I squeezed the journal in my hands, resisting the urge to impale something. She’d never know how hard this was for me. How, if faced with the same giant, she’d already be on her knees, begging for mercy. I was halfway there, not sure if I could make the walk.
Maggie Beautiful came to mind in blinding color, a neon reminder, giving me the strength to rise up and slay. Yeah, if I didn’t let her go now, we would be ruined. The possibility of too many regrets loomed overhead.
I could do this now. I would do this now. For the both of us.
The air felt too thick, too humid, and my lungs were short on oxygen. Sick. So damn sick without her. I closed my eyes, tired from the disease that ate me up from the inside out. Already tired of the perpetual darkness that would come close to killing me without her light to save me. It had somehow become the equivalent of lifeblood to the heart.
If Luca could only see his son now—his blood. This man needed all of her, needed to absorb her into my skin so I could carry her with me. Somehow this graceful woman had become the core of my strength.
“You all right, man?”
Mitch. The cloud of smoke that blew from his mouth reached me before he did. I said nothing.
“Well, at least I can’t call you a fucking liar.” He came to stand next to me, staring in the distance. “She left with Violet and Mick?”
“Yeah,” I said, taking the necklace from my pocket and slipping it inside the journal she had left behind. “She’s gone.”
“Why would she leave her journal behind?” He muttered. “That seems like a reckless thing to do for someone as stubborn as she is. I could see her locking it away. Even if there was some cure for love in it and us dying assholes needed it to survive another day.” He sniffed the air. “It smells expensive. Like roses. Like her.”
“I found it in the back seat of the car I rented in Texas.” The mention of Texas brought back the nightmare.
I often had dreams of Scarlett when we were together, dreams that I had never told her about. The base dream was always the last moments we had spent together in the snow years ago, right before Elliott was killed by the train.
Sometimes the dreams went deeper and I’d catch her with a guy who had no face. I’d wake up in a foul mood, taking it out on everyone around me, like they were the cause of the treachery. Sometimes I found myself being moody with her, even though she had never done me wrong.
The potential was there though. She’d get reckless after I had done something she didn’t like and would punish me. But those dreams could never compare to the helplessness, the loss of complete control when she left with that fucking kid. And the detail she went into in that roach motel.
How he had touched her and tasted her skin—
Mitch went to pat me on the shoulder but pulled back. “Calm down, Cujo. Take a deep breath.”
“A minute, Mitch.”
“Yeah,” he said, stomping out his cigarette. “We need forever for this love shit to abate.”
Forever? I almost laughed. I’d never get over her. That wasn’t what this was about. So fucking far from that.
He cleared his throat. He nodded and smoothed a hand through his hair. “Why couldn’t Violet tell me? Why did you have to do it? She was woman enough to come to my bed, but she wasn’t woman enough to tell me she’s pregnant?”
“She’s afraid, Mitch. Afraid of how you’d react.” I gave him a few moments of silence before I cleared my throat. “What are you going to do? Violet? The baby?”
We were both in the midst of hell, just battling two different monsters.
He shrugged and reached for the cigarette behind his ear. He stared at it for a long minute before he pitched it. “This place needs some dirtying. It’s too fucking pretty today.” He tapped his finger against the building. “What can I do? I don’t have much of a choice, bro. Mick is my kid brother. He’s in love with her.”
“You?”
“Yeah. I’m in love with her too,” he said quietly. “But what’s love got to do with it? She’s marrying Mick next month at her grandparent’s palace by the sea in California. End of story. Either way, the kid will be his or