Chapter 18 #2
“Not yet, right. Only a few more months to go.” She hisses at me.
I open my mouth to retort, but then my mind replays what she just said. Only a few more months to go?
“What are you talking about?”
She squeezes her eyes shut and flips her hand in the air, turning away from me. She wasn’t supposed to say that. At least that’s what it seems like. She was holding onto that remark, but why. “Cormac, just go. Leave me alone.”
“No, tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.” I grab her shoulder and turn her to face me.
“You know what I’m talking about. You’ve already taken everything from me, don’t insult my intelligence too.”
“What have I taken from you? I’m doing everything in my power to give you all you could want and then some.
I’ve completely changed my entire way of life for you.
Let in the fucking strangers. Stopped listening to the whispers of doubts in my head.
I didn’t take anything from you. I gave you me, all of me,” I bang my hand against my chest, “soul bared to you on a fucking platter and you spit it back in my face. What more do you fucking want.”
She shakes her head and looks down her nose at me, her lips pulling up into a snarl. “Yeah, I thought so. You really had me fooled. I thought it was all real too. You had me going. I’m just glad I found out the truth before it was too late.”
I try to grab hold of her arms to keep her from moving away from me again, but she shakes out of my grasp. “What truth? What did you find out.”
“That I’m only fucking temporary!” She cries, angry tears spilling down her cheeks.
“I found the damn letters, Cormac. The ones between you and your father. You left one in there that you didn’t finish.
It explained in very clear detail that you would only be tolerating me for a year at your father’s request and then you’d be only too damn happy to serve me up with a divorce and get me the hell out of your hair. ”
The world stops moving, my body refuses to move air in and out of my lungs, every last one of her words hits like a bullet from a gun.
“So why wait, huh? Why feed me, bring me a damn engagement ring, make me laugh, make me hope and dream, make me fucking love you when it’s all a fucking lie!
” She’s in hysterics, screaming in my face.
Her sobs wracking her body and her face turning bright red.
That long dark hair I love a mess, some sticking to her sweaty face.
“You went into my private space and through my private things?”
“Oh screw you, Cormac, that’s what you want to focus on?
Yes, I did. I had to know for sure because if we were actually talking about the long run, a future, being a family together, if this was supposed to be my house just as much as yours, why the hell shouldn’t I be able to go into a room.
If you were all in like I was, why would I be barred from anywhere?
There was nothing up there but those letters and some fucked up pictures.
So yes, I went up there and I’m glad I did.
I’d rather break now and take you down with me.
” She glares at me and I can see the hate and anger in her eyes, but deeper than that I see the anguish and despair.
She really is broken because of what she saw.
There are no more words, at least not here. She needs to know the truth. All the truth.
I grab hold of her. This time I hold her tight enough that she can’t let go. I wrap my arms around her waist, pressing her back to my front and walk out of the room.
“What the hell are you doing? Let me go!” She fights, but I don’t engage, just move my head out of the way so she can’t headbutt me. She gets me a few good times in the shin, but I’m on a mission.
I take her down the hall and straight to the east side of the house. I kick open the doors. The echoing sound of the doors hitting the walls bounces around the small space.
“Cormac, put me down this instant. I don’t want to go back up there.” She tries to wiggle out of my grasp, but I don’t let go. I take the stairs two at a time until I come face to face with the one room that has always reminded me of how I became the man I am.
I drop her onto the floor. Right in the center of it all.
Out of breath, I turn my back to her. “I told you not to come up here because this room is nothing but death. My father killed his best friend in that corner there.” I point to the spot by the window.
I walked in after I heard the bang of a gun to see my father’s closest friend sliding down the wall with his brains spattered against the window.
“I slit my first throat over there.” I point to the other side of the room and images of a classmate of mine, thirteen, same age I was at the time, begged for his life after my father caught him trying to steal from our safe.
Declan usually was the one to handle things like that but my father thought it was a good teaching moment.
My father beat him, broke the kid’s legs and told me if I wanted to prove I wasn’t involved in the heist in some way I had to finish the job.
I look over my shoulder at Brenna, who is still crying, but she’s focused on me.
I turn my body and point at the broken down fireplace.
“My mother tried to save me. Tried to stop me from becoming this. Begged my father. She got hit and lay there unconscious while the brand that my father used to scar me lit the drapes and the scattered papers around her on fire. I still hear them talking to me in here sometimes. Cursing me for the part I played in their death. For the monster I’ve become.
That’s why I don’t want you up here. You were the one pure part of my life I wanted to keep separate. ”
She swallows hard and shakes her head as if she refuses to believe me. “I saw the letter, Cormac. You wrote that.”
I storm over to the desk and yank the drawer as far out as possible.
I find the letter that she is talking about.
“I never sent it to him because even as I wrote the words I knew they were a fucking lie. It was in response to this letter.” I pull out the letter my father wrote me first. It was of him telling me he thinks the added threat could be because we are merging the two families.
That he thinks Brenna’s father could be behind it.
He tells me to kill her. “The answer to any problem in this world is to get rid of the problem. I’m willing to do anything, tolerate you and then send you back unharmed before I’d let them take you from this world.
But even the threat of having extra enemies breathing down my neck wasn’t enough to make me promise my father that I’d divorce you.
Besides, I was more concerned that you’d be the one to serve me with papers. ”
Her eyebrows furrow. “What are you talking about? How would I divorce you.”
“Jesus Christ, did you not read the contract you signed at all?”
“No, when would I have a chance to read the contract. My father dragged me to the middle of the forest in the dead of the night, had me say some words and sign a paper. I could’ve signed my soul to the devil for all I know.”
I’m shocked but I move. I open another drawer and pull out the contract we signed. I shove it into her hands and point to the clause in the contract that said either of us could ask for divorce after the year was up.
Her mouth dropped open. She looked from the paper to me and back to the paper. I’m sure she must have read the passage at least three times before she let it fall from her fingers and she buries her head in her hands to sob.
I lean down, kneeling in front of her. I pull her hands away and for the first time in days she doesn’t fight me.
“I couldn’t promise him that I’d divorce you because I can’t.
I thought that was what I wanted when I first was forced to do this, but you changed the fabric of my dark soul.
You’re my peace, Brenna. You’re the only one who keeps the ghosts quiet.
I’m not just keeping you here out of contractual obligation.
I’m keeping you here because I love you. I need you.”
Her face crumples up and more tears come streaming out from her eyes, but she reaches for me, her fingers gently caressing my skin. “Oh Cormac. I’m such a raging bitch. Don’t love me. I’m no good.” She moves closer and I take the chance to press a kiss to her lips, which she accepts in a hurry.
“I don’t need you to be good, I just need you to be mine.”
“Yes!” She sucks in a shuddering breath before she wraps her arms around me, all the emotion nearly draining the life from me. She presses kisses all over my face and lips, each one revitalizing me a little more than the last. “I’m yours, forever. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Forever.” I repeat and hold her tight.