He got right in my face. “You know the story, Connor. How I beat my father to death. I blamed myself for my mom’s death, for not protecting her. That was my job and I failed her.”
“You were a kid,” I muttered.
“And you were drugged.”
Silence. I dropped my head forward and my shoulders sagged. I felt that every single day. Like I failed Alina and I still was.
“Head’s a little fucked up,” I finally said.
“A little?” Deck replied.
I snorted. Asshole. “A lot.”
He nodded. “And her?”
“Can’t fuckin’ breathe without her.”
“Know the feeling,” Deck murmured.
I snapped my head up to glare at him. “How long have you been fucking my sister? She better have been of age or I’ll kill you.”
Deck’s jaw tightened. “Jesus. What the hell? I’d never do that and you bloody well know it.”
I did. It was a cruel comment. Deck was the most honorable guy I knew and he’d have tried to keep his word to me and stayed away from Georgie. “Yeah.”
“Ten years,” he said. “And I shouldn’t have wasted those ten years not having her, but I did because I knew you were not cool with me bringing her into our type of life. Now I know it was stupid of me to make that promise to stay away from her. I wasted years not having her in my arms and I failed to protect her, too.”
Fire burned in my stomach at his words and the fucked-up part was I didn’t know why. He was right. At any moment, life could throw a hook and drag you under, but if you had that one person to hold onto, the fight to the surface was easier. That person was your reason to breathe.
I inhaled a deep breath. “Is Georgie happy?”
Deck hesitated. “She is now. But not completely. Don’t think she’ll ever be until she has her brother back. I’d like to tell her that’s a possibility.”
I lowered my head. “Does she know I’m here?”
“I’ll never lie to her, Connor. So, yeah, she knows you were at Avalanche. I also told her we were looking for you, but she doesn’t know you’re here now. Not yet. But she will because I won’t keep it from her and I won’t stop her if you stick around and she wants to see you.” Then he said, “Not cutting off my air.”
“Yeah.” I got that because my air was cut off thinking I’d lost Alina tonight.
The porch creaked as Deck shifted his weight. “You know, Alina protected you even though she didn’t need to. I’d never hurt you, Connor.”
“You chained me to a wall, sedated me, and handcuffed me to a pipe.”
Deck nodded. “All necessary.”
“Dick moves.”
“You tried to kill us. I think it was appropriate for the situation. And I was trying to protect you from hurting yourself.” His brows lowered and he said in a more serious tone, “We need to straighten out that head of yours, buddy.”
“Jesus Christ, don’t you think I know that?” I shouted.
I walked to the opposite end of the porch and stared at the boarded-up house through the trees. The window in the attic didn’t have plywood over it because I’d removed it in order to watch her house. “I can’t be with her and I can’t stay away. I watch her so I won’t forget her again. Every time I leave, my chest tightens and I feel like I’m drowning. You know what that is? Fear. I never used to feel fear. There was no room for it. You of all people know that, not in our line of work. But now I’m terrified I’ll forget her again. That I’ll lose her.
“Do you know what it’s like to be afraid to fall asleep because of nightmares, but they aren’t nightmares. They are real things I’ve done and I have to wake up again and live with that. But far worse is the constant fear of waking up with no memories at all. Forgetting her.
“I live with this rage pulsing and I don’t know when it’s going to detonate.” I shook my head back and forth, kicking at a tiny rut in one of the planks. “She wants normal. I can’t give it to her. I can’t talk about what happened to her. I can’t sleep or my nightmares invade and you saw the result in the kitchen. But I can’t leave either.”
I heard him approach and my body tensed, but I remained where I was, staring at that fuckin’ attic window.
“You can’t have it both ways, Connor. Staying and leaving. Because that’s what you’re doing. Half here and half gone.”
Limbo. I was in limbo.
Deck stood beside me and faced the abandoned house. “Shit,” he muttered. I glanced at him and he was staring at the attic window.
“You’re slipping,” I said, smirking.
“Thought Vic checked that place out.”