“Try fucking harder. This isn’t a game.”
My hands come out of my pockets, reaching for her, but she keeps backing away. “What the hell do you want me to say?”
“Try the truth, Benjamin. Tell me how you feel.” My feet stop. I don’t know how I feel. The fucking world’s just come crashing down around me and she wants to talk about feelings? Whatever ones I have are lost in my head, a mess of conflicts. “For once in your life, give me something real to hold onto.”
It’s these fucking words she wants, the ones swimming around my guts without a centre to find. Love. Honesty. A closeness I don’t know how to achieve, although she’s probably the way I'm gonna reach them. I look at the concrete beneath my feet, shoes reflecting the sky’s grey emptiness back at me. That’s me. Empty of compassion. Empty of consideration for anything other than my needs.
“I don’t know how to do that, Hope.”
I look back up to find her staring, waiting for words from me to make this right between us. “Try. Please,” she says, a quiver to her voice. I frown again,annoyed at myself as much as anything.
“You can go if you want. I wouldn’t blame you. I’m no father, Hope.I think we both know that.”
Silence then, both of us staring. Me without a way of expressing what’s so desperately needed for the family she probably wants. That pisses me off. It idles in my guts, telling me I’m wrong and that I should trust her, trust this feeling. “You’ll never want for anything. You already have the beach house. If you want somewhere different, fine. Just say. Accounts, your own stuff. Just tell me.”
The fucking silence is pissing me off. I watch her watch me, trying to find something else to keep her close enough that she won’t run. “I'll stay away if that’s what you want. Keep you safe like that. No one has to know it’s mine.” A fucking feeling chokes my throat at the thought. I want people to know it’s mine; want them to know she is, too.
She's always been mine.
“I don’t need things. I thought the beach house meant something to you, that it was important to you,” she murmurs. “And so, by giving it to me, that made me think I was important as well.” My brow furrows, still not really knowing why I gave it to her. “I want you, Benjamin. I want us. Together. Don’t you know that?” She does? Even the life that comes with me? My goddamn heart rate increases, eyes searching hers for what that means. “But I swear to God, if you can’t get those words out of your mouth, then this is done. We’re done. Man up. You’ve shown me how you feel. If you didn’t, then I wouldn’t be standing here now. You’d have killed me already. But I won’t take any more lies. Ever. We’ve both lived a lifetime of those. No more. And not with our baby.”
Our baby.
Those words hit hard. I search my guts for the words she needs, let them hover around in my mind. Part of me is desperate to tell her and another part is fucking scared of the consequences. That’s real to me. Not a game. Not a deception. That’s something that binds us together for the rest of our lives. She needs to understand that. There will be no breaking up. No change of heart. When I give that to her, I mean it. I say those words and we’re all in. I can only hope she knows that, feels it like I do, because I’ll lose my shit the second she steps out of line. What she’s been through with me in the past will be a fucking breeze in comparison to that storm.
My eyes stare, heart telling me to give it up to her, open the fucking cage doors I’ve locked down tight all these years. Vico and Winters. Together. Cane even. What the hell is she now?
“You a Winters or Cane now?” I ask. She seems confused, no idea what I’m talking about. I smirk, enjoying the look of chaos clouding her mind. “Hope Winters or Hope Cane?”
“What the hell has that—”
“Because I was thinking about telling you that I love you, but I’d need a name for that.” I shrug, taking a small, slow step towards her. “You know, just so I know who I’m in love with.”
A smile breaks out on her face. It’s fucking beautiful, enough so that I start to move, then stop. I wait for any questions she’s got instead, give her time to let the information settle.
“You know what that means, right?”
I fucking hope she does. This isn’t a goddamn love story like all the rest of them. This means someone’s inside me. Me. That’s not a pretty place to be. She’ll understand these tattoos, understand how many I’ve killed, how I killed them. She wants in this mind of mine, she’s welcome to come play and try that out for size. It’ll be nice to have someone hear it, take the stains from me every now and then. Maybe she can wipe them down enough for a kid. Blend them, at least.
Still the smile is there as she nods. No quiver in her now. Just a head held high, radiating a beauty that no woman other than her possesses. It’s enough for me to nod, too, and start moving until I’ve got her in my arms this time. Fuck the distance. If that’s what it takes, we’ll go all in. Make it something it hasn’t been before now. For once, I’ll give her something true to hold onto. Me.
“I’m a Winters,” she says, looking up at me. “Always.” She smiles again, her hands coming up to my face. Winters.
“Cold, huh?” It’s what intrigued me about her in the first place, but this touch she’s giving me now, this body pressed against me, that’s anything but cold. It’s warm. Perfect. And mine.
“Except for you.”
And then the fucking kiss comes, the one that seals it all and finds me a home I never thought I wanted. Love, apparently, is worth considering. Consenting to even. It’ll be worth my life, too, if that’s what’s needed to protect them both. We’ll see how that goes, because if there’s one thing I’ve learnt through her vengeance, it’s that love trumps all. Always will now. Anyone fucks with her, or our child, and a war will come so swiftly they won’t know what’s hit them.
That’s what blood means to me. What my family means.
What Hope means.
Epilogue
Six Months Later
The beach house has become my home. I was drawn to it from the moment I stepped foot inside the door, its quiet stillness, the connection to a past that I’ll never be a part of, but accept, because I’m part of the future. Benjamin’s future.
