I don’t say this enough, but I love you, Caroline. Youare the best thing that has ever happened to me. Without you I don’t think Icould face the next ten years. It’s unbearable in here. And worse without you.You’re the only thing that keeps me breathing. The only thing that keeps mesane. From the day I met you thatwastrue.
You saved me when we were kids. And I’m a selfishbastard because I need you to save me again. Payne says the charges are goingto stick. All of them. What am I going to do?
I’m sorry, Caro. For whatever I did. For every singlething. Please forgive me. Please come see me.
Please don’t leave me.
Sayer.
It hurt to breathe and my hands were trembling. But Istill opened the next one. And the one after that. And the one after that.
Did I ever tell you my dad was a cop?Crazy right?Considering the line of work I ended up in.Although it’s not so out of the question if you know the whole story. If youknow that sometimes the people pretending to be the good guys are really theworst of them all. So, maybe it’s not that surprising that I joined thesyndicate. They never beat the shit out of me. They never put their hands onme.Or locked me in a basement for days without food.Or did unspeakable things to my mom until she couldn’t stand her life anymore,until she didn’t even care enough about me to keep living. The only silverlining to my mom killing herself? Was that my dad did too shortly after.
Which was good news for me until the fucking systemgot ahold of me. Foster care? More fake good guys taking advantage of littlekids. To be fair, there were a few good homes near the end, but the damage wasalready done and I was too wild to settle down.
That’s when you found me. I was a feral dog living onthe streets, so close to death I felt it every day. Then Caroline fuckingValera shows up and breathes life back into me, finds me a home and gives mepurpose. Do you know that you rescued me? Do you know that you saved my soul?
I was dead before you, Caroline. Don’t make me livewithout you now. I don’t know how. I don’t know how to do anything without you.
Come back to me.
Come home.
Take away this constant pain.
Breathe life into me once again.
Tears started falling and I was helpless to stop them.How could I? He had never told me about his past and it wasn’t for lack oftrying on my part. I had asked him endlesstimes about whathis life waslike before the syndicate, before me. He would never talkabout it. He’d get that blank look on his face and clutch the key around hisneck.
How could he not have told me? How could he have keptall that a secret for so long?
I pressed a hand to my cracking chest in a failingattempt to hold it together.
Six,
I should hate you. I want to hate you. The threehardest years of my fucking life and you’re nowhere to be found? I thought wewere in this together. I thought we had a deal—the wholedeathdous part kind of thing.
But you’re gone. And everything is falling apart here.And I don’t know what end is up, down or fucking sideways.
You better have a good fucking excuse. Don’t you thinkI at least deserve to hear it?
Come back and give it to me.
Goddamnit, just come back.
I read through all the letters except one. Theyweren’t in any particular timeline and some of them were so angry I couldn’t doanything more than weep over them. He had a right to be mad. He had a right tohate me. But every single letter ended in him asking me to come back despitehow he felt.
He mentioned his past more and more. How awful his dadhad been. How he’d been abused. And then abused again in two different fostercare homes. He had just started to believe he was free from the constantphysical pain from someone that was supposed to love him when it turned tosexual pain from someone who was supposed to protect him. He had run away fromthe system only to face constant danger of both varieties on the streets.
He credited me with getting him away from all of it.
I didn’t deserve the gratitude. I had helped him tradeone hell for another.
But he didn’t see it that way. It was no wonder hehadn’t been bothered by thebratva’sdealings. It was no wonder he was so loyal to anorganization that had given him new life, given him the means to take care ofhimself, to be independent.
It was no wonder he didn’t want to leave.
There was one letter left. I was the most afraid toopen it. I’d saved it for last on purpose.
