“The fact that you haven’t figured it out shows just how goddamn naive you are,” Maverick snapped. “What do you think my brother and I do for money? Why do you think I work at the fucking bar? It’s because tourists are easy marks.”
“Mav…” My breath caught in my throat. “I don’t… what are you saying?”
“Jesus fuck, you really do live in your own little world, don’t you?” he replied.
“Why are you acting like this?”
“You and me, we weren’t real, Harley, and I don’t feel like spending the next five to ten years dealing with your dumbass while I’m in prison,” he said. I drew in a shaky breath, my eyes burning hot with the tears I tried to hold back. “You were always just a fucking job. You and your family sit up there in your fancy goddamn mansion while the rest of us fight for scraps. It’s so goddamn unfair that it’s infuriating.”
“If you needed something, I would’ve given it to you,” I told him. The phone shook violently in my hand as every single thing he said hurt more than the one before. I—”
“I never wanted your fucking charity,” he cut me off. “I just wanted what I was owed.”
“I don’t care.” I tried to rationalize with some part of what he was saying. The world had never been fair to him. I knew that. I could forgive whatever he’d done to be arrested. I could even forgive him for lashing out in anger. He didn’t mean what he said. He couldn’t.Not my Maverick.“You don’t actually mean—”
“Jesus fuck, do you hear yourself?” Maverick scoffed. “Do you know how pathetic you sound? You don’t get whatever you want just because you beg for it. The world’s not sunshine and rainbows, princess.”
The pet name hit like a slap. It wasn’t the soft and affectionateprincessI’d grown used to—not the way I liked to hear it. The single word dripped with anger, like he couldn’t stand the sound of me anymore.
“You need to get over yourself,” he continued. “I never wanted you, and I never will.”
Tears welled up as I sucked in a painful breath, my chest tightening like a vise while I forgot how to breathe. Those words cut deepest, lodging somewhere behind my ribs. Somewhere I’d never be able to remove them from.
He didn’t mean them.He couldn’t…
“Mav,” I choked out, his name breaking apart in my throat. The phone clicked, ending the call as he hung up on me.
Ending everything.
No goodbye. No hesitation. No anything. He was just… gone.
I stared at the phone until it blurred before dropping it onto the seat next to me with a soft thud. A sob tore through me as the devastation crashed through me. I folded over the steering wheel as I broke, unable to hold it in anymore. I splintered apart from the inside out. Pain resonated through every part of me, and I hurt in ways I hadn’t known possible. Little pieces of me scattered in the wreckage of him—too small and too ruined to ever be put back together.
There was no coming back from this. I was just left with holes in all the places he’d been, ones so deep that they threatened to consume me.
CHAPTER 44
maverick
Shaking, I gave the phone back to Sheriff Kramer. My fingers didn’t want to let go, as if I held on just a little longer, I’d realize this was all just a horrible dream. Like I’d wake up, and everything would be okay again.
Kramer hung it up, and the definitive click sliced through me, making my whole world silently shatter. Something in my chest gave way, collapsing inward and hollowing me out as it did.
“That was cruel,” the Sheriff commented. His voice was distant, barely an echo in my ears. “But you did the right thing. You don’t want the Lowells as your enemy, son. It’s better if you just do your time and start over once you’re out. If you keep your head down, it should be a short enough sentence.”
Cruel. The last thing I ever wanted to be to Harley was cruel, and I’d been exactly that and then some. To take everything we had and destroy it like that was meaningless. It was exactly what Mrs. Lowell wanted me to do to him, but I hated it.I hated myself for it.
“I’d like to go back to holding now,” I whispered. Even my voice didn’t sound like my own.Fuck, what had I become?
“All right,” he said. Getting to my feet, I let him take me back to the holding cell. My body moved on autopilot, doing whatever needed to get by as everything inside me shifted and broke.
Kramer prattled on about the next steps. Words like arraignment, sentencing, and jail stuck out. They were words that were about to change my entire life, but I couldn’t care. There wasn’t anything left in me to care. That part of me had died with the end of the phone call.
By the time Kramer stopped, my chest burned and throbbed with the effort to keep it all in. The door clanged shut behind me with the kind of finality that was unforgiving and cold. It broke the last thread holding me together. My knees gave out, and I sank to the floor with a shuddering breath. I folded in on myself, my arms wrapping around my middle as if I could hold all the little pieces in.
Mav…
The pain in Harley’s voice as he said my name—how it cracked and rose an octave—would be forever etched in every corner of my mind. I’d done that. I’d hurt him that much. There was no erasing that. Ever.
