Chapter Eleven

January

" J anuary?" Cade blinks wearily, staring at me like he's looking at a ghost. "What's wrong, baby girl?"

"Don't call me that."

He flinches, scrubbing a hand down his face. "Fuck. You're still pissed."

No, I'm not pissed. I was pissed this morning when he decided to walk out instead of talking to me. Now, I'm whatever comes after pissed. But that's not why I'm here.

"I came to give you this." I shove the MC patch against his hard chest. "I found it on the floor after you left."

His bleary gaze flicks down to my hand on his chest, my fingers clutched around his stupid patch. His big body practically vibrates beneath my palm. They're the only signs of life I get from him. Otherwise, he just stands there. Completely still. It doesn't even look like he's breathing.

Even though I'm mad as hell, worry whispers through me. Something is wrong.

"Cade?"

"It should be yours," he says, his voice rough. "You should keep it."

My lips pull down into a frown. "I don't want your patch, Cade."

Once upon a time, it was all I wanted. When he gave it to me back then, I thought I'd wear it forever.

Then – Age Seventeen

"I have something for you," Cade says, wrapping his arms around me from behind.

I melt against his hard chest, smiling. "Cade. You already gave me my birthday present."

"I know." His lips brush the side of my throat. "This isn't a present, though. Think of it more like a promise."

"A promise?" I turn in his arms, craning my head back to look up at him. I swear, the older he gets, the more beautiful he grows. Every day damn, he gets hotter.

At twenty, he's devasting.

"A promise," he repeats. "Close your eyes."

I narrow them at him instead.

"Little monster," he admonishes with a grin. "Close your eyes."

"Fine." I pop one open again. "But this better not be a prank, Cade. I'll be very unhappy with you."

"It's not a prank." His lips touch mine in a sweet kiss. "I'd never prank you."

I believe him. He'd never do that.

I close my eyes, practically squirming with impatience. I've never had very much of that, especially when it comes to surprises. I guess some things never change no matter how much I grow up.

Seventeen.

One more year and my whole life starts.

"Hold out your hand."

I thrust it out eagerly.

Cade's deep laugh washes over me. "Eager little monster," he says, brushing strands of hair away from my face.

"You made me this way," I remind him, not in the least bit sorry about it. If I'm spoiled, he did it to himself. I try not to be a brat, though. I think I succeed.

Most people would probably hate being called a little monster, but not me. I know why he does it. It doesn't have anything to do with me being a brat or being spoiled.

When I was little, he used to read The Monster at the End of This Book to me. I begged him to read it over and over again. He'd laugh and say that he created his own little monster. He's called me that ever since.

I love it. I love the thought of being his, something he helped create. I just love him.

He places something flat in my outstretched palm.

"Open your eyes, baby girl."

They flutter open, landing on the small patch he placed in my hand. It's a skull with wings, a single word across the top. Kratos . His MC.

"Oh," I whisper, tears stinging my eyes.

"It's one of my patches," he says. "I want you to wear it."

"Cade." My fingers close around the patch as I lift my gaze to his. My heart is in my throat, beating wildly.

He's always fought so hard to keep the MC stuff separate from me. I've never been part of it, never felt like I had a place in it. He started it to protect me, but I was never allowed to know anything about it.

This feels like the keys to the kingdom.

"I'm going to love you forever, January James," he says, his voice somber. The same vow reflects in his eyes. "This is my promise to you. When you're old enough, when you're ready, that patch will be a ring."

"I'll wear it forever," I sob, throwing myself into his arms.

The day he left, I ripped the patch off my jacket. I didn't want anything to do with the MC. I didn't want anything to do with their bullshit. I turned my back on all of it.

The MC destroyed us.

Even now, I think it's destroying us. I just don't understand why. All day, I've tried to figure out why he thinks he's responsible for what happened and what he could have done that was so bad.

I still don't know.

"It's not mine, baby girl," he whispers, meeting my gaze. His eyes are so stark, so bleak it hurts to look at him. "It's his."

I drop my gaze to the patch, see the way my hand trembles. A thousand different emotions course through me, each more painful than the last.

"Titan," I whisper, my voice shaking.

Cade groans, a broken, devastating sound.

My gaze flies back to his face. I never knew sound had a look, but it does. The exact noise he just made is painted across his face. Torment rages in his eyes, so damn much of it I want to fall to my knees under the weight of it.

How is he still standing? How is he still breathing?

God, it hurts to see him like this.

"Cade," I whisper, my throat raw and my heart bleeding for him. He's always been larger than life to me. I knew he was hurting. Since he's been back, it's impossible to look at him and not see it, but that was just a drop in the bucket compared to the well of grief and tidal wave of torment raging through him now. He's kept so much hidden, fighting alone.

I didn't know.

He jerks away from me, stumbling back a step.

I follow him, determined to...I don't know. Console him? Help him? Carry his pain for him? I don't know. I just know that seeing him in this kind of agony is unbearable.

"Don't," he growls, throwing a hand up as if to ward me off.

I don't listen. I can't. His pain is my pain. It's been mine for seven fucking years. I need him to share it with me. That's all I ever needed.

I push my way into his arms, wrapping them around him.

He stands rigid in my embrace for a long moment, his breath a harsh pant. And then he groans like he's dying. Before I can even process it, he has my back pressed to the wall, his hand around my throat. He's shaking. So fucking hard. There's nothing recognizable in his eyes, nothing human. It's just pain and the flames of hell burning him alive.

I know exactly what that feels like. I'd kill to make it stop.

"Do it," I whisper, my throat raw as I wrap my hand around his on my throat, trying to tighten his grip, to make him squeeze. "Fucking do it." I'm not sure if I'm demanding or pleading.

"Do it!" I scream.

His grip tightens around my throat, cutting off my air supply.

I sob in ecstasy, clinging to him as spots swim in front of my eyes. For a moment—for one blissful fucking moment—everything falls silent. It doesn't hurt anymore. It's just quiet. Peaceful. Easy. My heart races, everything I feel narrowed to the thundering tightness in my chest.

And then Cade roars, releasing his grip.

We crash to the floor as if his legs can't hold him up any longer.

"Goddammit, January," he whispers, crawling on top of me. He pins my hips with his, ripping through my clothes.

I claw his back, biting him. Fighting him. Not because I want him to stop. I don't. But because I want to feel fucking anything but grief.

His eyes blaze, staring down into mine as he smashes his lips to mine, swallowing my cries. He's feral, hitting me like a cyclone, and I'm caught in his whirlwind, willingly trapped in the eye of his storm.

His grief and anger are palpable, striking me relentlessly, yet I offer no resistance. It's his torment that binds us together, our shared agony that makes us one.

I scream when he thrusts into me, his teeth clamped on my shoulder.

"Goddammit," he repeats through gritted teeth as he begins to move, fucking me like he can't stop himself.

"Is this what you wanted? You want me to fucking use you like this?" he growls, pounding into me. He leans back, wrapping his hand around my throat again. "You want me to hurt you?"

He looks so fucking mad, but there's a fragility in his eyes—a shattered vulnerability that makes him seem far more human than he ever has before.

"No," I rasp. "I want you to make it stop."

Anger fades from his eyes as understanding dawns. He gets it.

His fingers clamp around my throat again, not hard enough to cut off my blood supply this time, but just enough so I feel him there. Just enough to remind me that I'm alive.

I moan, my inner muscles clenching around him.

He fucks me like a machine, every stroke brutal, vicious, robbing me of breath, of thought. He gives me precisely what I asked for. Everything stops except him.

He goes on and on, fucking me until I'm sobbing beneath him, pleading for mercy. Until every thrust feels like it's going to split me in two.

It feels so fucking good.

His touch on my skin is like wildfire, spreading heat throughout my body and setting my nerves aflame.

I don't want it to end, but everything does eventually. Even heaven.

He rides his thumb against my clit, ruthlessly forcing me toward an orgasm as I try to fight it off. He refuses to let me, demanding that I give him what he wants.

And I do. Damn him, I do.

I come all over him, screaming his name.

"January!" he roars, following me over the edge into oblivion.

That place between life and death—the one where nothing exists except the two of us and the blood rushing in my ears—is perfect. For about two minutes, it's perfect.

And then reality slowly begins to creep back in.

Cade plucks me up from the floor, pulling me onto his lap. I wrap myself around him, holding on tight. He clings like I'm the only thing in the world holding him together.

Maybe I am. I don't know.

"I'm sorry," he rasps. "Fuck, I'm sorry."

I'm not. I probably should be, but I'm not. I run my hands through his hair, sighing. "You have nothing to apologize for, Cade. We didn't do anything I didn't want."

"I was rough with you. I…Christ, I had my fucking hand around your throat, January."

"I asked for it."

"You didn't ask me to assault you, January."

"You didn't. I was a willing participant. Don't act like I wasn't." I tug his head back, forcing him to meet my eyes. "I know what it's like to almost be on the other side of that, remember? You didn't do anything I didn't want."

He flinches from the memory and then nods once.

We sit in silence for a long moment as his cum drips down my legs.

"No one's ever said his name to me," he rasps eventually. "I haven't heard it out loud since…"

"No one says it to me either. It's like they died, and the whole fucking world would prefer to pretend they never existed at all."

"I miss him every fucking day."

"Me too," I whisper, a single tear slipping down my cheek.

"I'm so goddamn sorry, little monster. So goddamn sorry." He trembles again, shaking like an addict going through withdrawal. The guilt in his voice hurts to hear.

I want to ask again why he blames himself, but I already know he won't tell me. And I don't have it in me to fight with him right now. In this moment, I just want to be here, right here in his arms, sharing our pain. We can don our armor and pick up our weapons again later. But for five minutes, I just want to hold him and grieve.

We never even got to do that. Not really. Everything was so fucked up back then.

"You know why I fight so hard for my house and this neighborhood?" I ask, laying my head against his shoulder.

"It's the only thing you have left."

"It's the only place where I feel like they still exist. Even people who loved him won't look me in the eye or say his fucking name. But here, they're everywhere. Here, I'm not so fucking alone." And he's everywhere, too. Every single memory of him I have is tied to this house, this neighborhood. I fight to keep it because, without it, I lose the last pieces of him I have, as well as the remaining ties to my family. I've spent seven years holding onto this place, waiting for him to come back. It's the only place I feel like I exist anymore.

"You aren't alone, January."

"I've been alone for seven years, Cade." Another damn tear rolls down my cheek. "And the worst part is knowing that I did it to myself."

He wraps his hand around my jaw, gently forcing my head back until my eyes meet his. "What does that mean?"

"I'm the one who told you to leave."

He flinches as if that memory hurts even now. "You aren't to blame for the choices I made, January."

"Oh, really? Would you have walked out that door if I hadn't said what I did?"

He clenches his jaw, refusing to answer, which is answer enough. He never would have made that choice on his own. Even if he felt guilty or like he didn't deserve me or whatever, he would have stayed and fought. But I told him to go, told him that I hated him, and he believed me. Because whatever he thinks he did made him so sure that's what he deserves—my hatred.

I destroyed us. Maybe his secrets would have done it eventually. I don't know. I never gave us that chance. Everything we are, everything we've become—that's on my shoulders.

If I'm drowning in loneliness, the only place I need to look to see the culprit is in the mirror.

I sigh, resting my head against his shoulder again. "Tell me something."

"What?"

"Anything," I whisper. "Tell me about you and your life in Seattle. Tell me what you do, where you go. Your dreams. Tell me anything." I'm desperate to know the pieces of him I missed—the parts of his life that I didn't get to watch unfold. I had front row seats for so long. It feels wrong that there are entire volumes missing from his story now. I need to know what's written in them, desperately.

"There isn't much to tell." He shifts around, putting his back up against the wall across from the door. "I dropped out of college and enlisted. Didn't even make it a year before I got the boot. Guess I wasn't big on authority. From there, I started hauling criminals in off the street. They gave my ass a job instead of putting me in a cell. The rest is history."

We both know that's a lie. The rest is why people around here talk about him like he's the boogeyman. It's the reason he's covered in scars he won't talk about. It's how he's punished himself.

"Why Seattle?"

"It's as far as I got after..." He clears his throat. "My bike broke down outside Nazario Leyva's mansion on my way out of town. I ended up saving his life. He put me on a plane to Seattle as thanks. Once I washed out, they sent me back. I couldn't come back here so…Seattle."

"Why couldn't you come back here?"

"Doesn't matter. It was a long time ago."

It doesn't matter? It was a long time ago?

I gape at him in disbelief.

"Let it ride, January," he says, his voice dull, lifeless. "Please."

"Are you serious right now, Michael?"

"January, please."

"Let me go," I say quietly.

"Baby girl."

"Let me go."

He growls a curse before reluctantly releasing me. I quickly scramble to my feet, gathering up my clothes. I scurry into them as quickly as I can, nearly falling over in the process. "I gotta go."

"January, don't do this," he says, pleading.

"I didn't do it. You did when you decided I only needed to know about the things you want to tell me, regardless of how the rest of it impacted my life. It might not matter to you why you couldn't come back, but it matters to me." I stride toward the door. "And it may feel like a long time ago to you, but it certainly doesn't to me when I still wake up screaming most nights."

"Fuck," he mutters, moving to follow me. "I didn't mean it l—"

I throw up a hand, silencing him. "Don't bother. This was a mistake."

"Which part?"

"All of it, Cade. The whole damn thing." I yank the door open. "Keep his patch. I don't need a reminder of what killed him. I have enough of those already."