  I can’t hear a damn word Bethany’s saying of the confession that spills from her and I wonder if Laura can hear it. If she has the patience for it, the mental capacity to think of anything other than what I’m going to do to her once Bethany gets her ass out of this car.

  The few miles it takes to drop off Bethany are far too long. Every second is drawn out by the deep breaths Laura takes.

  My grip tightens on the wheel, thinning the tight skin on my knuckles and turning it white. The click of the turn signal distracts me from whatever Bethany’s saying, but not from the sweet cadence of Laura’s response.

  Her voice is a memory that thickens the tension between us.

  It takes fifteen minutes until Bethany’s out of the car, closing the door and asking me sweetly to take Laura home.

  I’ve been in this town for years now. I’ve come close to seeing the girl who stole my heart and left me with nothing, face to face, more times than I can count. I’ve been patient though. Good things come to those who wait.

  It’s not until Bethany closes the front door, that Laura speaks to me.

  “Seth.” Laura speaks my name like a sin. She has to clear her throat after she says my name, the nerves eating away at her and showing easily enough.

  The leather groans in the back of my car as she adjusts in her seat.

  I’m already down the pebbled path of the driveway, minutes from the highway and debating on which way I should go. Left to her place, or right, to mine.

  “Seth, please,” she begs me although I don’t know what for.

  I’m silent, remembering all the times she begged me before when she was under me, writhing and loving me.

  I love you. How many times did she tell me that just minutes after moaning my name like she used to do?

  I can hear her swallow and in the rearview mirror, I watch as her chest rises and falls heavier with each passing second that I don’t acknowledge her.

  “Seth, would you say something please, you’re scaring me.”

  Scaring her? If she knew what I became when she left me, she’d be fucking terrified.

  My gaze moves to the mirror, watching her nervously bite down on her lower lip. Those plump lips I used to bite myself.

  Licking my own, I let out a deep sigh and sit back into my seat, easing the tense muscles and letting more time pass simply to torture her.

  She leans forward, refusing to just wait like a good girl. Her hand grips the top of my seat, her fingers brushing my shoulder. The short touch is gentle, seemingly innocuous, but it lights up every nerve ending in me.

  “Seth, please, just talk to me.” As she speaks, her voice cracks and her eyes turn glossy.

  I can feel how her heart breaks only inches from mine. Her pain is like a hit of ecstasy after years of being clean. I want more of it; I crave it like an addict.

  “What do you want me to say, Babygirl?” I question her and wait at the red light, right at the fork that decides where we’re going.

  I can hear the hitch in her breath, I can feel the heat that revs up inside of her. Was it Babygirl that did it? Or simply having me answer her after nearly a decade of silence?

  Inhaling deeply, I get a heavy dose of her sweet scent. Fuck, it’s just like I remember. Everything about her is exactly what I remember. I didn’t make it up in my mind. She’s intoxicating.

  “Anything,” she breathes as the red light turns green and I make my decision, knowing exactly what I’m going to do to her tonight, how I’m going to make her pay for leaving me and fucking me over. “Just tell me anything.”

  Locking my gaze with hers I ask her, keeping my voice low to try to hide the anger, “How did you really think this was going to end?”

  Desperate to Touch

  Authors note

  “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”

  ― Stephen King

  Prologue

  Laura

  The first year Seth moved to the East Coast, years ago

  The journal in my hand is thick and the edge of its pages are worn. As though she didn’t just write in its pages daily, but instead read and reread the scribbled confessions of the past three years constantly. The spine itself is cracked and it divides the journal in two.

  Guilt riddles its way into my thoughts. I shouldn’t be reading a patient’s journal, not when she only gave it to me because I told her I’d fix it for her. She trusted me because I’m her nurse. I’m supposed to help Delilah and take care of her.

  The poor woman who lives on pills during the day and is haunted by nightmares when the sun sets gave me all her secrets. I know I shouldn’t take it, but the second half of the journal starts with the description of a barn Marcus took her to.

  Marcus. Just seeing his name chills me down to my bones. I don’t even realize that I’ve stopped moving, breathing, that I’ve simply halted in the middle of the narrow hall until a sweet new resident asks me if I’m okay. I think her name is Bethany.

  “Fine,” I tell her and force a smile, although the scribbled name, Marcus, lingers in my mind. The whispered hiss, Marcus, repeats itself faster and faster as I make my way to the office to read what she wrote about him. The Rockford Center deals with mental health, so naturally, drugs and violence are a conversation starter. Many of my patients talk about Marcus. Marcus and the Cross brothers. Recently, Seth King is a name that’s going around too. I have to close my eyes, swallowing thickly as I shut the door to the dark office, leaning my back against it and simply trying to breathe.

  Seth King, the man I loved on the other side of the country. The man I ran away from. He gave me ti
me, but I knew he’d come for me. It’s been a week since I first heard he was here, only miles from me, and I’ve been praying. I begged God to give me a sign, to tell me what to do. Opening my eyes, I stare down at the notebook. My salvation.

  I photocopied every page of Delilah’s journal, hiding in the small back office of the Rockford Center. I can still remember how anxious I was and how heat smothered every inch of my skin. Knowing I could be fired instantly, I still had to do it. I’d only just started working at the center, my first job as a nurse. I had to do whatever it took to survive. I suppose I’d been saying that a lot back then.

  That journal was my leverage for when Seth inevitably came for me. Filled with multiple entries all about Marcus, the boogeyman, the Grim Reaper. A faceless villain who made deals in back alleys, running the streets around these parts, battling for power along with the Cross brothers. Unlike Carter Cross and his brothers, no one knows who Marcus is. They’ve never seen his face, but his signature power plays and ruthless reputation are notorious.

  I thought that if Seth came for me demanding the money I stole, I’d give him the copies. I thought maybe it would be of value to him because I knew he came to work with the Irish mob who ruled this part of the East Coast, a.k.a. the Cross brothers. And they’d give anything to uncover any details on their faceless nemesis, Marcus, and his secrets.

  They were all in the worn journal. This woman Delilah, my patient, had seen him. Felt him. She loved Marcus. She had a single journal when she was first admitted. It described details of where they met and what he wanted with her. It was leverage. Several years have passed; my patient’s collection has grown as she’s come in and out of the Rockford Center, when her mental state is too harmful to be away from the help we give her. She has a journal for every year, five years now, and I never stopped photocopying them. I could give Seth information on Marcus, in hopes that he wouldn’t hold our past against me.