Retribution (The Protectors 3)

Ronan shook his head. “No, never,” he admitted. “But let me ask you this, Hawke. Did Tate ask you to let Revay go?”

I shot Ronan a glance. “What?”

“Did he ever ask you to choose?”

I thought back to my conversations with Tate and realized that he hadn’t. All he’d ever done was ask about Revay…like he’d wanted to know more about her. I’d been the one who’d decided I needed to choose between them.

“What if I always see her when I look at him?” I asked. My voice shook as a terrible shame swept through me. “What if I’m with Tate and I start wishing it had been him instead of her?”

I blinked back the tears that threatened as I considered what it would be like if Tate were gone and I shook my head violently. “No,” I whispered, realizing I’d answered my own question. Just like I couldn’t choose Tate over Revay, I wouldn’t have been able to choose her over him either. The sick what if game was messing with my head so I climbed to my feet and hurried down the steps and just began walking.

“Why did you hang on to this house, Hawke?”

“What?” I asked as I looked over my shoulder at Ronan who was following me.

“Your uncle’s house,” Ronan said as he motioned to the weathered structure behind me. I turned around to face the house that wasn’t really a house anymore it. It was just some lumber held together by a few nails. I hadn’t been inside the house even once since I’d left with Revay for Georgia, but I had no doubt it was just as much of a mess on the inside as it was on the outside.

I’d inherited the house after my uncle had died, but I hadn’t ever given much thought as to what I should do with it. But I knew the answer to Ronan’s question. I’d kept the house because despite all the bad memories it held for me, there was one really good one.

Revay.

Just like I’d crawled through her window so many times in the dead of night, she’d done the same thing. My eyes fell to the first floor window that had been my bedroom. I’d always been in so much pain after one of my uncle’s beatings, both physically and emotionally, and she’d always been there, curled at my back, her slim arms holding me tight. She’d promised me we would always take care of each other and then she’d sung songs to me – songs she’d made up – until I’d fallen asleep.

“I don’t want to ever forget,” I admitted to Ronan, though I doubted he understood what I meant. It didn’t matter because I did. It was the same reason I’d kept the house Revay had inherited from her parents…the one we were going to raise our family in. But I hadn’t turned it into a home for myself. I’d left it as a shrine to her, to what we should have had together. I’d become stuck in time because it was the only way I could keep her close to me.

And I’d used my promise to her that I would find the men who’d hurt her as a way to get through each day. Because if I hadn’t had that need for vengeance, I wouldn’t have had a reason to go on.

But now I had a new reason.

“He’ll never forgive me,” I said softly. “The things I said about not really seeing him and Matty…”

“You’ll never know unless you ask him,” Ronan said as he came to stand next to me.

I shook my head even as a painful rush of hope swept through me. “I can’t,” I barely managed to say. “I have nothing to offer him. He doesn’t even know what I’ve been doing for a living these past six years.”

Ronan put his hand on my shoulder. “Let him make that choice, Hawke.”

Denial reared its ugly head, but the aching need to know if I had a chance at finally having the life I wanted won out and I reached for my phone. My fingers were actually shaking as I tried to bring up the browser. “Um, I need to reserve a flight.”

Ronan’s hand closed over mine. “Seth and I chartered a jet,” he said. “Matty wanted to bring Bullet with us.”

I stilled as Ronan’s words sank in and then my heart began pounding in my chest. “They’re here?” I whispered in disbelief.

I brushed past Ronan even as he nodded, and began running. It took less than a minute to get through the woods that separated the two houses and when I rounded mine, I came to a thudding halt as I took in the sight before me. I only noticed Seth and Mav in my periphery because my eyes fell on Tate and Matty where they were bent over Bullet who was sitting in front of them, his big tail thumping on the dusty driveway. The German Shepherd saw me a second later and came running at me, but I kept my eyes on Tate and Matty as they both straightened. I locked eyes with Tate as he drew Matty back against him and dropped his hands on his shoulders.