He reached out and gripped me by the face with those big hands.
“I was responsible for it in the first place. I was the reason you needed saving.”
“No, Maxon, you weren’t. Just because he was your father doesn’t make you responsible for his actions. It was on him. It was always on him, and I will hate him until my dying breath for stealing you away from me.”
My head shook as it all began to make sense. To come together.
“You loved me the whole time, didn’t you?”
Guttural pain pinched his face. “Of course, I loved you.”
Blue eyes churned with misery. A toiling sea of regret and love. “From the first time I met you, I promised I would be there to protect you. And that’s what I had to do in order to do it.”
Hurt squeezed my ribs. “That’s not what I ever asked of you.”
A frown creased the corners of his eyes. “I would have done anything for you, Little Bird. You knew that.”
“Anything but stay with me,” I whispered, coming to the full truth of the matter.
I guessed that made me angry, too.
“And what . . . are you just gonna walk away from me now because you think you’re not good enough? Go back to her? Because that woman thinks you belong to her in some sick way?” I challenged, giving this man my whole heart.
“Convince yourself that your life is too dangerous? When are you gonna stop punishin’ yourself? When are you gonna see you are worth it, too?”
Guilt streaked across his face, flickers of that old disbelief. The lie that he wasn’t good enough.
He squeezed my face tighter. “I’m trying to be, Izzy. Fuck, I’m trying. But I don’t know how I’m going to fix this. End it. But I can’t allow for you or the boys to be in danger. I can’t, Izzy. I can’t risk you.”
I wrapped my hand around one of his wrists, tears soaking my face. “I won’t pretend like what you do isn’t dangerous. That this threat isn’t real. I was terrified last night. So scared. But do you know what I was scared most about?”
A blanket of tears ran sticky on my cheeks, my sight blurred by this crater I could feel splintering through the middle of us.
“I was scared that I might have lost you. That’s the real risk.” I gathered up his hand, splaying out his palm, pressed it at the thunder battering my chest. “Of losing this. Of losing us.”
“What if the boys lost you because of me?” Grief cracked on his words.
My lips trembled, and I shook my head. “That’s not gonna happen. You will always find a way to protect me. You always have. You have always heard me callin’, even when you were out of earshot.”
He dropped his forehead to mine and rasped out an anguished breath. “I want to be that guy. I do, Izzy. I’m not sure I know how to be.”
He straightened, and panic roared through my nerves. Wild and uncontained. I grappled to get his hand back into my hold. “Don’t you dare leave me, Maxon Chambers.”
One of the boys started moving around in the next room, waking with the day, most likely Dillon with his endless energy.
Maxon stiffened, as if he had no idea where he was supposed to go. If he should stay or if he should leave.
“I’m going to fix this. Whatever it takes, I promise you, you and your boys will be safe.”
He started for the window, and that panic screamed.
I moved for him, wanting to reach for him, grab him, beg him not to go.
He was halfway out when I whispered the words, “Your love isn’t selfish, Maxon. Lovin’ someone isn’t selfish. The most selfish thing you can do is live for your fear. To live for your past. Live for us, instead. Love for us. Give your courage to us. That is all you have to do.”
“Mom?” Dillon called, and Maxon gazed at me through the window.
He sent me the saddest smile before he was gone.
Thirty-Two
Mack
Seventeen Years Old
“I’m out.”
Mack watched the words penetrate his father where he was leaned over a car he was parting out. His spine stiffened, and he slowly swiveled around to face him.
He might as well have stayed with his back to him. Wasn’t like Mack couldn’t feel the hostility vibrating through the monster, anyway.
Clarissa’s father, Kiel, grunted his disgust from the other side of the car.
Mack didn’t give a shit what either of them thought. He just let his hatred blaze back.
His father’s blue eyes flashed disgust as he took a step toward him. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. I’m out. I’m not doing this anymore, and I sure as fuck am not dragging my friends into it.”
Things had gone south for Ian and his brother Jace. The two of them had gotten into a fucked-up tangle of greed and pride with their piece-of-trash-mother’s boyfriend. Jace had taken the fall. Mack knew it. Knew it all the way to his core. He wasn’t going to let Ian get embroiled in the middle of something just as corrupt.