“I’m not speculating, I’m stating facts. You saw he was bleeding through his T-shirt, he saw you in a vest. He said he was already dead because he knew Stone would hang him out to dry. He was desperate and you knew he was desperate.”
“Oh, darlin’.” I shook my head. “You really need me to explain the fundamentals of conjecture?”
“Do you ever take responsibility for anything?”
The wall around all the fucked-up emotions I’d been sitting on for forty-eight goddamn hours started to crack. “We talkin’ taxes or your safety? ’Cause responsibility’s a big fuckin’ word.”
“You didn’t save me!”
I laughed without an ounce of humor. “No, I sure as fuck didn’t.” She was standing in front of me mourning her dead abusive ex. There was nothing saved about that, no matter how you spun it.
For a split second, surprise flashed across her face then it was gone. When she didn’t say shit, I egged her on.
“You did that all on your own, didn’t you?” I was an asshole for saying it sarcastically as hell because she did do it. She made the choice to leave him, she made the choice to seek me out. I just couldn’t figure out why she did if she still had feelings for the prick.
“You don’t know anything.” She pushed past me.
I caught her wrist. “You wanna throw insults at me? Make them about me, not him.”
“Let go!”
Walking on eggshells around her for two days, waiting for the shoe to drop, listening to Kendall’s bullshit, I lost my fucking patience. I tightened my fingers and stepped into her space. “You want me to let go?” It wasn’t a question. It was a threat. I didn’t give her a chance to answer. “You think before you answer that. You think about who the fuck you’re talkin’ to.”
She recoiled.
“That’s right.” I moved in closer. “I’m done bein’ nice. I’m done caterin’ to your every piece of crazy. I’ll respect the fuck outta your space if you wanna grieve. But this bullshit?” I swept my hand between us. “Not happenin’. You wanna feel sorry for the man who stabbed you, beat you, used you? Get the fuck outta this house.” I made a show of dropping her wrist. “I got more respect for myself than to stick my dick in a woman too weak to know right from wrong.”
She slapped me.
I took the blow I saw coming and glared at her. “Again,” I barked, my cheek stinging.
Panting, nostrils flaring, she clenched her fists.
“Again.”
Her arm swung back and she put twice as much into it as the first one.
“That’s all you fuckin’ got?” I taunted. “Why don’t you show—”
I never got the rest of the words out. Her left hand connected with my face and she cried out in anguish.
“Hit me again,” I demanded.
“I hate you,” she screamed.
“Good,” I yelled back, knowing full well hate wasn’t the opposite of love. Indifference was.
She slapped me with her left hand and pounded on me with her right splinted arm. Then she let loose. Crying, punching, hitting, slapping, she rained down her grief on me and I took it. All of it. Standing with my arms at my sides, I let her do her worst.
When both of her fists weakly hit my chest and she sagged into me, I wrapped my arms around her. “Shh, shh, I gotcha. Let it all out. You’re safe.”
Her knees buckled. “Youkilledhim youkilledhim,” she chanted, sobbing.
Technically Neil had, but I didn’t correct her. I took her weight and held her closer. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“I should hate you.” She cried harder. “I’m supposed to hate you!”
I stroked her back. “I know, sweetheart, I know.”
“You should hate me,” she wailed. “I caused all this.”
Guilt ripped at my conscience. I pulled back just enough to take her face in my hand. “I could never hate you, Siren. Never. You didn’t cause this. You hear me?”
Tears dripped down her stricken face and she dissolved into sobs. I did the only thing I could. I held her. I didn’t want to acknowledge what she was feeling but I knew grief. Maybe she still loved him, maybe she was mourning the loss of what could’ve been, I didn’t know. All I knew was watching her hold everything in for the past couple of days was torture. God help me, I’d relished in her anger just now, but seeing her sad again, it had me wanting to kill Randy all over again for putting her through this.
“Come on,” I whispered, stroking her hair. “You’re breakin’ my heart. Let the guilt go. Let him go.”