Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 74655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Should I leave him be?
The bandage on his arm looks soaked, like he’s bled a little. Did he hurt himself further doing what we did tonight?
I should ask him. Check on it. Make sure he’s okay.
I walk over quietly and sits down. He has to have heard me, but he doesn’t move to look at me. For a second, we just sit, staring into the darkness, both of us quiet. I decide to push, just a little, to take the risk and ask him about Braxton. Everyone knows by now his brother was an important part of his life, but nobody really knows what went on. Not really. Not the depths of it.
Maybe he’ll tell me.
Maybe he won’t.
But I’m curious to know.
“Tell me about Braxton,” I say softly, into the night.
Wind tickles my face, and I close my eyes for a second, breathing in the cool, crisp air.
I expect Koda to say no, to tell me to go to hell, but for whatever reason, his mood seems mellow tonight. Maybe it’s the sex, maybe it’s that he knows for right now we’re safe. Whatever the case, he speaks, his voice husky and so damned sexy it makes my heart ache for him.
I want him so much more than I’ve wanted anyone in my life. And that terrifies me.
“Never talked much about my brother.”
His tone isn’t snappy, or frustrated.
He’s merely telling his truth.
“I can understand that,” I say, crossing my legs and snuggling further back into the chair. “I don’t talk about my mother a great deal. In fact, most people who know me simply know she passed away. They don’t know how or why. Your club are the first people I’ve trusted with that information.”
“Did it fuck you up?”
His question startles me, not because it’s bad, but because it isn’t what I expected him to say. It’s a question that is seemingly simple and yet its answer can run so deep. Did it fuck me up? Watching her die? Watching her get blown away right in front of me? Becoming my father’s slave for years? Missing her so heavily I still carry the ache in my chest?
Yes.
It fucked me up.
On an epic level.
“Yes,” I say simply, because it’s the truth. “Yes, it did fuck me up.”
“Then you know how it feels,” he says, his voice low and scratchy. “You know how it feels to go through live never feelin’ fuckin’ joy because you know the feelin’ of darkness so well it becomes you.”
God.
That hits me right where it hurts. Right in my core. The most sensitive parts of me.
“When you look in the mirror and all you see is failure. Loneliness. Bitterness.”
I say that with my voice soft, a little fragile, mostly broken.
Koda looks over at me. “Braxton was my twin. But he was more than that. He was a part of me. Literally, my second half. He was fuckin’ all I had. And I failed him.”
“How?” I dare to ask.
“Because he was in trouble, and I didn’t see it. I didn’t help when he needed me to help. I didn’t realize he had gotten himself in deep until it was too late. And it was, it was too fuckin’ late.”
God.
My heart aches for him.
“Was it drugs?”
Koda exhales and crosses his arms. “Don’t really do the talkin’, deep and meaningful shit ...”
“That’s wonderful,” I say, still staring at him. “Neither do I. I’m simply asking for your story, Koda.”
His silences stretches for a while before he finally murmurs, “It was drugs. He got in deep. Got hooked. Started selling them. Started fucking people over. Got in deeper. Stole weapons. Thought he could sell them off, pay off his debts, and be free. He was wrong. Got a hit put against him. I tried to change his name, get us out, but they got ahold of us before I could.”
God.
I want to reach over and hug him, to tell him it’ll be okay, to tell him it wasn’t his fault his brother got into trouble. But I can’t do that. I can only listen, because it doesn’t matter what I say to him now. He is never going to feel okay about losing Braxton, and he’s never going to stop blaming himself. My words won’t change that.
“I’m really sorry, Koda.”
“Worst part was they got me first. Used me to get him. I should have fuckin’ run when I had the chance and taken him with me. Then tried to get us free. I shouldn’t have been in that fuckin’ town. Because of that, he got killed. He got killed, and they got what they wanted.”
“And you were left with a hole that can never be filled.”
He looks over at me, his eyes intense. He just watches me, as if he’s seeing me in a different light. As if, for the first time, he actually understands me. Because, whether he likes it or not, we’re one and the same. We’re both so incredibly broken, so incredibly damaged by our past, but mostly we hold blame, and guilt, and an emptiness not many can understand.