“Just that easy, huh.”
“Yes. As long as I have you. Then yes, Winter, it is that easy,” he bit out at her and she had to work hard to not back down at the anger in his tone.
He had never been angry with her, never been anything other than gentle.
Ever.
But she told herself that it wasn’t her he was angry at, and she soldiered on.
“I wasn’t saying that I was going to leave, Mark,” she said softly.
“I’ve always felt as if I didn’t fit in with them. The three of them were like this secret club, and I never knew the password. They would always stick together. No matter what. When Dominic got promoted, he took Danny and Rick with him, and I stayed with Sergio. It’s always just been that way and it was okay because I had their loyalty. Loyalty with the Familia is something that is put above all else.” He paused.
He turned to look out the window, a big sigh leaving him. Like the world was on his shoulders. She got up from her spot on the bed and walked to him. She didn’t touch him, just stood quietly by his side letting him have his moment. Letting him know that she was there.
Her gaze traveled around the yard. The space looked like it could have been beautiful, but it was severely overgrown. Like in the year that he had been gone nobody had come and mowed it.
Like nobody cared.
She was there now though.
And she would be there for him, like he had been there for her.
“Now I know that loyalty was never returned.” He finally finished quietly, the pain in his words hitting her.
“I’m sorry, Mark.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, little bird,” he said. His voice dropped off, a note of despair entering it as he continued to watch out the window.
“I wish I could fix it. That there was something I could do,” she said and he turned looking at her, his eyes searing into hers.
“I would trade it all for you, Winter.” She shook her head looking down to where she was worrying the frayed hem of her shirt.
“That’s what I’m afraid you are doing. You shouldn’t have to give up anything to be with me.”
“Winter, Come here,” he said softly, his tone holding a note in it that she didn’t understand.
His body a little too alert, a little too still, and she sensed that what he was asking for was more than for her to just walk across the floor to him.
He was asking her to trust him.
To go to him and put everything in his hands, because he was literally doing the same for her.
So she did the only thing she could.
She took the last step that separated them. Stepping closer to him, to her future, and to a man that was slowly becoming her everything.
The man that had rescued her.
The man that had pieced her world together so that she could come out on the other side whole again.
That was the man that she would give up anything for and follow anywhere.
Because he wasn’t just a man.
He was her Mark.
His eyes were watching her, shining so brightly, it hit her in her soul. As she slid up to him, leaning into him, her hands on his chest.
