“Exciting.” He tilts one of the glasses from side to side, swirling the wine. “Have a drink.”
I sigh and rub my temples. He’s not going anywhere and there’s nothing I can do about it right now. I can scream and fight all I want but Kellen Hayle does whatever he chooses whenever he chooses and the rest of us mere mortals have to accept it.
“One drink and then you’re gone.” I point at the door. “Understood?”
“Deal.”
I accept the glass and consider chugging it down, but that’ll only make me a little tipsy and I don’t want to lose any of my faculties right now, not with Kellen looking at me like he’s not sure if he wants to smash me in the face with a hammer or if he wants to rip my clothes off and ravish my body.
It’s extremely confusing because I’m not sure which I want either.
I turn away and sit at the table. He lingers, sipping his wine, leaning against my counter.
“I spoke with the family lawyer today,” he says quietly and I’m guessing that’s the reason he decided to visit me.
“Learn anything interesting?”
“A few things, but one in particular stood out. Did you know that my father left me a trust?”
I laugh, unable to help it. “Right, yeah, of course he did. You run away from the family for years, build up your own little crime empire, terrorize people, get your hands nice and bloody, but you’re still the spoiled oldest son.”
His expression darkens and he walks over, sauntering slowly. He sits down in the chair next to mine, getting closer than necessary, his knees touching my thigh.
“I was never spoiled by that man.”
I snort once. “Come on, I remember how things were—”
“They gave me things. They forced me into opportunities. But everything came with a cost.” His voice is low now. He pulls up the sleeve of his black Henley and shows me a mottled mass of scar tissue barely covered by a lotus flower tattoo. I shiver slightly at how achingly familiar those scars are and at the sudden nearness of him. I didn’t expect this level of vulnerability, and now that he’s showing it, I almost wish he’d stop. “Cigarette burns. My father particularly liked this this form of punishment. And the sick part is, he didn’t even smoke, he’d just light them, watch it burn, then put it out on my skin. Over and over again until I screamed. Don’t tell me I’m fucking spoiled.”
I stare at him, blinking rapidly, heart racing. I knew his father was a bastard, and I knew he was abusive—but I had no clue how far it went. Cait only ever hinted at what her father was capable of. Hitting, punching, pushing. But burning? My god, so much suddenly makes sense.
I saw the scars on her. She was good at hiding them and I think she was more ashamed than Kellen is, but I still saw them when we went swimming or if the day was really hot and she walked around in a tank top. Scars like what Kellen has, some circular, some long slashes. I never asked how she got them and she never volunteered—we always just pretended like they didn’t exist.
Now I wish I’d asked. I don’t know what I could’ve done, but maybe things would be different. There were a lot of opportunities for us to turn away from our dark path but we tumbled down it together instead, falling headlong into a hell we both desperately wanted for very different reasons.
“I didn’t know,” I say quietly, looking away and sipping my wine to cover my sudden, intense shame.
He sneers. “Yes, you did, but it was easier to pretend like you didn’t.” He yanks his sleeve back down. “I showed you my scars. Why don’t you show me yours?” He reaches out and snatches my arm roughly. Some of the wine spills over the glass as I try to pull back.
“Get the fuck off me—”
But he turns my wrist and exposes my inner arm. The scars are still there, faint now, nearly gone from an obsessive anti-scar cream regiment and slowly getting fainter every day, but still visible at the crook of my elbow. Those scars bring back so many dark memories, so many horrible nights spent nodding off, so high I couldn’t think, with Cait completely fucked up beside me. So many of my teenage years, wasted to addiction.
I try to yank my arm away, but he doesn’t let me go.
“You’re even more ashamed if it than I am, aren’t you? And you should be. But don’t pretend like they aren’t there. Those scars are who you are.”
“They’re who I used to be.” I stare into his eyes, a mixture of rage and self-loathing billowing up through my core. He doesn’t know a damn thing about me. Cait died and he ran away and I was left here in this piece-of-shit cottage trying to pick up the pieces. Seven years later, I’m still here just as broken and scarred and ruined as I was back then.
“Who we used to be and what we do today make up what we are, princess.” He finally releases me and I yank away from him, nearly knocking over my glass again. I grab it with shaking hands and take a sip to steady myself, but that only makes it worse.
“What, are you a philosopher now? I thought you were too busy selling drugs to girls like me to think about life.”
He shakes his head. “No drugs. That’s my only rule. We don’t deal.”
“Noble. What a great guy.”
“You know I’m not.”