Chapter 5
BLAIZE
My emotions had clouded my judgment ever since she arrived, then Layla and Fallon’s attack threw me overboard.
I just wanted answers and thought Kadence was the source I needed.
I never expected to be this fucking wrong.
To cause this much damage. This turmoil had my head in a tangle.
I couldn’t deny that I had let my emotions overtake everything in me and create a fucked-up mess with Kadence.
She was angry, hurt, and it was all my fault.
I couldn’t lie and say it was her being dramatic. I did this.
I triggered her, sending her back to the worst night of her life.
I sat, nursing a bottle of whiskey after I threw the glass I had been drinking from against my wall.
It bounced off and was currently sitting pretty in the corner of my office.
The whiskey didn’t make my heart feel any better, nor did it numb the throbbing in my head. I was a fucking idiot.
Hunter stormed into my office. “I said it once, and I’ll say it again…you are a goddamn idiot.”
“Did you just come in here to tell me what I already know? I fucked up. I don’t know how to fix this.”
“I don’t know if you can. If it’s as bad as Hawke said, she’s going to need time. She held her pain in instead of coping correctly, and now she’s drowning in it.”
I tipped my head back, lifted the bottle to my lips, and took another gulp of the amber liquid before looking at Hunter with a raised brow. “You were not the archetype for coping with trauma.”
“This isn’t about me or my own fucked-up life. I have issues. Lots and lots of trauma, but at least I’m not hurting the girl I love.”
I glared at her. Her sassy attitude was not what I needed, but it was what I deserved.
My emotions had clouded my judgment, and I had hurt Kadence as a result.
Not just physically, but emotionally and mentally, too.
She relived her nightmare. Hunter had always been straightforward and blunt with me, telling me what was on her mind unless it pertained to her own trauma.
When I said we were alike, I meant it. She hid her emotions behind a pretty face and kink.
When I found her mutilating that priest, it took her weeks before she finally opened up to me.
The answer was screaming at me in the crimson red that coated her skin, but it was her story to tell.
She doesn’t tell anyone what happened to her, and sometimes she still needed a breather to scream and cry in my room away from listening ears.
Only Hawke, Fallon, Drew, and I knew what happened to her at Holy Trinity.
“I really hate you.”
“Suck it up. If Kadence is going to forgive you, you need to give her something in return. You wear a mask. She needs to see you without your shields.”
Those shields had protected me for years.
If I let someone into my stone-cold heart, like Kadence had attempted, she could be used against me.
Olivia and Charlee were my weakness, my soul, and losing them took a part of me.
The void left behind was filled with sorrow and longing that never faded.
I buried my emotions behind a strong facade, but beneath it was a dormant volcano, fueled with unresolved emotions.
That volcano erupted the moment Kadence Hayes had wiggled her way into my life. I didn’t know what it was about her that had made my heart reanimate, but it did. She had felt like a warm, sunny day, while I was living in a snowy tundra.
And I went and fucked it all up. I glanced at the photo of Olivia and Charlee I had on my desk, mentally smacking myself.
If Olivia had been there, she’d have read me the riot act.
I was a killer, but I didn’t hurt innocent people until that night.
Kadence would never forgive me for the pain I had caused her.
The cold, dead organ in my chest needed to shrivel up and stay dead instead of sparking to life when I was near her.
“I need you to find her father and this gang. I want everything you can find so I know if Kadence is in danger.”
“Already on it.”
“What do I do?”
“You went on a date with her, you started the process. Now you need to try to repair the damage you did.”
“You saw the way she left the clubhouse. She won’t ever want to see me again.”
Hunter rolled her eyes. “You’re Blaize fucking Mathews. You always get what you want. If you want Kadence, go get her. It’ll take a shit ton of groveling, and you’ll have to give her a few mind-blowing orgasms, but if anyone is good at getting what they want, it’s you.”
I interlocked my fingers, cocking a brow at Hunter. “You’re mental if you think she’ll touch me after what I did.”
“Kadence loves you. We might be good at hiding our emotions, but that girl isn’t. I read her scars and read her pain like a book. From the details Drew has told me, she had a rough home life, adding to what she endured. She never had stability.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Kadence is grown. She knows what she wants. It’s going to take a lot for her to trust you again, but you need to let your guard down and let her in.”
“When this blows up in my face, I’m blaming you.”
She shot her hands up. “I wasn’t the one who fell in love and then ruined it.”