I can’t help but laugh as I relax a little bit more, liking the fact that he hasn’t tried to push me away, not when it’s already become one of his favorite things to do. Perhaps I was just going about it the wrong way. “Will you tell me what we used to be like?”
His jaw clenches, his hand tightening on my ass, and I quickly shake my head. “I don’t mean any of the bullshit. Just . . . you and me. Were we just kids who got the wrong end of the stick and wound up in the system before becoming complete nuisances? Or was there more to it?”
Stone’s features soften. “There’s always more to it, Menace. You were a fucking nightmare. At least, not at first, but there was a period when we were separated. You were about eight or nine, and you’d give your foster parents hell, always running away, skipping school, and being a menace.”
My brows furrow, and I shake my head, not understanding. “Why?”
“Why do you think? You were looking for me. It was your way of protesting, and you kept pushing until you were finally rehomed back with me and Ash. We were your safe place, right up until the three of us took off on our own when you were fourteen. At least, we were your safe place until Ash went off the rails.”
“What happened to him?”
Stone pauses for a moment, his gaze locked on the road ahead as he drives, and I go to curse myself out, certain I’ve pushed him too far, when his features finally soften, and he gives in, allowing me just a peek into my past. “Ash was a troubled kid. He was five when our mom was killed. Saw the whole thing and was never really the same. Even well into his teens. He struggled a lot, and for a while, you two were pretty close. He leaned on you a lot, and I suppose he always thought you’d get together at some point, but he was also very jealous.”
“Jealous of what?”
“He saw the way you looked at me, Menace. Even as a kid. Your eyes would light up when you’d look at me. It’s as though you thought I was larger than life or something like that.”
“Like my hero?”
Stone shrugs and shakes his head. “I was never a hero.”
“You might have been to a lost little girl who needed someone to show her that everything was going to be okay,” I tell him. “You might have been her whole fucking world.”
Stone rolls his eyes, not prepared to take the compliment. “Either way, Ash didn’t like it. He didn’t like the dynamic between us, didn’t like that you saw him as a brother, and he sure as fuck didn’t like that I was the one calling the shots. He started experimenting with drugs and got himself mixed up with a gang, which turned into him thinking he could make a quick buck by dealing. I tried to get him out of it, but I was just a kid myself at that point, and he was already in too deep.”
“Shit,” I breathe, my heart starting to break. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Menace. He made his choices. That’s not a burden for you to bear. And besides, he was my kid brother. My blood. He was my responsibility, mine to watch out for. If anybody let him down, it’s me. His blood is on my hands.”
I shrug my shoulders, feeling the burden resting heavily on my shoulders nonetheless. “If I can’t blame myself, then you can’t blame yourself either,” I tell him. “Maybe if things had been different—”
“Don’t,” he tells me. “No matter how you felt about him at the time, he was already heading down that track. We had no choice but to leave. I wasn’t hanging around to let him drag you down with him. It wasn’t gonna happen.”
I nod, not knowing enough details to be able to form a proper opinion on the situation, but I know enough about Stone nowthat I feel he would have done the right thing at the time. “So, this gang that Ash was caught up with. Were they—”
“The guys I slaughtered down in that basement?” he finishes for me. “Yes.”
“And the people on your Polaroid kill list?”
He takes a slow breath. “The ones who got away. There weren’t just six of them coming for you, Riley. The whole fucking gang was ready to destroy you, and they’re not about to get away with it.”
“So that’s who we’re heading back to the city to see?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Shit,” I sigh, not able to imagine the hell he must have faced trying to get to me. “That night . . . It couldn’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t,” he admits, no hint of hesitation in his tone. “But like I said, you’ve always come first, and nothing was stopping me from getting to you. I just . . . I wish I hadn’t failed.”
“It might not have turned out the way you were hoping, but you didn’t fail,” I tell him. “You saved my life. You found a way to get me out of there. It cost us more than we could have anticipated, but you didn’t fail. Ash failedus.”
Stone’s stare collides with mine like two ships in the night, not a word passing between us, yet a million messages within the silence.Always come first.It’s one thing to hear the words tumble from his mouth in a moment of raw passion, but to see how he’s truly lived by the motto and put it into action is so much heavier than I could have been prepared for. But then to learn that he thinks he somehow failed that night is insane. I lived. I wasn’t raped. I came out of it with a chance to start a new life far away from gang violence and murder, and while I was away from Stone, I was gifted the chance to learn who I am without him.
I swallow over the growing lump in my throat, my fingers splaying on his chest before I lean in and gently kiss him again.“Thank you,” I murmur against his lips. “Without you always having my back, who knows where I would have ended up.”
“You would have found a way to survive. You always do,” he tells me. “Just like you did after I was put away.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “How did everything get so messed up?” I ask. “If I never found myself in that basement, you never would have had to save me, and then you wouldn’t have been arrested and sent to prison. Everything could have just stayed the same, and you never would have spent seven years thinking I betrayed you.”
