Chapter Twenty #3
“Col, I couldn’t just leave them,” she whispered.
“You don’t think I know that?” I hissed. “You. Betrayed. Me. Karina.”
She cupped my cheek, making me raise my head again. I should push her away, but her touch felt too damn good.
“This is complicated. It’s a fucking mess, but we're going to get through it.”
Promises.
Hope.
Things a fool believed in.
I shook my head. “There's so much you don’t know, and thank God, I didn’t fucking tell you,” I sneered.
“I know you have a secret army. I know you have been plotting against Romano for months—”
“Years, actually. You don’t know anything,” I seethed.
“What?” she gaped. I sighed, looking away from her out the window.
Fuck. So many fucking secrets. Too many hurdles.
One way or another, she would've betrayed me in the end. Subconsciously, I knew this, but I still wanted her. I was selfish.
She didn’t deserve this life. She deserved better. Karina Jones belonged to me, but I was the prisoner here, chained to her—but she shouldn’t be chained to me. I was a monster, a demon serving an eternity in hell, and she was an angel who shouldn’t have fallen.
But she didn’t fall, did she?
No, I fucking dragged her down with me.
We could never be…for a moment in time perhaps, but forever wasn’t for us.
A demon didn’t get to love an angel.
She needed to be free of me and I of her. To make that happen, I needed to break her, even if it killed me. Because after all, I was nothing but a demon.
“What do you want me to say to you, Karina?”
She flinched at the new venom in my voice, and that hurt worse than her fucking betrayal. I pushed off the wall, preparing myself for the pain I was about to cause us both. Part of me wanted to thank her for betraying me, because now, I had an excuse to cut the cord.
“Collin, talk to me,” she pleaded, taking a step closer to me.
“You betrayed me,” I growled, using something I was proud of her for against her.
Did I care that she went behind my back? Yes.
Could I get over it? Yes.
She did it to save innocent people, like the guardian angel she was.
But this couldn’t go on.
I needed to live in the darkness, and her light was no longer welcome.
“I was just trying to save them,” she said softly, shaking her head in disbelief.
Forgive me, baby. In the next life, forgive me.
I snarled at her. “We’re done.”
Her heart shattered in front me, and witnessing it had to be the worst form of torture I’d ever endured.
“Collin,” she pleaded, her soft voice latching onto my dark soul, fighting for us. I turned away from her, closing my eyes.
This was harder than I thought.
No. This had to be done. She deserved a better life. A life surrounded by light, where she would be safe.
“What do you want?” I growled, keeping my back to her.
She came around to my front, not allowing me to shut her out. I ground my molars.
“The truth! I want all of it. All of you! You own me, remember? I said yes to you,” she cried, her naked body quivering before me. I bent and tossed the towel at her, pretending to be disgusted with the most beautiful thing on Earth.
We had spent every night together since leaving my house, but she had yet to see my scars.
I'd hid them to avoid scaring her even more.
I'd fucked that heavenly body of hers in every position, but I had yet to be fully naked with her. I never let her touch my back or see it. She noticed but didn’t push.
Because she was my perfect Karina, the angel who fell from heaven for me.
I needed to make her hate me again. Perhaps showing her the monster underneath would do just that. My hands fisted my shirt in front of her, ripping the fabric apart, the buttons flying everywhere to show her the truth. The one would push her away from me forever.
Before those gorgeous eyes had a chance to look, I advanced her.
“You want me to say I love you? Is that it, baby? Did you actually think I could fucking love you? Did you think that this was going to end with us riding off into the sunset together?” I bellowed, gesturing to the setting California sun outside the window.
The words fell from my lips, perfectly executed, a foul taste left in their wake.
“Col,” she rasped, clutching the towel at her sides. Her eyes were wide with dismay.
I’m sorry, Angel. Fuck. I am so fucking sorry.
Ignoring every urge to kiss her and beg for forgiveness, I continued. If she used my nickname one more time, I would give in, and that couldn’t happen. I couldn’t stand it anymore. The demon inside me reared its nasty, bloodthirsty head. It was time to do what I did best—hurt people.
“My name is not Col! It is Collin! You think there is goodness inside me, and you spreading your fucking legs for me is going to somehow bring out that goodness,” I yelled.
She took a step back, falling back on the bed. Tears were now free falling down her cheeks, but I didn’t care. We both needed this. She would get over me eventually, and I would always remember her.
My little heaven.
“You think that because you spread yourself for me like a whore, you would end up being my bride?” I spat.
You would have been. In a different life, baby. I’d be the man you deserved. I promise.
She shook her head. “This isn’t you.”
Oh, angel. Your faith in me…
I opened my arms, doing a slow full turn for her, so that she could see all my scars, my sins. “Yes, it is, angel. Did you want me to kiss you and tell you you're the only thing that matters to me?” I sneered.
She was.
All of this was for her, after all.
But she could never know it.
“So, after everything…you feel nothing for me,” she said, her voice broken, weak.
“I felt unsatisfied. Had to go downstairs and fuck a staff member. They finished the job you couldn’t,” I hissed.
You are the only one, Karina.
“Bullshit,” she yelled, dropping her hands and coming at me. She pushed my chest, and I didn’t move. She did it again and again, crying in anger until I caught both of her wrists with one hand.
“Enough,” I ordered.
“You don’t get it, do you?” she hissed up at me.
Don’t do it.
I rolled my eyes, and before I could say anything, she cut me off. “I've loved you since the first time I heard you laugh. Your real laugh. It was the most glorious sound I’d ever heard,” she admitted. “It was magic.”
Fuck. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I did everything I could to ignore it.
“And don’t bullshit me, Collin Stevens. I knew it was your real laugh, and I was the one who brought it out of you.
I was the only one you smiled for. I loved you when you stood up for me.
I loved you when you used to watch me from the corner at those stupid college parties.
Oh yeah, I felt your eyes on me all the time.
I loved you when you protected me. I loved you when you distanced yourself from me years ago.
I still loved you when I watched you beat your best friend into the ground.
You should have seen me. I was a crying mess.
Everyone thought I was crying for Kevin, but those tears were for you.
Only you. Despite my best efforts, I still loved you after you stabbed my brother and left him dead by the river. ”
“Stop—” My gut twisted.
“Every fucking day, I was like a robot without you. I didn’t break from my routine, and I stayed in the safe lane I'd created for my life. Then you—” She paused and looked away from me, her tears shining against her skin.
“Then I saw you, dressed in all black with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth. And suddenly…I didn’t want to be in my safe lane anymore. ”
“Stop it,” I hissed.
She yanked away from me, pointing at me. “You are it for me. There is no one else. From the moment I saw you, my body wanted you, the only man who I would allow in my body after—”
“Enough,” I roared, stepping away from her.
She pressed on. “I loved you when you kidnapped me.”
“Stockholm Syndrome,” I snapped.
My angel, my sweet angel, shook her head again. Fighting me.
“No, I didn’t want to love you. I wanted to love you nine years ago, when I was blissfully unaware of your darkness.”
“Then stop fucking loving me!”
“Like I have a choice, Col. The heart chooses for you, and mine latched onto you, darkness and all. I want you. I need you,” she cried, clutching the towel even harder, her hands shaking. “I love you.”
Her bottom lip was still trembling, begging me to kiss it. To make this right. To take all those harsh, cold, heartbreaking words back, but I couldn’t. I had to push her away, to protect her from this and him. All of it.
“You are going back to St. Louis,” I finally said. “Xander will escort you back home.”
My sanity was hanging on by a thread, her love for me fighting against every instinct.
I wanted her too, but we just couldn’t be.