The words hit like psychological bombs.
“Your brother is a convicted murderer, Dakota. You share his DNA. If anyone saw the real you—the broken, damaged girl behind all that online perfection—they wouldn’t want anything to do with you.”
The shock hit first. So paralyzing and absolute that my muscles locked and my throat closed. Every word I might havesaid died before it could form. I stood there, frozen, while his words carved through the air between us.
Then came the anger, white hot and fierce. How dare he? How DARE he speak to me like this, use the insecurities I’d trusted him with as ammunition? We’d had something good once. Or so I’d thought. And, hello, he was the one who’d left, not me. He was the one who’d walked away and shattered everything we’d built.
But right behind the anger, rushing in like a flood I couldn’t hold back, came the pain. Unimaginable, soul-deep pain. Because this wasn’t just any insult from any person. This was someone who’d seen all of me: the scared girl who worried her brother’s crimes made her unlovable, the perfectionist who feared she was only valuable when she had it all together, the daughter who carried shame she didn’t earn. I’d let him see the rawest, most vulnerable parts of myself, the parts I kept hidden from the world. And now he was using those very vulnerabilities to slice through my soul.
A stronger person wouldn’t give him that power. Would simply look at him like the trash he evidently was and walk away, unscathed. But my heart? My heart was absolutely shattering. Because when someone you once loved weaponizes your deepest wounds, it doesn’t just hurt; it shatters the illusion that love and safety can coexist, that vulnerability is ever anything but a loaded gun you hand to someone and pray they never pull the trigger.
It felt like a sledgehammer had just shattered me into a thousand pieces.
Breathe,I ordered myself.He’s wrong. He has to be.
But these words weren’t random. They were too specific. Too calculated. He’d found my deepest wound and twisted the knife with surgical precision. Every insecurity I’d ever had about beingloved for who I really was, every fear that I was only valuable if I projected an air of perfection, he’d just weaponized them all.
Why couldn’t I just order my heart to stop hurting from someone who didn’t deserve it? Rationally, I knew he didn’t deserve my heartbreak. But the pain was still there, carving through my chest like it was trying to make a permanent home.
And in that moment, it made me realize how much I respected Axel. Say what you want about his antics, but at least he was up front and honest. He would never have done this to me. Because Axel, despite all of his flaws, wouldn’t have used my vulnerabilities against me just to watch me bleed.
“You can go screw yourself,” I managed.
The tears were coming whether I wanted them or not. My heart was replaying all the times Mathew had held me close to his chest, had been my safe haven in a storm. To realize it was never real, to realize I’d been living in a storm all along… it broke me in ways I didn’t even know were possible.
“See you Friday, Dakota.”
I looked at the man I’d once loved with everything I had, then ran out of his apartment. I made it to the sidewalk before I broke down crying. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I let myself completely fall apart.
I’d had two goals, talking to Mathew today: End things. And do it in a way he’d back off and go on with his life.
Instead, I’d just made everything a hundred times worse.
God help me, this dinner was going to be a disaster of epic proportions.
31
UPDATE: TURNS OUT, I’M CAPABLE OF GRAPHIC VIOLENCE WHEN IT COMES TO SOMEONE HURTING HER. #PROTECTIVEMODEUNLOCKED
AXEL
I knew something was wrong before she even entered the room. The sound of her knock lacked any energy or enthusiasm, almost painful in its sadness.
And then she appeared in my office, the room that doubled as her bedroom. She didn’t even have to knock, which was another tell.
To anyone else, she might look okay, but I could see everything. The deflation of her entire being, like someone had punctured a hole and let all the fight leak out. Her posture was slumped, eyes cast down, the fire completely drained from them. The telltale signs were all there: residual puffiness, reddened lids.
She’d been crying.
Fuck. Time came to a standstill. I’d never seen Dakota cry. Not since the trial at least. She was the strongest woman I’d ever met, the kind who’d probably tell Death to go fuck itself if it showed up at an inconvenient time.
“What’s wrong?” I shot to my feet and crossed the room, cupping her cheek before I could stop myself. “Did something happen? Did someone hurt you?”
“No.” She stepped back like my touch burned her.
My fingers itched at my sides, desperately trying to understand what the hell could have happened. The sight of her body curling in on itself, like she was in too much pain to even stand up straight, felt like a chainsaw cutting me in half.
“What is it, Dakota? Are your parents okay? Is Knox?—”
