Vengeance (The Protectors 5)

The footsteps on the wood behind me reminded me that I had a visitor, but I didn’t bother turning around. When the black jeans and booted feet came into view, I didn’t even look up or around the impediment that was keeping me from seeing the lake that I’d done nothing but stare at for weeks. Well, that and drink my weight in alcohol for the first two. The only reason I’d stopped was because I’d run out and was too fucking tired to get off my ass and go buy more.

“So is this the part where I get to kick your ass?”

I didn’t need to look up to know that it wasn’t Ronan or Mav or any of my men standing before me.

“Dom, you can do whatever the fuck you want to me,” I muttered. “Just make it quick because Ronan will probably be here soon to give me my weekly “Man up and get off your ass” speech.”

Dom lowered himself until he was sitting on the lounge chair across from me.

I was caught off guard when Dom chuckled. “I’ve heard that one myself a time or two.” He glanced over his shoulder at the lake behind him for a moment and then focused on me again. “I at least had the sense to listen.” He shook his head and said, “God, I could have so easily ended up like you. Hiding myself away, burying myself in work, pretending I didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything.”

“If you think that’s what I’m doing, you’re not as smart as I thought you were,” I bit out.

“What I think you’re doing is the same thing my son does night after night. The same thing I imagine my nephew is dealing with every minute of every day.”

“Fuck, Dom, I don’t need to hear this!” I shouted as I climbed to my feet. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t blame myself for what happened?”

“So you knew that fucker was alive? Out there waiting? You knew he’d eventually go after you again by trying to take away someone else you loved?”

“What? Fuck no!” I snapped.

“But you must have had some kind of inkling that something was off? Some kind of sixth sense or something, right?”

“No,” I said quietly.

“So remind me what exactly it is that I’m blaming you for?”

Frustration went through me because I’d had the argument with myself a hundred times. But it didn’t change the facts. “If I hadn’t gotten involved with Drake…if I hadn’t started having feelings for your son and your nephew…”

“God, I fucking hate what ifs,” Dom muttered and then he stood up and came to stand next to me by the railing. “My son had to move back in with his father and me because he’s so wracked with guilt that Brennan is the one who got hurt instead of him. He keeps saying that if he hadn’t been HIV-positive, it would have been him and that Brennan would be okay. Or if he’d done something to help Brennan disarm the guy, none of it would have happened…the list is fucking endless, Memphis! At what point do we just learn to accept the way things are and try to live with them instead of wishing they’d been different?”

I didn’t know what to say to that because even though his words didn’t magically absolve me, I also knew he was right.

“How’s Brennan?” I asked.

“We haven’t seen much of him since he went to stay with Eli. We do know he’s getting some help though. Eli, his mother and I are seeing a therapist to try and deal with what Eli’s stepfather did to him. I think Brennan has started seeing her too.”

Dom wiped his hands over his face. “A young man I consider a son was raped for years by a man I thought was a friend…a man I brought into his life after I promised him no one would ever hurt him again. You want to play the blame game, Memphis? Because I’ve got you beat hands down. You think I don’t want to go crawl in a hole somewhere and die after I think about what that man – my friend – did to my boy? Under my own fucking nose, no less?”

Dom shook his head and crossed his arms. “The only thing Eli has ever asked of me since the day he told me the truth about his stepfather was that I forgive myself. We’re so good at asking others to forgive themselves, but when it comes to letting ourselves off the hook for things beyond our control…”

Another shake of the head. “Do you need me to do that, Memphis? Do you need me to ask you to forgive yourself? Because if it gets you back to my son and to my nephew where you belong, I’ll do it.”