Damaged (Boys of Winter #2) - Sheridan Anne Page 0,32
you serious? You’re blaming me in all of this? He taunted me about murdering my parents. He deserved to die.”
“I’m not saying he didn’t, but you retaliated by dropping to his goddamn level. You’re better than that.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah,” Grayson scoffs, rolling his eyes as though I’m so far below him. “Fuck you too, babe.”
“Okay,” King says, stepping in between us and pushing Grayson toward the fireplace as Cruz drags me back to the couch and all but throws me down to it. “Both of you take a fucking breather. Getting into bullshit arguments like this isn’t getting us anywhere. We need to work out where to go from here.”
“What do you mean where to go from here?” Grayson questions, his frustration still getting the best of him. “There is nowhere to go. It’s over. Winter is out and Carver is fucking screwed.”
My brows furrow. “How is he screwed? He’s the head of his family. He has the freedom to make any call he wants.”
Cruz shakes his head. “He really doesn’t,” he explains. “Being the head of a family … it’s not just being the boss man, it’s so much more. He has to advocate for them, be the voice at the table, and I can guarantee they would have been gunning for your execution.”
My eyes widen. “They would have really done that?”
King nods. “Mmhmm, and he would have had no choice but to advocate for that, but he stood against it, and because he did that, you got to walk free.”
“Don’t do that,” I warn him. “You’re making him out to be a hero, but I can’t just forgive and forget. I was in a cell for four fucking days. Have you ever been locked up? Do you have any idea what it’s actually like? The loneliness, the fear?”
“No one is trying to belittle what you went through or force you to forgive him. I get it, it’s going to be a long fucking road before either of you can trust one another again, but you’re not understanding what it actually means to stand against your family like that.”
Exhaustion filters through me and I sink back against the couch, looking up at the three boys. “Then explain it to me.”
Cruz takes pity on me and drops down onto the coffee table, right where I was sitting just a minute ago. “He betrayed his whole fucking family for a girl he met a month ago, a girl who killed his father in front of his little sisters, his mother, and his whole extended family. In our world, that’s worse than any crime any of us have ever committed. Family is a sacred bond, and no matter what, you never betray that,” he explains. “And when someone does, the family has every fucking right to walk away.”
A heaviness sinks into my stomach. “Wait,” I say, my gaze flicking between them all. “What do you mean walk away?”
King sighs. “They packed up their shit and left Carver behind first thing this morning,” he says. “Do you see it now? He chose to save you over ever seeing his mother again, and unless she decides to forgive him and come home, he’ll never get to see his little sisters grow up.”
Fat tears form in my eyes and slowly run down my face. “But I … I didn’t know. I didn’t ask him to do that. He could have—”
“Could have what?” Grayson asks. “He could have condemned you to death? Left you to rot in that cell for the rest of your life? No, you know him better than that. He’d never be able to do that to you. By killing his father, you forced his hand. He had no choice but to put you in that cell. Do you think he enjoyed that?”
I look around the room, my mind an absolute mess. “But you … when I told you what happened during the trial, you got angry and went and beat him up.”
“I did,” Grayson says. “But it wasn’t out of anger. It’s what he needed to be able to live with himself.”
I nod, letting the weight of his words hit me as the tears continue falling from my eyes and splashing onto my black jeans.
I would do absolutely anything for the chance to see my family again, but Carver just gave that all up to save my life. Grayson is right; had I controlled myself on that dance floor, this all could have been avoided. I could have spoken privately with Carver afterward