Chapter 59For Her, We Begin Again
For Her, We Begin Again
Aslanov
I sit on the edge of the bed, my back pressed against the wall. The light above casts harsh shadows across the room, but all I see is her; Isabella. Her face, her eyes, those soft words she speaks to me, laced with confusion and a need for truth. But what truth? The kind I can never give her.
My wrists are still bound, the velcro digging into my skin, a constant reminder of where I belong; locked away, isolated, like a beast in a cage. It’s fitting. I’m no better than one.
I can’t tell her. I won’t.
I hear Sawyer’s voice echoing in my head, each word a dagger. ‘‘You only hurt her.’’ It’s true, isn’t it? Yet he should shut the fuck up.
She has no idea who she is. None of them do. They’re all just puppets dancing on strings, unaware of the twisted dance I’ve been part of. The life I was born into, the blood that runs in my veins, it’s poison. I’ve never been anything but a weapon, a killer in the name of power.
But Isabella, she doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t deserve the chaos that follows me, the truth that sits like a shadow, creeping closer with each passing second.
She is Salvatore’s daughter. How can I tell her that?
How can I ruin her life like that? She thinks her mother was her real mother, but it’s a lie, all of it.
Her real father? Salvatore. The ex-head of the Gambino mafia. And he’s dead. Just like her mother.
I can’t bring myself to say those words to her.
Not to the woman who looks at me with trust in her eyes, who believes in something better than what I can offer.
She doesn’t know the monsters she’s tied to, the bloodline she shares.
It will destroy her, and I’ll be the one to crush the last bit of light she has left.
I can already hear it in my head, the way she’d look at me, the confusion, the disgust. ‘‘You lied to me. You will no longer want me.’’
I will always want her.
In every life. In every breath.
No bloodline, no past, no dark truth could ever make me stop.
She could be the daughter of kings or monsters, a ghost stitched from sins I can’t even name, it wouldn’t change a damn thing.
I squeeze my eyes shut, pushing the thought away. But it comes back, that moment with Sawyer, that venomous statement.
I swallow, my throat tightening. I can’t even look at myself in the mirror, not with that truth weighing on me. I’m no better than the men I’ve killed, the ones who taught me how to be nothing but a weapon. A cold-blooded killer.
I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve to be in her life, to take part in the fragile hope she’s built around me.
I’m a monster. I’m nothing more than a shadow in the corner of her world, something she should never have been tangled in.
She’s better off without me.
And yet, I can’t stop wanting her. My mind is screaming at me to let her go, to push her out of my life before I destroy it. But my heart? It’s too late. The damage is done. I’ve already ruined everything, and I am too selfish to let her go.
The door clicks softly, the sound slicing through the heavy silence like a blade.
I lift my head, bloodshot eyes locking onto Sawyer’s as he steps inside, calm, measured, like he’s approaching a caged animal.
Maybe he is.
He closes the door behind him without a sound, his hands lifted slightly in a gesture of peace.
‘‘I come in peace,’’ he says, voice low, almost disarming.
I don’t answer. I just watch him from the edge of the bed, my wrists still strapped down, my hands resting like dead weight on my knees.
I feel the tension ripple under my skin, muscles coiled tight, ready for war even though my body screams exhaustion.
Sawyer doesn’t come closer. He plants himself at the far end of the room, giving me distance like he knows how thin the leash around my temper is.
We stare at each other; two predators sizing each other up in the ruins of a battlefield.
Seconds stretch into something longer, heavier.
Finally, Sawyer speaks again, his voice steady, but not cold. There’s a rough honesty in it that catches me off guard.
‘‘I understand you don’t like me,’’ he says. ‘‘We have that in common.’’
His mouth twitches; not quite a smile, not quite a threat.
‘‘But here’s the thing; you don’t even know me. And I don’t know you. Not really. Not what’s beneath the devil you wear like armor.’’
The words slam into me harder than I expect.
I stiffen, my hands curling slightly against the velcro restraints.
He doesn’t flinch. He just watches me, waiting, like he actually gives a shit about the answer.
And for a brief, flickering second, I hate that he might see too much.
That maybe he sees the cracks.
That maybe he knows I’m not just the monster they all think I am, but something worse.
A man who wants to be good, and fails every damn time.
Sawyer leans back against the wall, arms loose by his sides, his posture calm but wary.
‘‘She ran off,’’ he says, voice breaking the thick silence.
‘‘Isabella.’’
He glances at me, gauging my reaction.
My chest tightens, but I don’t let it show.
‘‘I think we should... get along,’’ Sawyer adds after a beat. ‘‘At least for her.’’
He exhales slowly, like the words cost him something.
‘‘So... I want to apologize. For my attitude. For my words. I don’t know anything about you, or about you two. Isabella has her reasons for everything, and maybe I should have trusted that.’’
The air feels heavy between us, but somehow, less hostile.
I stare at him for a long time, weighing the apology, feeling the fight drain out of my body by inches.
Finally, I mutter, rough and low, ‘‘I’m sorry I tried to rip your head off... twice.’’
To my surprise, Sawyer lets out a croaked laugh, short, genuine.
‘‘I’ll take that,’’ he says, a small, almost disbelieving shake of his head.
We fall into a silence, but it’s different this time. Not suffocating. Just... tired.
Then, Sawyer speaks again, softer now.
‘‘You know...’’
He pauses, staring at the opposite wall like the words are carved into it.
‘‘I’m not so different from you. If I can believe the things Isabella told me.’’
He hesitates, then slowly crosses the room, lowering himself onto the other end of the bed, not close, but not distant either.
‘‘I served two tours in Afghanistan,’’ he begins.
His voice is steady, but there’s a roughness under it, something frayed.
‘‘I was a medic. Supposed to save lives. But out there...’’
He swallows hard.
‘‘You end up taking them too. Sometimes to survive. Sometimes because there’s no other choice. Blood’s blood, no matter from who it is. And eventually, it gets into you. Stains you.’’
I don’t move, but something in me shifts, recognizing the weight behind his words.
‘‘It gave me PTSD,’’ he continues. ‘‘Same symptoms you’ve got. The rage. The spiraling. The dreams that aren’t dreams. The feeling like you’re still back there, still fighting a war that never ends.’’
The corner of my mouth twitches, not quite a smile, not quite a snarl. I know exactly what he means.
Sawyer exhales again, slower this time, like peeling back layers.
‘‘Later, I met a woman. She was good. Too good. She gave me a daughter, the only thing pure I’ve ever had.’’
His voice falters, just slightly.
‘‘But I couldn’t stay. Couldn’t be what they needed. I was angry all the time. Reckless. Every time I looked at her...’’ He shakes his head, jaw tight. ‘‘I saw my father.’’
My hands clench instinctively. That word— father —is its own kind of trigger.
‘‘He was a drunk,’’ Sawyer says, quieter. ‘‘Used his fists to raise me. Told me I’d never be more than a mistake he regretted. And when I grew up...’’ He shrugs, a bitter, empty gesture.
‘‘I proved him right. I became a monster. Just in a different uniform.’’
The room hums with the weight of it, the shared understanding that neither of us says aloud.
Sawyer runs a hand over his face, rough and tired, like the memories themselves wear him down.
‘‘I didn’t see her for five years,’’ he says, voice low and scratchy.
‘‘Five years I stayed away. Thought I was doing her a favor. Sparing her from the man I was.’’
He lets out a breath that’s more a shudder.
‘‘Spent those years in therapy. Trying to fix the mess my old man left in me. The mess I kept feeding without even realizing it.’’
He falls silent for a second, and the room seems to sink with him.
‘‘Now...’’ He clears his throat. ‘‘Now I’ve got contact with her again. Slowly. Carefully. It’s been a couple years. She’s older now. Smarter than I’ll ever be. And forgiving in ways I’ll never deserve.’’
He smiles, but it’s broken at the edges; the kind of smile that remembers the cost of every piece of happiness.
‘‘I understand it,’’ Sawyer says after a long moment.
‘‘The violence. The inherited pain. The way it grows in you without permission, like some sickness you can’t scrub out of your blood.’’
I don’t say anything. I don’t have to.
He’s saying things that feel like they’re bleeding out of my own chest.
Sawyer’s eyes flick over to me, steady and raw.
‘‘I never talk about this,’’ he says quietly. ‘‘Not to anyone. Most people don’t know. They look at me and see... what? Some good soldier. Some medic. They don’t see the shit I did. The mistakes. The moments I crossed the line and never came back.’’
His jaw works for a second, fighting something.
‘‘It’s easy to hide it. To pretend you’re not a monster when you’re quiet about it. When the blood’s washed off and the stories stay buried.’’
He gives a short, hollow laugh. ‘‘But a monster’s a monster. Obvious or not.’’
We sit there, the words hanging between us, heavy and sharp.
I feel it deep in my bones, the ache of it, the truth of it.
Then Sawyer says, softer this time, like offering a lifeline:
‘‘But it’s possible to change. It’s not easy. It’s never clean. But it’s possible. You’re not him. You’re not your father. You get to choose who you are.’’
I swallow an awful amount of regret down.
I look at him fully now. And for the first time, there’s no challenge, no hatred in either of us.
I’m touched, deeper than I know how to show.
And for the first time in a long, long time...
I don’t feel entirely alone.
Sawyer shifts, pulling a small pocket knife from his back pocket. He flips it open with a soft click and kneels down beside me.
Wordlessly, he slices through the thick velcro restraints binding my wrists, the material giving way with a ripping sound that feels too loud in the heavy silence.
My hands fall free, stinging, bruised, but mine again.
Sawyer stands and extends his hand, steady, open.
‘‘Let’s start over,’’ he says.
Slowly, I reach out and take it.
Our hands clasp, rough against rough, broken against broken. A soldier’s grip.
A survivor’s grip.
And something in my chest, something rusted and bitter, shifts.
‘‘Let’s start over.’’