“No.”
“It all makes sense now.” Eva pulled my hands from her face. “God, I’m so fucking stupid.” I tried to reach for her again, but she slapped my hand away. “I told you I loved you, and you couldn’t say it back. And now I know why. This was all some plot to fuck me over, wasn’t it?”
She stepped toward me, hatred burning in her eyes.
“Eva, you don’t understand.”
“You’re a son of a bitch.” Her hand connected with the side of my face with a force I wasn’t expecting. My cheek was aflame, my skin pulsing. “How you must have laughed at me. You and your brother.”
“That’s not true, and you know that.”
“You fucked me like some whore, degraded me, and probably laughed behind my back while my dumb ass fell in love with you. God, I hate you!”
Her fists came down on my chest, the force of her blows biting, but I let her hit me. I deserved to feel all the pain I’d caused her.
“Eva, stop,” I finally said, grabbing her wrists. She didn’t fight me anymore and crumbled to the floor.
“What am I supposed to do with all of this?” she cried, fingers clutching her heart. “What do I do with everything I know?” A scream rippled from her throat. “You fucked me in so many ways, Derek.”
I knelt beside her. “Do whatever you feel is right. But please let me speak.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head and jumping to her feet. “I don’t want to hear any more of your bullshit—your lies. I never want to see or hear from you again.”
I caught her elbow before she could run through the door and pulled her into me, her back flush against my chest. My lips were on her neck, and she melted into me, letting me kiss her.
“Angel, please, don’t leave. I wish things were different. I wish I were the man you deserve. Let me make this right. Please.”
“You know what I wish, Derek?” She turned around in my arms, watery eyes meeting mine. “I wish you would have killed me that night too.”
I clenched my teeth. “Don’t you fucking say that.”
“What’s the difference? At least it would have been quick. And not like this.”
My hold on her loosened as the blades of a thousand serrated knives cut deep into my heart. I let her walk away, and she stopped beneath the threshold but didn’t turn around. A glimmer of hope bubbled inside me, but as swiftly as it bloomed, it crashed and burned when the vitriol behind her words choked the very life from me.
“If I ever see you again, if you ever come looking for me, I’ll have you arrested for murder… or kill you myself.”
CHAPTERFORTY-ONE
DEREK
“Derek, stop!”
Kai’s hurried steps closed in on me. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t stop me. Nobody would until I had Ronan’s head. Not only had he destroyed my relationship with Eva, but he’d also put a target on her head for revealing himself and me in the process. My girl hated me, and she could potentially be in danger. I wouldn’t let that stand. I’d make him pay in the most painful ways imaginable.
“Come on, brother, think this through,” he said, gripping my arm.
I shook off his touch and cut through the parking lot, but he grabbed me again.
“Kai, you’re not going to stop me. I’m going to rip him apart with my bare fucking hands.”
He pushed me by the shoulders, slamming me against the back of a truck. “The only thing you’re going to do is get yourself fucking killed. You won’t walk out of there, and neither will I because there’s no way in hell I’ll let you do this alone.”
“The fuck you will.”
“Try and stop me,” he challenged.
I shook my head and closed my eyes, the heat of tears stinging behind my eyelids, the pain in my chest still raw, stealing my breath. The agony of losing her, of knowing she hated me, was a unique form of torture I’d never experienced. Not even the atrocities of my childhood compared. I’d live those horrors a thousand times if it meant I could unsee the hatred and sadness in her eyes.
