Chapter 10

Chapter Ten Luca

My fingers tapout a staccato beat against my thigh as I attempt to rein in my temper. Nothing about this meeting has gone the way that I had anticipated. What was meant as a chance to get all of us on the same page and plan our next steps, has left us with more questions. All thanks to our unexpected guests.

Guests.

Plural.

When the fuck did our home become a pit stop for every unwelcome motherfucker we’ve ever met? Maybe we’ve gone too soft recently. I crack my knuckles and move my attention to a prime target to reinstate our fearsome reputation.

Declan clears his throat and I have to force air into my lungs in a deep inhale before slowly exhaling. Right. Charles is off limits. As much as it pains me to admit, it is what is best for Letty.

I give a curt nod to Noah to acknowledge his request. It’s not ideal to start the work and expose our systems with an outsider here, but maybe it will give me an excuse to kill the sorry excuse of a man once and for all.

My lips twitch at the macabre thought. One Kade picks up on rather quickly based on the manic gleam in his eye.

“Are we all getting started then?” Rachel asks, a tentative hope in her voice. It immediately deflates my burgeoning bloodthirst as thoughts of Alec fill my head. She wants to find Romano as badly as we do so she can get her pound of flesh. It’ll never make up for the loss she’s had to endure, but at least it’s the first step to healing.

Many would judge her, judge us, for this need. The drive for revenge that is the anchor of our grieving process. Most people haven’t been poisoned the way we all have been though. The sick filth that was pushed on us, that flows in our very blood now makes us this way. How else can we heal than to remove the source of our downfall? The toxins that entered our bloodstream.

“Might as well,” I answer her.

There’s some awkward shuffling as we move our seats into the places where we normally work and Noah starts firing up the computers. I keep my eyes locked on Charles for any sign of ulterior motives, though even I can admit at this point it’s hard to pinpoint what to look for. All I notice is the widening of his eyes as he watches Noah work. There’s no calculating or speculative gleam I can catch. I hate how sincere he seems as he whistles low and near silently.

“More than just Scar has changed,” he notes.

His words put me on edge, but they enrage Kade. “We’re not the same gutter kids from back then,” he sneers.

Charles drops back in surprise. “I,” he stammers, “I never judged you for where you came from. I was always grateful you were able to protect her when I no longer could.” Each word comes out quieter, with less confidence, as if he knows he shouldn’t be saying them to us.

Kade is quick to react, launching himself across the room toward Charles’ still form, already braced for the hit that never lands. Declan and Ryder step in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. No matter how angry Kade is, he won’t hurt one of our own.

Probably.

This fit is one that has been building for a long time. Kade needs to release it as much as Scar needed a moment.

“You have no right,” Kade yells over Ryder’s shoulder. “You did nothing to protect her. Nothing at all. When she needed you most you abandoned her!” The vitriol spewing from him would concern me, should concern me, except I happen to be in full agreement with him. Charles was in a much better position to save her than Kade or I ever could have been back then, and yet he did nothing but watch her suffer. Made her pain worse.

Instead of cowering like I expected him to, Charles’ spine snaps straight. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. What I risked to do what I could for her!”

Ian pulls Jade behind him, while Holden grabs Rachel, ensuring both of them are out of the fray. Mikey already has Britt stashed in the corner with Ronan at his side as if he knew this was going to get ugly. Noah steps up to Charles, not allowing him to get any closer to Kade. With a quick glance in my direction, I know he’s also clocked where I am and is keeping himself in between the two of us as well.

The whole room is on edge once more. A growing rage makes my blood pound at the entire situation. At the fact he’s here. That he has the audacity to face off against Kade. That he even thinks for a moment that anything he says can change the past. Change what he did. What he allowed to happen.

“We know what you did for her,” I spit. “A whole lot of throwing her to the sharks. You were the one with her in that bullshit elitist school of yours. You were the one in the hallways, ignoring her tears. Acting oblivious to the continued harassment. It was your friends that attempted to rape her all over again.” My voice rises to levels I haven’t reached in years. Anger and disgust flowing out of me with every reminder of how helpless we were against the world Letty was born to. The world that destroyed her. “What did you do? What did you risk to stop that? Nothing! You sat back in your ivory tower and watched it happen. You don’t deserve to be here. You don’t deserve to be fucking alive. You may not have touched her, but you betrayed her. I promise you, what you allowed to happen to her cut deeper than anything those fuckers did to her. You broke the last piece of her, stole the last bit of her light. The detached shell of herself she became? You fucking did that. You.”

I’m shaking by the time I’m done. The entire room holds their breath and immediately I recognize that I’ve said too much. Put too much on display for everyone here. Too fucking many people. Pieces of Letty that she wasn’t willing to share. She didn’t want them to know her history with Charles and I just blew that to hell.

Ryder and Delcan are both tense as they continue to hold back Kade, though he isn’t fighting against their hold either. I meet their eyes to see rage burning in their expressions, mirroring the battle we’ve been waging since that miserable fucking gala. I’m not sure how much effort Kade would even have to make to get at Charles now that they know more.

If I had thought my words were going to be enough to get him to back down, I was sorely mistaken. He shakes his head looking back and forth between both Kade and I. His own hands are trembling with his rampant emotions.

“You’re both so clueless,” he huffs.

Kade cuts him off from saying anymore. “What more do we need to know?” he demands. “You broke her and we kept her safe until she could fit the pieces back together.”

Charles rushes toward him, but Noah is able to hold him back. “You think you’re the only ones who loved her?” he demands, ratcheting up the tension in the room tenfold. “That I didn’t recognize you both? The way you watched her from afar every chance you got? Our paths crossed plenty of times even if we were from different sides of the track. I didn’t know why you cared about my fiancée.” The jab to remind us both who she was to him lands as he intended. A stinging slap of what our reality used to be. “But I knew you did.” He laughs bitterly. “Did you think it was a coincidence she landed in your group home? Don’t tell me you really thought no one was willing to take in a young, famous, helpless heiress. She was a perfect target for selfish and greedy bastards eager to have her under their control. Even if it was just for a few months.”

He stops fighting against Noah as his words sink in. No. It’s impossible. The meaning behind them slowly dawning on me. I can’t believe it. He was only seventeen, same as Letty. Too young to be able to pull strings the way he is insinuating.

He nods as he watches my disbelief. “There are no coincidences in money. Right, James?” Declan flinches at being dragged into the conversation. “You must realize how odd it was for her to end up where she did.”

I wait for Declan to acknowledge the words. He slowly nods. “It never quite made sense,” he admits reluctantly.

“I put her there,” Charles declares, his voice husky with raw emotion. “I got her out of my world as much as I could and delivered her to you. For you to take care of her. For you to protect her in the ways I couldn’t. I fucking pushed her away and let her go for her. No matter what I was losing in doing so. It might have hurt her but it saved her too, whether you want to see that or not. I saved her just as much you assholes did.”

Silence echoes through the room. No one knows quite how to respond to that. Can we even believe it? Trust him?

Kade swallows thickly, clearing his throat, a jarring sound in the silence. “That doesn’t change everything else.”

Charles laughs, almost hysterically. “Of course it doesn’t. You only saw what I wanted the world to see. That I cut ties with her like everyone else.”

“You did,” I grind out between my teeth. “Whatever you may or may not have done to get her placed with us, you still washed your hands of her after that. It doesn’t make you a hero. Not when you stood by and watched her being attacked.”

His hands run through his already messy hair. “And who saved her then? Who got to be her hero?”

Kade narrows his eyes on him, running his thumb over the scar on his cheek. “You know who.”

He nods in acknowledgment. “How’d you find out again?” The way he asks makes my hackles rise, like I’m about to hear something else I not only never expected, but something I don’t think I’m ready to hear either.

“Oh, that’s right,” he drawls sarcastically. “She was taking too long to meet you at your normal spot. Yet, even though she was delayed enough for you to realize something was wrong, they weren’t able to take it very far before you showed up.”

Chills run down my spine.

“Almost as if it was planned for you to be able to intervene.”

“They had no intention of stopping,” Kade curses.

“Of course they didn’t,” Charles screams back. “They were all too eager to get their hands on her. She had been unattainable for years, and now they had the very thing they all craved being served to them on a fucking platter. They were encouraged to devour her, to leave nothing behind. Who do you think put that into motion?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “The men who attacked her. None other than my very own father. You were fighting shadows, but I was fighting from the enemy’s camp. I couldn’t stop it from happening, but I did set it up so you had a chance to get to her. Delayed her at school so you would realize quicker that something was wrong. Then told those bastards where they could cut her off. Close to where you’d be waiting for her.”

“Why set her up at all?” Noah asks calmly, his head tilted to the side as he studies Charles. He’s much calmer than the rest of us. Not that it surprises me. Him and Declan both are much better at putting their emotions to the side in order to analyze a situation logically.

Declan looks strained as Charles drags his gaze from Kade to Noah.

“And have them take her straight from school? Move her somewhere they would have had no chance of ever finding her?”

D cringes as if he’s figuring out more behind his words. “You took control of her downfall to mitigate how low she fell.”

Charles nods slowly. “Broken is better than dead. They wanted her dead.”

I fall back into a chair. It’s almost too much to process all at once. Everything I thought I knew about what happened back then is slowly crumbling to pieces. If I’m this staggered by the revelation, what is it going to do to Scar?

Fuck.

Does she already have her suspicions? Is that why she’s been struggling with how to deal with Charles? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Declan’s voice draws my attention back up. “When did you find out about your father? That he was behind the attack?”

Charles’ face shuts down. He steps away from Noah, dropping into the seat closest to him. He sighs, the anger diffusing from his body. “Guess I might as well lay all my cards out on the table since we’ve come this far.”

“Fuck you,” Kade snarls. “You can’t possibly be behind this shit. I refuse to believe it.”

I can’t fault Kade for his reaction. Shit, I’m right there with him.

“Oh, fuck off,” Charles fires back, once again showing a backbone I didn’t know he possessed. The anger real quick to make another reappearance. I guess I’m not the only one on edge. A snort almost escapes at the thought. I think I’m losing it.

“You’re mad I broke her, you made your damn point,” he argues. “But there would have been no pieces for you to pick up if I hadn’t saved her first.”

“Don’t you dare fucking say that,” Kade bellows. “You didn’t save her. No matter what you fucking tell yourself, you were too weak, too powerless, too fucking useless to save her.”

Charles jumps to his feet, moving too fast for any of the guys to stop him after letting their guards down. He’s in Kade’s face as he yells right back. “You think I don’t know that? That I didn’t hate myself for failing her? That I haven’t gone over that night a million times, analyzed what I could have done differently? When I said you didn’t know shit, I meant it. You have no idea what it’s like to live in our world. To live with the monster who took the very best thing in your life and destroyed it. Then relished in your pain as he watched it slip out of your fingers.”

Defying my expectations, Kade doesn’t lay him out right then and there. He waits with bated breath to hear what else Charles has to say.

Charles cocks his head to the side to look at D. “When did I find out what my father did to my fiancée? The night he raped her. I’ve always known. Knew I had to get her as far away from him as I could, even if it meant losing her myself.”

“He told you?” Declan asks disbelievingly.

He once again shakes his head, easing off Kade as he does. Declan grabs Kade to pull him back and put more distance between the two of them.

“Remind me who saved her from the fire?” His use of sarcasm is really getting old.

“A firefighter,” Kade spits.

He arches his brow in response. “She would have been dead before they ever arrived on scene, let alone inside the house.”

“It wasn’t them,” I answer, still remembering the story with perfect clarity. “It was a neighbor. He saw the smoke and came to investigate. Found her first, and didn’t realize more people were in the house.”

Declan snaps his head in my direction, causing Charles to chuckle. A dark, almost familiar sound. “How many rich people do you know that would involve themselves in someone else’s business and then risk themselves by running into a fire?” He directs the question right to D.

“None,” he answers simply. Honestly.

“She wasn’t answering her phone,” he starts and a cold sweat breaks out along my neck. “I worried she had gotten in trouble. Her father had never hit her, but he wasn’t a kind man. I knew more about our father’s proclivities than she did. Had just begun to learn how depraved they were just the week before, actually. I was nervous. On edge. Couldn’t relax until I heard from her. Even though it wasn’t all that unusual for her to be put on lockdown without warning. That night was different.

“When my father got home, I knew. He was in too good of a mood. Too eager to see the worry in my face and ask about her.” He scoffs, his disgust radiating from every pore. “My father never cared about me. I had been angsty for over a week without him noting it, but that night? That night he cared. He was gloating. Not by telling me what happened, but by asking where she was. Prodding my anxiety by mentioning her father had been in a foul mood when he left him in his office earlier. That night he took an interest in me and I immediately knew something was wrong.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tyler curses.

Fuck. I forgot just how many ears were in this room, too caught up with my own destructive emotions. I look around the room to find tears staining all three of the girls’ faces as they listen to Charles talk. Listen to a new version of the worst night of Scar’s life. Grief and anger balloon in the room, suffocating me.

“I pretended to laugh it off. Told him I was going to the party without her. Asked him to let me know if he heard anything about her from her father. He grinned,” he whispers. “It was the sickest, most twisted smile I had ever seen on anyone’s face. All while he patted my back and assured me he would. It was too kind. Too unlike my father. If I had doubts, they were gone in that moment. I kept my calm demeanor as I left the house, and then gunned it to her house.”

I can almost picture the setting he creates with his words. Feel his anxiety and sense of hurry to get to her. So reminiscent of all the times I’ve been desperate to see her with my own eyes after a mission to make sure she really is well and truly okay.

“I was too late,” he whispers. “I knew I was going to be, but still,” he trails off. “When I pulled up to her house and smoke was spilling out of every window and I could see the flames rapidly devouring the house that felt almost like my own, something shattered inside of me. I knew where she would be because of the subtle taunts my father couldn’t resist, but nothing could prepare me for what I found. I didn’t think there was any way she would survive. There was so much blood, fire already licking up her body. She felt so much smaller in my arms than she had just the day before, like whole pieces of her were being left behind in the flames I pulled her out of.”

The love he has for her shines more with every devastated word out of his mouth. It makes me hate him even more.

He looks up from where his eyes were locked on the floor, straight to Kade. “I was too weak, too powerless, too useless to protect her from my father. From hers. From the men who were with them. I vowed that night I would change. I would become stronger, learn my father’s games. Learn how to scheme and connive and stab people in the back. I was going to grow my own power and influence and take him down. Protect the next person that came into my life. I just never thought it would be the girl I failed all those years ago.”

Kade seems as clueless as I am on what to do with this new information. He tilts his head in question, but I just shrug in response. I don’t know if we should believe him or not. Don’t know what it means if we do. I don’t even know what it means if we decide we don’t.

Declan clears his throat and I flinch at the weight of his gaze on me. I’m beginning to understand why Scar often pouts or curses when he turns that look on her.

“I think you’re all forgetting that none of this is up to you.” His words are a bucket of ice water crashing over me. I click the metal of my piercing against my teeth in frustration. This is the very crux of why we’ve always hated Charles so damn much. We could never protect her from him. Never able to stop her from being hurt by him. A blade pierces the skin, but it’s easy to step in front of. Betrayal is a poison that seeps into your body, doing damage before you ever realize it’s there. There’s no way to take this pain for her.

It’s a battle within herself, one she has to win, or lose, on her own.

I’ve never hated anything quite as much as feeling helpless.

“This dick measuring is unnecessary. Scarlett is the only one who decides if you’re worthy of forgiveness.” Declan aims his words directly at Charles, but it was a reprimand for Kade and I as well. Kade bristles across the room, but makes no move to act out or disagree.

Ryder moves to his side, whispering something in his ear and some of the tension bleeds from his body. He catches my eye and gives me a slight nod. We follow Scar on this. Whatever path she chooses to take, we will be right at her side.

Even if it fucking sucks.

Where the fuck do we go from here?

* * *

I couldn’t stayin the office for a second longer.

Not with so many people’s emotions clogging the air, or all the questions left unasked. Declan was right. It’s not up to me, nor Kade. Not even Charles.

Letty is the one he needs to hash the past out with. She’s the only one who has the right to decide if his reasons for doing what he did are enough. I have a feeling on which side she will fall on, but I can’t help but be worried about what will happen before that.

His side of the story we thought we knew, it’s… it’s overwhelming. Disorienting. If I’m having this hard of a time sorting out the feelings Charles evoked, how the hell is Letty going to react? It’s not like she’s been handling it well so far.

I wander through the halls, stopping at her bedroom but she isn’t there like I expected. I pause in the doorway, taking in the familiar and soothing space. My eyes linger on the mural I painted on her wall what feels like a lifetime ago. It’s been too long since I had a brush in my hand. Life hasn’t allowed time to slow down, detach, and put it all on paper. The only time I truly let go of the control I’m constantly seeking is when I’m in front of a canvas.

Roe baby likes her arts. She was so curious when I first bought the easel and paints for her, but we never had the time to truly explore it. She came to us just as everything got insanely out of hand. I’ll have to change that. Carve time out to teach her. To let her explore a different side of the well of creativity I know is rapidly growing inside of her.

I turn away, closing her door behind me. I want to find Scar, but I’m not ready to go back into the shared areas of the house. Too many people are still lingering as Noah works his magic to see what leads we can get from what Charles brought. I’m not even sure exactly what it was. We never quite got around to that portion of the conversation. Seems to be the theme of the night.

With no other choice, I head towards my room to regroup before seeking her out once more. The thought doesn’t stay with me long as I open my door to find her. She has her back to me, facing the window that overlooks the backyard. Lost in thought the way I’ve grown accustomed to finding her recently. It reminds me of the early days. The spacing out. The distancing herself from not only people, but reality. My biggest fear every day is we may lose her to that abyss. I’d rather slay a thousand monsters for her than go against the mind numbing haze she often used to retreat to.

I hesitate in the doorway, much as I did in her bedroom only moments ago. It’s rare for me to not be aware of my next move, of what I want, of what I need. It took years for me to learn how to temper my emotional responses. I was quick to anger and even quicker to act on it. Until Letty needed me to keep it together. Until our very lives were contingent on my being able to play my role well. A role I’m unsure how well it fits me anymore.

Not when I feel as lost as Scar looks.

Shaking myself off, trying to rid the morose thoughts, I move into my own room.

“You’ve been distant,” I murmur softly as I approach her slowly. Her gaze doesn’t even flick my way as she continues to stare out the window. She must have been expecting me if she was in here waiting. I have no doubts she was aware the second my presence filled the doorframe.

“So have you.”

I flinch at her response, knowing she isn’t wrong. Even before Charles turned my world upside down, there’s been this ever-growing cavern of space that continues to push us further from one another. A cavern we both have equally contributed to and neither have done anything to try and bridge the gap that was created the night of the gala and the following morning.

Declan was right. We allowed her desire and needs for closure to come between us. We put our anger and our fear before her healing. He has the power to devastate her all over again, to betray her once more. Regardless of the story he’s told, there’s no foolproof way to know we can trust him. All we have is our own intuition. It feels woefully underwhelming when it comes to the possibility of losing Letty all over again. After we just started to get her to move forward. It feels like too big of a risk.

She doesn’t react as I step behind her and wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her flush with my body. After a moment of hesitation, her body relaxes and she sighs out her relief as she melts into me. I can only do so much to protect her, but I can support her.

It isn’t my choice to make. I repeat the sentiment to myself over and over again and tighten my arms around her waist, dropping my lips to her exposed shoulder.

“I’ve missed you,” I whisper against her skin, enjoying the way goosebumps rise along her sensitive flesh. Even now, as we struggle to gain balance on uneven ground, I know her as well as I always have. I can still read her, still elicit such a response from her. Still know she’s mine as much as I have always been hers.

She doesn’t respond, but I don’t need her to. Not this time. I know she’s missed me too, missed all of us. It’s been weeks since that night at the gala and none of us have been quite alright. The answers we’ve been searching for–the entire purpose behind building everything that we have–are right there at our fingertips. All of a sudden it seems as if the closer we get to our end goal, the more we have to lose.

We started down this path with the objective of becoming invincible, strong enough to tear down those who stole her power from her when she was too weak to do anything about it.

Forgiveness and healing were never our end goals, only blood and chaos. She never wanted to be anyone’s hero and I only ever wanted to be hers. That doesn’t stand true any longer. Neither one of us expected to build everything else that came with it. This family, this home. This innate desire to want to do and be better. To not only get revenge but maybe even to heal and soothe our old scars as well.

I never thought it was possible. Not for either one of us. I thought we were too broken, too lost, too many fragmented pieces to ever even dream about putting ourselves back together again. But somehow, each new person that has entered our lives and stayed has helped both of us rebuild ourselves. I’m questioning everything, especially after the revelations of the night.

“I don’t think I can ever forgive him,” I whisper into the heavy silence of the room. Her body tenses in my arms, but she doesn’t pull away from me. I force myself to take a deep breath and push through everything else. All of my reservations, all of my insecurities and fears. “From where I stood, on the outside looking in, he was always a part of the problem. Always pushing you into a role that never really suited you. A box that was far too small for the way you always shined. I hated him before he ever turned his back on you. Before he let his friends hurt you. Before he stood back and did nothing while your life fell apart and disintegrated in your hands.”

My chest aches as I think back on all the years Kade and I watched her from afar, lying to ourselves that she was happy and safe. Too young to recognize the cracks in her facade for what they were until there was nothing but those very same cracks and holes left. I press my nose against her throat and breathe in her scent that is so uniquely her. It never fails to ground me, to remind me of how far we’ve come. To remind me that everything that really matters, I already have.

“Maybe I was wrong about all that, wrong about him. Wrong about who I thought you were and what you needed before I even really knew you. He has a lot to say about what happened back then,” I trail off when she snorts.

“Yeah, I heard.”

My pulse races as the words register and worry replaces my agitation. If I’m still reeling, what’s going through her head?

“You guys weren’t exactly quiet,” she teases, almost too lightly for the subject matter. Instead of easing my nerves, it makes me nauseous. I know her well enough to recognize her deflection skills.

“Letty,” I whisper, her name a desperate plea for her to stay with me, to not shut down, not push me away.

Her head knocks back against my shoulder, revealing more of her face to me. Her eyes are closed, but lines of confusion and apprehension give away the battle raging behind them. She purses her lips, as if she can’t quite decide if she should say anything or not.

“I don’t know, Luca,” she finally admits on a sigh. “Back then, I was too naive, too lost and confused to realize all the little details that didn’t line up. All the things Charles pointed out? They’re true,” she huffs, running her hands over her face. She lifts her head off my chest and turns in my arms, finally opening her eyes to meet mine.

Fire isn’t green, but I swear that’s what I see burning in her eyes. Green flames that consume her, lost in memories of the past. Analyzing all the bits that never quite made sense to her and seeing them in a new light.

“I realized it a few years ago,” she admits. “The group home, the neighbor, even the way I was able to run away with you. All these little inconsistencies that didn’t match up with the world I knew. I thought there were answers lying in those discrepancies. I just never thought they would lead back to him. Lead to a truth I didn’t know to brace myself for.”

I hold my breath, my lungs burning as I wait for her to continue. To let me in.

“It should be a good thing, this revelation. It should ease the hurt his betrayal caused, dull the sharp pain of abandonment that chased me for so many years. That caused me to push you all away for so long.”

“But it doesn’t?” I phrase it as a question, but I don’t need to. The battle waging in her eyes is enough of an answer. It’s the same one I’ve been grappling with since I left the office. Since I accepted his version of events doesn’t sound like a lie, even if I’m not ready to accept it.

Finding out the truth doesn’t change the years of rage and hate for me. How could it change the years of her suffering?

“His story is the most plausible explanation. I never found anything that led back to anyone else. Could never formulate any motivations behind putting me in the group home, or for someone to save me. I’d chalked it up to fate or good karma, but we both know I’m not a big believer in either of those things.” She huffs a laugh, sounding more tired and worn out than I’ve heard her be in a long time. “I let it go because I decided it didn’t matter. Those answers weren’t going to lead me to my revenge, so I moved on.”

Her words don’t carry any emotion, nothing to enlighten me on how she’s actually feeling over the discovery. Delivering them as if they’re just casual observations, inconsequential facts, when really they change everything.

I’m not the “how does that make you feel” type of guy. That’s all Declan. Noah and Ryder are better for that. Fuck. Even Kade is more in touch with his emotions and how to communicate them than I am and he regularly beats people to death instead of going to therapy. Yet, I feel like I have to try.

“But they do. They do matter because you still care. You wanted to forgive him even before today.”

“Did I? I wasn’t sure that was what I really wanted.” I’d roll my eyes, but for once, she isn’t being snarky. I grab her face with both my hands, gently cupping her cheeks and running my thumbs against her smooth skin. She holds my gaze and there are so many emotions swirling it grabs my heart in a vice. So much uncertainty and insecurity.

“Who are you lying to right now? Me or to yourself?”

She groans and thunks her head against my chest. Giving me and herself the answer.

“That’s what I thought,” I tease her lightly, wrapping my arms around and pulling her in tightly. “I know you were having a hard time admitting it, even to yourself. Forgiveness was never a part of our plan. I know that better than anyone.”

The last few weeks flash through my mind to the soundtrack of Declan chastising us. “I know that Kade and I made this harder for you because of our visceral anger towards him. I won’t lie to you and say the idea of you forgiving him still doesn’t make my skin crawl. Whether he really did try his best in the past or not. I’ve hated him for decades, jealous he had the right to you before I ever thought I’d have a chance to and he ruined it. Ruined you. I can’t promise to ever like the guy, I know Kade can’t either, but we will at least stop trying to kill him.”

She looks at me skeptically, weighing my words and debating how real they could possibly be.

Fair enough.

“Probably,” I tease. “But really, Kade and I would do anything for you. We’ve watched you struggle the last few weeks and it’s been one of the hardest things to realize we added to your struggles. We never want to be a part of the problem.”

Her features soften at my words, more emotion bleeding into her expression with every moment that passes. Her hard edges are smoothed over to reveal more of the young and naïve girl she once was. More and more frequently I have seen that girl lurking in the shadows of Scar’s eyes.

I never dared to hope to bring her back. I love the girl in my arms too much to wish things were different. But maybe there’s always been a phoenix in the ashes of her past, just waiting for the right time to rise once more. To finally heal, to become whole.

“Maybe you need to forgive him, for you. Maybe you need a piece of your old life to hang on to, a reminder of Charlotte and everything you lost. Your world was filled with demons, but it had some light too. You were happy, you were loved, and as much evil as you found in the four walls you called home, you also had someone in your corner. Willing to fight for you. Willing to sacrifice for you. Maybe to move on and kill the demons once and for all, you need to hold onto a little bit of that light. If that’s Charles for you, so be it. Forgive him. At the very least, I really don’t think he will betray you again.”

“How much did those words hurt coming out?” Her grin and light words are belied by the tears shining in her eyes I know she hates.

“A lot,” I admit with a chuckle. “I won’t ever be his biggest fan, but I can’t not be thankful for him. He kept you alive long enough for us to escape.”

“You were right,” she whispers, finally acknowledging it aloud. “I did want to forgive him. I wanted to believe in the kids we used to be. The happy moments we had to escape the bleakness of our surroundings together. I’ve spent so long only seeing the shadows from that time of my life I forgot that you needed both light and darkness to create those shadows. I had a lot of light in my life that made the darkness that much scarier when I discovered it, but now… Now he’s all the light I have left from that world. I never wanted him to be tainted by the darkness too.”

“Is that what was holding you back? Were you scared to be wrong and realize he never was the light after all?”

“No, I think that would have been easier,” she answers, surprising me. “It’s easier to throw around words like evil and demons and monsters. It’s natural to hate those things. To feel justified in your anger and your hurt. It’s infinitely harder to realize and accept that sometimes people hurt you unintentionally. Good people make bad choices. People can love you and still destroy you. Sometimes people have no choice but to hurt you. I wasn’t ready to face the fact that some of the worst wounds aren’t caused by the villains, but by the boy with the blue eyes who was just as much a victim as I was.”

I tense at those words. “I wouldn’t go that far.” He may not be the villain here, but he sure as hell isn’t a victim the same way Letty was. She had her innocence, her family, her entire life ripped away from her in the matter of hours.

“No?” she questions. “His childhood was just as destroyed as mine was. He lost his family, his best friend. He had to wake up every morning and look the monster that caused his pain in the face and act like he knew none of it. At least I got to run away, build a new life. He’s been stuck in the same cycle of torture for the last eight years.”

I roll my lips, stopping myself from arguing back instinctively as I really think about her words. Think about the emotions Charles put on display for all of us and really see what he meant by having to fight from behind enemy lines. I don’t want to understand the guy, to feel for him. I was happy to hate his guts and take the first chance I had to spill them all over the floor. But what she’s saying makes too much sense.

An uncomfortable sensation unfurls in my chest. One I don’t recognize and don’t have a name for. One I don’t want. I attempt to push them aside, to move forward in our conversation and get the focus off of him.

“What about now that you know? Does it change things for you?”

She shrugs, her shoulders lifting against my chest as she presses her cheek against me, taking a moment to think before she answers.

“It hurt when I thought Charles betrayed me, abandoned me. It was devastating when I thought he just didn’t care enough. Thought he never really loved me. But I dealt with that hurt years ago. Now all of a sudden, he didn’t do those things. He tried. He just failed.

“It’s like finding hope where I thought nothing but misery was buried. But hope can still be the scariest thing of all. It means I can’t hate him, I can’t blame him. I can’t just write him off like I have for years. It’s harder to accept someone for their mistakes than it is to just forget about them.” She gets a small grin on her face. “Or you know, just kill them.” I laugh, knowing how easily that night could have gone in a different direction had he made any indication he was a threat. Scar isn’t one quick to act on her emotions, but no one would dare accuse her of hesitating to kill either.

She nuzzles into my chest in a very uncharacteristic way. I can’t help but smile as she continues, “But the same way I decided to stop running from you guys, from my feelings, I need to stop running from the pieces of myself that survived. I’ll never be Charlotte again, but I never stopped being your Letty. I’ll never not be Marnye and Harlee’s big sister. And maybe Charles never stopped being my best friend either.”

It’s everything I ever wanted her to realize about herself while also being my worst nightmare. I force myself to smile, to focus on how far she’s come in the last year. She really has stopped running when that has been her survival mechanism for so many years. I’ll take that even if it comes with the human-shaped baggage that is Charles fucking Donahue. I hum and run my fingers down along her spine, chuckling as she shivers under my touch. She’s still Scar. Snarky, abrasive, and skilled with a blade.

This is still her comfort zone. Getting lost in the pleasures of her body when the emotions all get too big and overwhelming. She finds her safety here. Her home. I’ll always be her home.

“I love how responsive you always are for me, Letty,” I growl in her ear, grinning as she practically melts into me. She’d had enough, enough being vulnerable and talking in circles. She knows everything she needs to know and now she just needs comfort. A distraction. It’d be a lie to say I don’t crave it just as much. The reassurance I only feel when I’m buried deep in her, feeling her tight walls clench all around me.

I push my fingers into the back of her waistband and slide my hands down until I can cup her ass and pull her into me. Let her feel just what she does to me in only a matter of moments. She might be looking to get lost in me, but I’ve been a casualty of her storm for years and I never want to be saved.

She pushes against me, her breath picking up in speed and I trace the shell of her ear with my tongue before catching the lobe in between my teeth and bite down. Her gasp sends electricity through me. I tear my hands out of her jeans so I’m able to lift her up. She wraps her legs around my waist at the same time her arms settle around my neck. Our lips are stretched out into smiles as they meet and brush over each other.

All thoughts about what to do next are driven away by the need for each other, by the love we know we can depend on.

My tongue snakes out to trace her plump bottom lip and I carry her away from the window. She tries to catch me in a kiss but I grin before tossing her onto the bed. Her surprised chuckle loosens the knot that’s been tightening in my chest. The amused sound and the playful light in her eyes a balm to my soul.

I stalk toward her and she straightens from where I threw her, the playfulness in her expression morphing into heat and desire. She smirks as my knees hit the edge of the bed and I crawl from the foot of it until I have her settled underneath me.

“I think this is the first time you’ve actually gotten me in bed, Bossman,” she teases, unbuttoning my shirt and pushing it off my shoulders.

“Not the first time,” I counter and drop a kiss to her forehead. “And it won’t be the last.” I wink. The blush that rises to her cheeks at the reminder of our first time gives me one of those rare glimpses into the girl she used to be.

Letty’s fingers rove over my chest and down my abs until she manages to get my belt undone and slip her hands beneath my waistband and squeeze my dick in those perfectly long fingers of hers. I groan, pushing into her touch before I snap out of it.

“Not today, Letty.” I pull her away from me and rise to quickly remove my pants. She watches me the whole while, laid back and spread out, a hungry look in her eyes. All the earlier tension that lined her face is nowhere to be seen as she eats me alive with her gaze.

I take my time stripping her, kissing her skin as I expose it. Running my tongue along her curves as they’re revealed to me. Her shuddering sighs the only sound in the room. Throwing her bra to the floor behind me, I twirl my tongue around her nipple, enjoying the way the ball of my piercing circles the rapidly hardening bud.

Her back arches into the touch and my hands wander down her stomach and to the waistband of her jeans. She groans her protest when I abandon her nipple to remove her pants, but I need her fully bare under me to continue my endless exploration of her body.

For once, she’s not fighting me. Giving me total control as she lies back and gives me full range to do with her as I please. Every second that ticks by with my hands on her body eases each and every thought that has been haunting me. Letty is here. Whole and with me. She’ll always bear the wounds of her past, but she isn’t shattered, she’s just scarred. It makes her all that much more perfect for me.

My lips brush over the ink decorating the scar down her sternum as I kiss down her chest and belly to reach the apex of her thighs. My tongue ring flicks over her clit, her scent and taste flooding my senses, washing away everything that isn’t her.

Scar moans my name as I lap at her cunt, worshipping her with each flick of my tongue but not giving her enough to come. I want to savor her, need to memorize every inch of her body over again before I can give us what we both need.

Her hips undulate in a silent plea for more as she begins to drip with her arousal. I rub my face over her pussy, wearing her scent like my favorite cologne before moving back up her body to steal her lips in a kiss. I share the taste of herself with her and she moans into my mouth as I spear my tongue into her mouth, fucking her with it like I soon will be doing elsewhere. She grips my shoulders with her hands, her sharp nails dig into my skin, sparking my need higher with the edge of pain.

I cup her breasts in my hands, running my thumbs over her nipples as I deepen our kiss. The clink of metal against her teeth makes me shudder and she grips me tighter. I pull away from her mouth, and stare down at her heavy-lidded eyes and puffy lips, pride and possessiveness blooming in my chest as I do.

A smile pulls at her swollen lips and I can’t help but smile back down at her. I tweak her nipples between my fingers and huff a small laugh at her moan as her body arches off the bed.

“Think I could make you come from your nipples alone?”

Her eyes widen as a delicious smirk takes the place of her soft smile from a moment ago. “You won’t know until you try,” she challenges.

Challenge accepted.

I readjust my body over hers to give me the best possible access to her perky tits and get to work. My mouth covers one nipple as I use my fingers to pinch and pluck the other one. I alternate back and forth between the two, changing up the tempo just as she gets used to what I’m doing. Dancing on the line between pain and pleasure, I go back and forth from soft touches, to bites and pinches. Taking her by surprise as I memorize the sound of her heavy breathing and husky moans, adjusting my ministrations based on her sounds. My name has never sounded so sweet.

It takes a lot longer to get her to reach the climax, but fuck is it worth it as her body tenses under me. I sink my teeth into her sensitive flesh as her body shakes and writhes under mine. Small convulsions wrack through her and I watch in awe of the ecstasy flashing across her face. We don’t take it this slow often enough. We never have the time to, but I need to change that.

As the last of her orgasm washes over her, I line myself up with her cunt and before it’s even over, I push into her in one smooth thrust.

I was wrong.

I thought my name couldn’t sound any sweeter than it did earlier, but the way she screams for me as her cunt clenches around me is even better. Warm, wet heat slides down my dick and her nails dig into my back. The thought of wearing her marks makes my dick twitch inside of her. There’s almost nothing I want more than to pound into her, to lose myself with reckless abandon and take her in a way that will ensure she will still be feeling me tomorrow.

Almost.

I’ve enjoyed the lazy sensual pace we’ve had as we’ve touched every inch of each other’s bodies though. The gentle caresses mixed in with bursts of pain without the rush or sense of urgency. Passion still burns hot between us, but rather than the usual explosion, it flickers brightly like the soothing embers of a forgotten fire.

We could easily stoke it back to life and roaring flames that could threaten to engulf us both, but there’s something beautiful about the warm glow shared in these soft moments. Our hardened edges are not so jagged in the dying light. Hidden in shadows of our own making where we’ve built our home.

I slowly pull out of her, the piercing at my tip dragging along her walls, sparking heat in both of us, until I’m almost completely separated from her before pushing all the way back in. An easy rock of my hips that heightens the smallest of touches between us. Our eyes stay locked, as her arms stay wound around me.

Emotions dance in her eyes and neither of us needs any words to feel the love and connection wrapping around both our hearts. She lifts her hips in a slow, undulating rhythm to match mine thrust for thrust. My nerve endings flare with every stroke until we both find our release together in a mess of limbs, sweat, and heavy breathing.

Her pussy clenches around me, making my vision white out as my body tenses and I come inside her, her orgasm milking the last bit of mine out of me and I collapse on top of her as I try to catch my breath.

She lays under me, sated as I wrap myself around her, holding her close to my chest. As if I’ll be able to protect her from everything by keeping her here. Maybe Scar isn’t the only one who needs to learn not to run when shit gets hard. We could have talked this all out weeks ago.

Even before Charles’ life-altering confessions.

“Can I tell you something?” I whisper in her ear.

Her hands tighten around my arms where they hold her. “Always, Luca. I’m here for you as much as you all love to remind me that you’re here for me.”

I chuckle at her never-ending abundance of sass, even when she’s being rather sweet.

“That actually has to do with what I want to admit.” Her chest stops rising and falling as she holds her breath, but her body remains relaxed. “I think I forget that it isn’t just you and me anymore. It always feels like we have a million things to do and have our fingers in a hundred different pots, but we’ve really built a family to help manage the load.”

She hums to herself. “I know what you mean,” she admits. “It’s why I called the meeting today. It felt like everything was out of control, but it was really only me. Everything is running smoothly thanks to everyone else. It’s all being taken care of, efficiently and with the same precision we would do it. It was just me being consumed by the chaos from within.”

“It was me too,” I tell her, squeezing her softly. “I think we’re still getting used to being loved by so many people.”

She laughs, a soft gentle sound. Nothing like her usual husky laugh. Definitely not her maniacal cackle. “Who thought we’d ever make it this far?”

I press a kiss to the top of her head. “We always had it in us, Letty. We just needed time to find where we thrived, space to grow our own roots, and the courage to let in the right amount of light.”

She turns in my arms to press her lips to mine. No hunger or desperation this time, just comfort. Home.

“We built our home and created our own light.”

It could have been minutes, hours, or even days that passed where we stayed silent and just soaked in a rare moment of peace we’ve found with each other. Nothing mattered but the feel of her against me.

“We can’t do anything here,” I decide to point out to her after some time. “Noah is working on the intel Charles brought and it’s going to take him a bit to get it situated.”

“Mhm?” She rolls over to meet my eyes.

“Let’s go to Poison,” I suggest. “We could use the break. They’ve got it handled here. We aren’t alone anymore. Let’s grab Jade and Rachel and show them the club so far.”

A gleam enters her eyes that’s been noticeably absent recently and she grins up at me. “As weird as it is to not be the one combing through records and trying to find connections, that sounds like more fun.”

I chuckle at the slightly bitter edge of her words. My competitive girl. “You know Noah is probably designing some type of fucking program that’ll get it done faster.”

“He already did that,” she grumbles as she climbs out of bed. “He just needs to feed it info now. Fucker.”

“I’m going to tell him you said that,” I threaten.

She whips around, holding her shirt to her chest with wide eyes. “You wouldn’t fucking dare.”