Chapter 42 #2
“You spent years being tortured and used by that monster. To keep yourself safe, but also to keep me and Asher off his radar. We both already were, but you didn’t draw attention to our connection so that Mickey couldn’t make it worse for me.
Not for you, but for me. You… You went through hell for me and I don’t take that lightly.
” He runs a hand through his hair, his words coming out quickly and much more laced with an accent than recently.
“And all those years ago… I found out what you’d promised him.
How you were going to do it again to keep me safe.
To keep Asher and the shop safe. To keep my fucking family out of his reach.
” Ty’s eyes get lost in the past, his fists clenching at his sides. “And I couldn’t let you do that again.”
Those eight words… They turn my world upside down.
“What did you do?” I try to speak with steel in my words, but instead they come out as a whisper.
“What I had to. You were mine to keep safe. And… It was my turn.”
There’s not one inch of regret on his face. If anything, Ty stands taller at his declaration, like I won’t be able to make him change his mind on that.
“Your turn for what?”
“To sacrifice.” That’s it. That’s all he says, but it’s all he really needs to say.
I know what he means.
I know…
“You promised,” I whisper, my heart beating loudly in my chest. Is it hot in here?
I step back just as Ty steps forward.
“Rox,” he starts but I shut him down.
“You PROMISED!” I scream. It echoes through his apartment as I realize all that this meant. “You told me we wouldn’t do that anymore. That we’d work together to figure things out and instead, instead you… Oh god, I feel sick.” I put my hand to my stomach and the other to my head.
“Roxie,” Ty tries again, stepping closer. “I had to.”
“You didn’t. You didn’t have to. You chose to. There’s a big difference,” I snap angrily. “What did you give him? Is that why Mickey never came to collect?”
Ty shuts down. And I’m thrown right back into the day he doubled-down years ago. I’m back in the backroom begging him to tell me I was something to him, and he became so closed off I didn’t recognize him.
It took years for us to get here.
And now we’re imploding.
“Well, don’t stop now. You’ve already started talking, so fess up, Ty.”
He takes a deep breath and the muscle in his jaw clenches. Running a hand over his face, he groans.
“You’re going to kill me.”
“Probably. But I already want to, so you might as well try to save yourself and fucking tell me already,” I snap, crossing my arms over my chest. I can feel my phone vibrating in my little bag. Fuck, we’re probably so late for Asher and Jade’s.
She’ll understand though, my girl Jade, she always understands.
“He had someone following you. He had Mario addicted and drowning in debt for drugs. He said I had to win this one fight,” Ty’s voice breaks and he swallows hard.
“When I walked in and it was you I was meant to fight, I told him no. I refused to fight you. I wouldn’t.
I offered to fight more, to rig fights, to lose fights, to keep us from fighting.
But, he… He had one of his goons up in the rafters with a rifle. With the sights trained on you, Roxie.”
My heart is beating so loudly in my chest that I can barely hear him. It sounds like he’s underwater as I fully grasp what he’s saying.
I step back–let’s be real, more like stumble back– and he rushes closer to try and stop the inevitable freakout that’s coming.
“You understand don’t you? If you had known, if the roles were reversed, you would’ve done the same thing, right?
” He’s desperate for me to understand, that much is clear in his tone.
There’s no bravado, no emotionless, controlled, mask.
He’s real, this is real. “You would, Roxie, you’re just frustrated that I did it first. Please, please, understand. ”
“You told me I was nothing, that I meant nothing to you. That what we had was nothing. I gave you plenty of chances during that fight to tell me something was wrong, but you doubled-down. You… You…” I’m so fucking angry and sad and frustrated that I’m losing the ability to form words.
“It was the only way you’d actually fight me. You know that. You were pulling your punches until I said that.”
He’s not wrong, but I’m not going to let him know that.
“So were you!” I yell at him, holding my shoe out at him as if it’s an extension of my hand.
“Of fucking course I was! Do you think I wanted to do that? Do you think I was excited for that fight? Do you think that anything that happened that night was something that made my life better?” He’s yelling right back at me, but instead of getting annoyed, I feel fucking relieved. This should’ve happened years ago.
“Every single moment since I knocked you out has been a test. A test in how far I’m willing to go to keep you safe, how much I’m willing to take to let you be free.
How much I can control myself for the one moment of control I didn’t have.
” The moment he says that, his eyes widen like he said something he shouldn’t have.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
“There’s that damn word again,” I mutter before getting more stern. “Tell me what all happened.”
“Roxie–”
“What. Did. You. Do?!” I scream, fed up and at my limit.
“I killed him!” Ty screams back, his arms going behind his head and it takes everything in my power not to look down at his abs flexing the motion. “I killed him,” he says again, softer this time, almost like he’s never said it out loud.
“Who?”
“Mickey. I killed Mickey Frank.”
“How?”
“It was after the fight,” Ty drops to his knees and his voice cracks. Watching as his shoulders hunch forward and his hands cover his face, I so badly want to hold him. To give him any part of me to hold onto while he’s finally telling me all he's been through.
“Ty,” I whisper.
“He took me out of the tunnel and wasn’t going to let you go.
” His hand drops from his face and he stares up at me with a renewed desperation.
“He wasn’t going to let you go, Roxie. You were going to forever be trapped under him.
He said he was never going to let you go…
No matter what you did. He was going to keep you under his thumb, and was going to…
” he swallows a lump in his throat, shaking his head before continuing.
“He was going to make sure you were… That you were…” Ty never ends up finishing that sentence, but I know him.
Ty would never go to that extreme if it wasn’t something intense. Something terrible. Something worse than what I’d already gone through.
“When I realized you were going to always be in danger, I lost it. He realized it too because he pulled his gun on me, but I… I got it. I got him.” Ty’s eyes are glazed over, unseeing as he thinks of the past and what happened.
I need to throw up.
What the fuck did I make him do?
“After it happened, I knew I had to call my uncle. He’s a bit of a mob boss and handles shit like that all the time.
I hadn’t called him in years, I hadn’t seen him in years.
My dad used to tell me not to ask for help from Marcos, ever.
And I took that to heart. But this… I had no one else to turn to for help. But that help, it came at a cost.”
My hand flies to my mouth in horror and all that I can think is, ‘I did this to him.’ That this is all because of me.
“What did it cost?” I whisper brokenly.
“I had to work for him for six weeks. Doing whatever he asked. I learned how to intimidate people more than I already did. Breaking fingers, kneecaps, learning how much to hurt before causing lasting damage, then… Then he had me start crossing off his enemies, people who’d crossed him, and who owed him. One by one.”
My eyes widen even further, and I swear, my heart stops beating.
“Ty,” I gasp.
His eyes flash up to mine and I see the moment I said the wrong thing. Not even said the wrong thing, but my tone was off because he shuts down.
“I knew you’d react like this. Disappointed.
Disgusted,” he spits the words at me, pushing back on his feet and standing above me.
“Why do you think I’ve stayed away from you for so long, Roxie?
Because I didn’t want you?” He shakes his head and laughs humorlessly.
“No, I stayed away because I realized just how easy it was for me to lose control. What happens if I got mad and hurt you?”
What? Shock has to be evident on my face as recoil. That’s… That’s what he’s scared of? The man who has never raised a hand to me in annoyance, let alone anger, was worried he might lose control around me?
“Ty,” I start to say, but there’s a piercing riiiiing that sounds throughout the apartment.
Ty swallows hard, his eyes downcast as if he’s assuming that I agree with him. My stomach turns with guilt and my blood turns cold in my veins as if I have to do something. I have to pay him back. But how? Can I?
I’m not worth the pain he put himself through.
Ty walks over to where his phone is ringing and answers it quickly. “Si?”
My mind is swimming and filled with guilt. Overwhelming guilt. It’s all I can think of. All I can understand. All I am… Guilt.
It should’ve been me, keeps repeating in my mind. It should’ve been me, it should’ve been me, it should’ve been me.
“Yeah, Ashe, we’ll be there soon. I, uh, I told her,” Ty says, turning his back to me as he speaks.
Asher knows? Asher knows and let me think…
I have to get out of here.