Deep Pockets (Kings and Rivals #1)

Chapter 30 – Lance

30

ONE SHOT

LANCE

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever been this nervous. I’d asked Morgan to come over under the guise of picking up the rest of her stuff. There wasn’t much, but still.

However long she gave me, I was going to take. I would beg if I had to. I was determined to get her back.

Morgan arrived with Amber in tow. I couldn’t say I was surprised—Amber had a knack for loyalty, and she didn’t exactly like me these days. She immediately picked up on the tension between us, crossing her arms like a shield in front of Morgan. But I didn’t want to have this conversation with Amber in the room, standing there with that judgmental glare. So, I asked her, as politely as I could, if Morgan and I could have a moment alone.

Amber turned to Morgan with a look that said, Are you sure you’re safe? I waited, hoping Morgan would take the leap, even if she still didn’t trust me. After a long, silent beat, she nodded, telling her friend to wait in the car. Amber hesitated, exchanged another look with Morgan, and finally left. “Call me tomorrow okay?”

“Yeah, will do.”

The loft felt heavier as soon as the door clicked shut behind her friend. I drew in a breath and began with, “Look, Morgan, I get it. I know you don’t trust me, and I know exactly why. I owe you the truth, even if it might not change anything.” She stayed silent, her posture stiff, arms wrapped tightly around herself.

“You deserve to know who I am,” I said, setting a worn leather album on the table between us. “Or who I was, at least.”

She raised an eyebrow, her eyes shifting down to the album, then back to me. “What’s this?”

“It’s the life I left behind,” I said, opening it slowly to reveal pictures of a version of me she’d never met—a kid with a gap-toothed smile, innocent and unaware of the world I was growing up in. “I wasn’t always… this.” I gestured around, my gaze falling on the empty spaces where her things had been.

She softened slightly but didn’t say anything, so I kept going. “I grew up in a family that, on the outside, looked like every other respectable corporate entity. But they were far from it. They were organized, efficient—and they were criminals. No, not even criminals. That implies petty theft or a casual skimming off the top. This was big-time, Morgan. It was a network of control, deception, and power. And as much as I tried to ignore it, my grandfather’s influence infiltrated everything.”

Her gaze sharpened. “So when did you leave?”

I swallowed, tracing the edge of the album cover. “After my mother died. She’d told me things… things I shouldn’t have known. She wanted me to get out, to escape the trap she couldn’t. It was her last wish. She made me promise that I’d get out of that life and become someone else, someone better.”

Morgan’s expression softened just a little, but she didn’t drop her guard completely. “And Gwen?”

I took a deep breath, feeling the weight of what I was about to say settle over me. “There was a time I was infatuated with her,” I admitted, watching her expression shift. “But that was different. I could never show her all of me, never let her close enough to see who I really was. Now that I know what love feels like, it’s… It’s terrifying, Morgan. It makes me feel out of control like I could tear the world apart just to hold it in my hands, even for one moment.”

Her eyes softened, that guarded edge giving way to something gentler. I could see she understood what I was saying, how my feelings for her had eclipsed anything I’d ever felt for Gwen. The vulnerability of admitting it hit me harder than I expected, but I kept my gaze steady, letting her see everything I’d held back for so long.

She hesitated. “And your father?”

“He died in an accident when I was twelve.” The memory tightened my throat. “After that, it was my grandfather who shaped everything. The whole family dynamic shifted. We went from a semblance of normalcy to something dark and twisted.”

For a moment, the silence was so thick it felt like we were the only two people in the world. She looked down, tracing a finger over one of the pictures of me with my mom, laughing as she held me close. “She looks… happy.”

“She was.” I forced a small smile. “Until she wasn’t. I think the weight of it all crushed her.” I paused, feeling that familiar anger rising. “She was too kind for that life. She didn’t belong in it any more than I did.”

Morgan finally met my gaze, a glimmer of understanding in her eyes. “Why didn’t you just tell me any of this before?”

I took a steadying breath. “Because I was afraid you’d see the monster in me, just like I’d seen it in my grandfather. But more than that, I was afraid if I opened up it would pull you into that darkness, too. I didn’t want that for you.”

She hesitated, reaching out to brush her fingers over the album, then pulling her hand back as if to brace herself against what I’d just said. I took a chance and pulled out a stack of journals, the ones I’d been filling since I left my family. “These are every thought I’ve had since I got out. Every fear, every hope. You’re in here, Morgan. Every time you called, every moment I spent thinking about you, trying to push you out of my head. I wrote it all down, just trying to make sense of it.”

Her fingers brushed over the worn leather of the journals, her gaze flicking up to meet mine. I could see the weight of it all sinking in, understanding filling the spaces where anger and mistrust had once been. “You kept these… about me?”

“Yes. About everything really, but you’re all over these pages,” I admitted, the words slipping out like a confession. “Read them. Read everything.”

She opened the top journal carefully, flipping through pages filled with my handwriting, the raw, unfiltered parts of me.

“I envy Atticus. Not because he has Gwen, but because he’s free to be as ruthless as he wants to be. I know Morgan would run from me if she ever saw the real me…”

I shifted from foot to foot as she read out loud. Each word like letting her perform open heart surgery on me.

Her voice was soft. “I almost lost my mind and kissed her today. She was yelling at me as usual as we trailed behind Gwen and Atticus for a tasting and a harried woman coming toward us was chasing a toddler who’d gotten loose.

Morgan had scooped him up quickly, her expression soft as she gave him back the toy he’d been chasing. Hand off made, she turned to me with her brightest smile on and I almost forgot she hates me and kissed her.”

She lifted her head to meet my gaze. “But this was months before the wedding.”

I nodded, my gaze never leaving hers. “I know.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” She asked in a whisper.

“I knew it was complicated. I was trying to fight it. And I knew Gwen would castrate me if I fucked up. So I was trying to figure out how to tell her first.”

Her gaze returned to the pages. “Morgan was crying today. After talking to her father. She thinks I didn’t see it, but I did. I considered all the ways I could kill him, slowly. But she would hate me for it. Because she still loves him despite herself.”

Her lips trembled as she read, her eyes glazing over as she took in my words. A tear slipped down her cheek, and she brushed it away, pretending not to notice. But I noticed. I noticed everything.

Sometimes she would stop to ask questions and I let myself freely answer them. She needed to know.

“Do you have any other siblings?” Yes, my twin sister, Izzy.

“Have you ever been in love?” I thought I was in love twice. Both times a shadow of the real thing.

“Was one of them Gwen?”

I hesitated on that one but then gave her the truth. “No. She was the first real friend I ever had. I loved her. I love her. But even when I would get an inkling we could be more, I knew the real reason I loved being around her was because I could pretend to be uncomplicated. I wasn’t being the real me.”

One of the questions nearly took me off my feet. “Have you physically hurt someone before? You know, for your family?”

As much as black bile roiled in my gut, I meet her gaze levelly and said, “Yes.” I held my breath as I waited for condemnation, but it didn’t come.

As she moved through page after page, a soft, broken sound escaped her, and she set the journal down, meeting my gaze with a newfound intensity. She didn’t have to say it; I could see it in her eyes. She understood. She saw the truth of what I felt, of what I’d always felt.

“You loved me this whole time?” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“Yes,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I always have. All my secrets are in these journals. Read them and ask me anything. Hiding myself from you hasn’t worked. So I’m going to try open book. All my secrets are yours.”

And in that moment, everything I’d held back, every wall I’d put up, crumbled. The truth was out. There were no more secrets, no more lies. Just the two of us standing there, stripped bare of pretense, finally facing the reality we’d both been running from.

She reached out, her hand slipping into mine, and when I pulled her close, it felt like coming home.