"Please," he mumbles in his sleep, thrashing around. "Please no."
"Justice," I murmur, fumbling in the dark to reach him. I fell asleep on top of him. Actually, fell asleep is putting it mildly. I passed out cold. We're still tangled up together, though he's lying halfway on top of me instead of the other way around. His skin is cool and clammy.
"Ah, God, no," he groans, his voice broken. "What did I do? What did I do? I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."
My heart cracks, tears pooling in my eyes. He's having another nightmare about his family. He still has them often, which is probably why he rarely sleeps. He never says anything about them though. Never lets on that the past still torments his sleeping mind.
"Justice," I say again, gently shaking him. "Shh, Justice. It's okay. You're okay."
His body goes rigid above mine.
"I'm right here," I murmur, rubbing his back.
"Milan?"
"Yeah, it's me."
"Fuck," he whispers. And then I'm flat on my back and he's on top of me again, his weight pressing me down into the mattress. His hands run all over me as if checking for injuries. His body trembles, his hands shaking. His breath shakes too, rattling as if he can't quite control it. "You're okay. Thank God, you're okay."
"You were having a nightmare."
"I was… Yeah," he mutters, clearing his throat. "Yeah."
"About your family?" I ask, rubbing his back again.
"Started that way." He rolls over onto his back, and then pulls me over until I'm snuggled up against his chest. I guess he took my ruined shirt off when I fell asleep because I'm wearing only my panties.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
He's silent for a long moment before he sighs. "Julian didn't show up for work and wasn't answering his phone. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know…." He inhales a shaking breath. "I found Marissa in the front yard. And then Julian in the living room," he says, his voice a rough rasp of sound. "There was blood everywhere. I tore through the house, looking for Ainsley. Praying to God. She was just a little girl."
Tears leak from my eyes. I wrap my arms around him as best I can, holding him tight, as if that'll help stitch back together the pieces of him that broke that day all those years ago. The thing about people though…once they're broken, you can't stitch them back together again. No matter how hard you try, there will always be cracks, always be jagged edges and missing splinters. All you can do is be there while they make something new out of those broken pieces.
I think Justice has been trying for a long time to make something new, to become something better. But he's still so wracked with guilt, still so haunted. Part of him still holds onto the past, terrified to let it go. Terrified, I think, to become another version of the person he was back then.
"The nightmare changed. It's not what happened."
"What changed?"
"I went looking for Ainsley, praying that she wasn't…that she was okay," he says, running his fingers through my hair. "I found you instead. You were…" He trails off again, shuddering. "Fuck."
He thought he lost me?
"I'm right here," I murmur, pressing a kiss over his heart.
"Thank God," he whispers.
My heart aches at his fervent prayer. He's already lost so much. I don't know if God is real. I like to believe he is, and that he knows our hearts. If he is out there, I hope he sees the same man I do when I look at Justice. Not the ruthless billionaire or the former criminal but the broken man fighting to do better, to be better. He fights so damn hard.
"I'd destroy this entire fucking city if anything happened to you," he says, his voice soft.
"You wouldn't."
"I would."
"Well, then we'll just have to ensure nothing happens to me," I mutter, not arguing with him about it. Maybe he would. He may not be the same man he was back then, but only an idiot would think he's tame. He's not. He's a caged lion, one who knows his own strength and simply chooses not to use it. But pushed far enough, hurt deeply enough…well, even tamed lions have fangs and razor-sharp claws.
"Yeah," he whispers.
"Someday, you're going to have to forgive yourself, you know."
He grunts.
"I'm serious, Justice. My dad…my dad is the way he is because he can't forgive himself," I say, swallowing hard. "He was supposed to be home that day, but he extended his business trip. My mom decided to go out to lunch with her girlfriends since he wouldn't be home. And then she got hit by a drunk driver. He says if he would have just come home, she'd still be here."
"It's not the same thing."
"You're right, it's not. But it leads to the same place, doesn't it?" I ask. "He deals with it by drinking. You deal with it by locking up everyone you love so nothing can get close. In the end, the people you love pay for it, and you both end up alone. Seems one is just as bad as the other if you ask me."
He processes that for a long time. I doze in his arms, letting him work through it for himself. Justice is smart. Actually, he's scary smart. Underneath all of that bossiness and the autocratic businessman, he's also a man who cares deeply. One who is terrified of losing someone else he loves because of his decisions.
"Ainsley was really that unhappy here?" he finally asks.
"She wasn't made to live in a cage," I murmur. "Not even one made of gold. She loves you but her entire life, she's had to watch the world pass her by. She doesn't know what it's like to be normal or to do normal people things. She felt like a prisoner in her own life."