CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO #3
His chest flexes as he keeps rocking me side to side. “Okay.”
“I mean it,” I insist, twisting my fists in his shirt because I know he only said it to appease me.
“Shh,” he goes again, his palms stroking my back. “Just breathe, yeah?”
“No,” I snap and burrow even deeper into his chest. “You’re not a monster. I am.”
He goes still at my proclamation, and I clench my eyes shut. Then he wraps my braid around his wrist and tugs my head back. It’s not rough but it’s not gentle either, his action. It’s firm, much like his features and voice as he asks, “What?”
I swallow, looking up at him. “You were right to leave that night. It’ll never work between us.”
His jaw flexes as he asks, “Why?”
I study him for a few seconds before confessing, “Because don’t you see there’s a reason why the past has had such a hold on you?
Because it’s that bloody. It’s that inescapable.
It’s everywhere. It wasn’t an accident, you know that, right?
He tried to kill your sister, my dad. And then he forced her to go away, kept you apart for years and years, just because he’s that evil.
And I know how that feels. How your sister felt. I know. Because he did the same to me.”
My breaths hiccup at just the thought of what his sister must’ve gone through, how alone she must’ve felt.
We talked for hours in that room and she told me about her life in the convent.
She didn’t make it sound awfully lonely, but I could read between the lines.
Because I’ve led that life, too, where I pretended everything was okay when I was dying inside.
And it made me realize how naive I’ve been.
How could I even think that something like this, what my father did, could ever go away?
How could I expect Radisson to not only move on but to also build a life with me, with the daughter of a monster?
“He did the same to me,” I repeat, a tear flowing down my cheek, making his chest shake with an angry breath.
“And as if that wasn’t enough, he came up with a plan to use it.
To use all of it against you for his precious land.
And I’m his daughter. I’m a monster’s daughter, Radisson, a monster who took so much from you.
So if anyone’s a monster between the two of us, it’s me; and I don’t think it could ever work between us. ”
He watches me for a few beats, his features harsh, his eyes glimmering.
Then, squeezing his arms around me, he goes, “It’s not your fault.
That you think that. It’s mine.” I frown and open my mouth to object, but he keeps going, “Threw the past in your face so many times, you think you can’t escape it.
You think I can’t escape it either. Been really good at convincin’ you of that, haven’t I?
So I won’t try to convince you of the opposite.
Instead, I’ll show you. I’ll show you that we’ll work.
We’ll more than fuckin’ work; we’ll fit. Like we always have.”
I blush because I know what he means. “I didn’t—”
“’Cause we’re fate, you and I,” he says, or more like vows. “And no one, least of all your piece-of-shit daddy, will win and keep us apart.”
“I—”
“But I will say this,” he keeps going. “I am a monster. Not because of what your father did to me but because of what I’m gonna do to him.
And what I’m gonna do to that cockroach Anderson.
And every other motherfucker out there who dares to hurt you.
Today, tomorrow, and every single day until the end of time.
’Cause I realized being a monster ain’t my flaw, darlin’, not when it’s to protect the girl I love.
So I’d happily let him come out and play if my Princess is threatened.
You’re what makes me human, and I don’t mind bein’ a monster for you. ”
My breaths are quick and noisy, and my belly flutters as I ask, “You have my father, don’t you?”
His jaw pulses in response and I know.
“That A-Anderson guy too?”
Another pulse and I get my answer.
My brother wouldn’t tell me what happened to them. Every time I brought it up, he told me not to worry about it. But I had a feeling I already knew the answers to my questions. “In one of your cabins at Rawhide?”
“Yeah,” he says, his voice low and rough.
I bite my lip. “Are you going to kill them?”
“Eventually.”
My heart races and I fist his shirt harder. “What if… You won’t get c-caught, will you?”
From what I understand, Joshua Anderson is a big businessman from California.
If he dies, someone will come looking for him, maybe even people from the media he was talking about.
Not to mention my own father. I’m sure Breck will help the Graysons cover up his murder, but still.
Everyone will know, or at least people who are in the know will know it was Radisson who did it, and I don’t like that.
What if it comes back to haunt him later? My plan would’ve been better.
“By the time I get done with ’em, there won’t be any bodies to find,” he rumbles, his voice deadly and threatening. “Or a crime to investigate.”