The people Maya referred to as the Syndicate.
What the fuck did she do with that? How did she process this new information?
The altercation with Maya on the island had happened so fast. Less than an hour from her sister stepping off the helicopter to her dying from a remotely triggered zap to her brain. And now time had slowed to a crawl, trapping her in its wreckage.
Peace? There’d be no peace. Not for her. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to come back from this.”
Jay stepped in, close enough she could smell the soap on his skin. “You don’t have to come back from this,” he replied, cupping her face in his hands and stroking his thumbs over her cheeks. “Not all the way. Not all at once. Just come back enough to punch something. That’s enough for now.”
Her laugh came out jagged and broken before her emotions overtook, and she unleashed a sob so loud it drowned out the voices in her head. “I can’t,” she cried. Everything. The heartaches. The pain. The betrayals. The anger. It hit her all at once, and her boxes—the ones that had held her together for years—splintered. Cracked. Blew apart.
Her body shook from the impact. She couldn’t manage the load. Couldn’t withstand the onslaught. She was drowning, gasping for air as she lost control over her carefully crafted existence. Too much. Everything she felt. Everything she’d suppressed. Too. Fucking. Much.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Hands clenched into fists as Becca’s tears cascaded, Jay had to find his own strength to stay the course. He’d tried a softer approach. Tried patience. Tried coaxing. Tried begging. Nothing had worked. He hadn’t been able to reach her. Hadn’t been able to breach the walls she’d placed around herself since they’d returned to the lodge.
Victorious, yet still vanquished.
Sure, they’d stopped Dominion. Destroyed it. Kept it from obliterating everyone and everything. But nobody knew the truth. Johnson had made sure of it by controlling the narrative and taking credit for the black rose.
So yeah, they were still wanted men.
Nothing had changed in that regard.
They had work left to do and butts to kick before they could call it quits. But none of that mattered in the face of Becca’s withdrawal. He couldn’t keep up the fight without her. She was the axis of his world; it didn’t spin if she didn’t want it to, and the possibility of losing her after everything they’d been through fucking terrified him.
He couldn’t watch her downward spiral and do nothing.
So he’d fight. For her. Until she was ready to fight for herself.
“I can’t,” Becca sobbed again, her body trembling from the onslaught of emotions she’d been repressing for years. “I can’t!”
“You can,” he said.
“I can’t,” she hit his chest with closed fists. A gentle thump, leading to a harder one. “All of this—it’s my fault!” The third and fourth came fast and furious, until she reached a blind frenzy, hitting him again, and again, and again. “I can’t…oh God! It’s my fault…I can’t…” Over and over. Harder and harder. She pummeled him.
Wild. Out of control. Fueled by pain. By sorrow. By desperation.
“None of this is your fault,” he argued, grabbing her by the wrists and forcing her to listen. “And you can come back from this. You will. Because I can’t live without you. I won’t. I refuse to. You and me. Always and forever. There’s no other way, Bec.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“No. No. No!” she shouted, shoving her elbows down and back to break his hold. Then she ran for the door, throwing it open and disappearing into the hall before he could stop her. By the time he exited the room, she’d made it to the top of the main stairs.
She didn’t hesitate there, bare feet pounding against the treads—she descended.
He followed at a slower pace.
He understood her need to run. She’d been doing it for years.
Skipping the last two steps, she hit the ground floor with a loud thud, then streaking across the grand foyer, she threw the heavy door open and ran straight out into the rain. When he pulled to a stop on the covered verandah, she was already across the driveway, standing in a field of dead grass and mud.
Dressed in nothing but a thin tank top and a pair of his boxers, she tipped her head back and the scream she let rip shredded his insides. Gutted him completely. Fucking hell. He wanted to go to her. Scoop her into his arms. Take away her pain. He couldn’t. She had to choose him. More importantly, she had to choose herself.
“What the fuck?” Gray sprinted past him, and tossing herself off the porch, she raced across the yard, the rain soaking her in seconds. “Becca!” she cried from the halfway point, making her whirl around to face them.
