“Because shit got bad. Why don’t I stuff my cock in your mouth again so you quit acting like a guidance counselor now?”
“I’m not afraid of being real with you.”
I bite my tongue. “I went easy on you. Pulled your hair, fucked your throat. Starting to think I want to hurt you worse.”
He glares at me. “I was ready to be there for you after Lune died?—”
“Don’t talk about my sister.”
“It broke my fucking heart when that happened to her, too. But instead of accepting any support from me or Weston, you lost your fucking mind.”
For fuck’s sake.
Where the hell did that come from?
It feels like the floor drops out from under me, hearing him lay it out so plainly.
My jaw clenches.
I thought he was going to toss banter at me like heusually does.
Instead, he got way too real, way too quickly.
Part of me wants to get up and leave, but for some reason, I pull out the wooden chair next to him.
He watches me for a while.
When I don’t respond, he goes back to his book.
I lean back in my chair, scrubbing my face with my palms.
I think about Lune every day, but Rayne mentioning her name feels like a sucker punch, all the same.
And he’s alsoright.
There is so much about me that you don’t know.
In the years after Lune’s death, I spiraled out even worse than before. Rayne isn’t aware that I took that to a different level when I moved to London.
Iknewsome of the guys I was getting involved with were tied to the notorious Thornwick crime family.
They didn’t call itthe mafia.
But it was.
London was supposed to help me control my violence, and instead it only got stronger when the Thornwick family asked me to do more and more dirty work for them. I never killed anyone for them, but I got far too close.
And one night, I put my knife against someone I never should have touched.
I’m never going to tell Rayne about why I left London, because he doesn’t need to know things that could potentially get him hurt. He doesn’t get to have information when it’s that sensitive.
I’m silent for a long time.
Listening to the sounds of the occasional student quietly walking along the floorboards nearby.
Hearing Rayne turn the pages of his book beside me, ignoring me.
My chest feels hollow.
