Page 102 of When The Mountains Held Us

“Let her go. Let her go and we’ll walk out of here, no questions asked,” I say. I have no intention of letting this man get away with this, but at this point, I’m trying anything I can to get Oakley out of here safely. It’s the only thing that matters, even if it costs me my own life.

“What makes you think you have the right to take her from me? Who even are you?”

“Levi,” Oakley whimpers, her voice raw and shaking, and the sound alone breaks something in me, my heart cracking in two straight down the middle.

Travis’s eyes dart to her, and when he sees the way she’s looking at me, his eyes widen in comprehension. He takes a step towards me, raising the gun until it’s pointed right between my eyes. I don’t flinch, just regard him with cold disdain and barely contained fury. The moment he recognizes the beast gleaming in my eyes, his eyes widen, and my lips lift in a sneer.

“Are you fucking my wife?” he asks, and the way that last word drips with possessiveness has me wanting to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until the light leaves his eyes.

I don’t let the shock of hearing him call her his wife shake me or show through. Whatever’s going on here, I know Oakley has an explanation for it. Married or not, she is mine, and I’ll willingly walk through the gates of hell, into the arms of the devil himself, before I let him hurt her again.

“Travis, please,” Oakley pleads, and the sound of her begging him not to hurt me threatens to send me into a tailspin of wrath and carnage.

“Shut up, whore!” he shouts at her, spittle flying from his mouth as he turns his head to glare at her, and that word alone fractures and shatters my restraint.

My fist flies towards the man before I can take another breath. It connects with his face in a satisfying crunch, the sound music to my ears as the gun scatters across the floor. In my periphery, Justin dives to pick it up, but my focus is solely on the man on the floor in front of me. I loom over him, vengeance incarnate, before dropping my weight down on top of him. He grapples beneath me, trying to squirm his way free like the slimy worm he is, shouting curses while I glare down at him. One of his arms swings free, and I’m too late to stop it as it connects with my jaw, whipping my head to the side while pain blooms across my face, and my vision goes fuzzy.

Forty-Nine

Oakley

“Levi!” I scream, as the spray of blood that comes from his lips turns my stomach in a mixture of fear and rage.

I’m helpless to do anything but sit here and watch the men struggle with each other at my feet. The crack of another punch rings out in the apartment, followed by the muffled cry of Travis as he grips his face. Hot, red blood streams from his nose, and he falls back onto the ground, Levi once again gaining the upper hand. I watch in horror as his fist rears back again and again, connecting with Travis’s face until he’s utterly unrecognizable.

I should look away. I should turn my head away from the grisly sight of my ex, bloodied beneath the fists of my lover. But I don’t. I can’t. I’m drawn to the sight like a moth to a flame, unable to tear my gaze away even if I wanted to. Maybe a sick, twisted part of myself is relishing the sight of the man who used to beat me black and blue finally getting a taste of his own medicine. After all, it’s nothing he hasn’t done to me before, and nothing he doesn’t deserve now.

Justin rushes over to me, fumbling with a set of keys he must have found somewhere in the apartment. He unlocks my wrists first, and I moan at the sting of pain as the metal releases, bringing my hands to the front and rubbing over the red welts the cuffs left, before cradling my broken wrist against my chest. Then, he’s bending over and unlocking my ankles, and I instinctively tuck my legs beneath me on the couch, the unidentifiable stains long forgotten in my attempt to make myself as small as possible.

I watch in dazed fascination as Levi batters the limp man beneath him, his brows pulled down in a furious line, his lips twisted back from his teeth in a terrifying sneer. And yet, amid the violence, all I can see is the man I fell in love with, protecting what belongs to him.

There’s something beautiful in the way his fists fly, in the way they land against pulverized bone and torn skin, in the way they draw back, dripping with fresh blood, ready to repeat the process all over again. Yet still, I know that what I’m witnessing right now is the very thing that Levi’s been afraid of this whole time—becoming his father.

The circumstances are wholly different, worlds apart from what he witnessed as a child, but I can’t help but wonder what the aftermath will look like. Will he forgive himself? Or will he lose all trust in the man he thought he was? My thoughts are echoed in Justin’s wide, knowing eyes as he watches his best friend, and though I’d love nothing more than for Travis to finally get what he deserves, I know for the sake of the man I love, this has to end.

“Levi, stop.” I croak out. If he hears me, he doesn’t let on. I lick my lips and try again, gathering my false bravado and pouring it into my next attempt. “Levi, please.”

Again, he doesn’t hear me. I uncurl myself and stand from the couch, walking on tentative footsteps until I’m standing by Travis’s head and looking down at the scene below me. My eyes flit to my ex’s broken body, nausea climbing up my throat as I kneel and focus my gaze on Levi. His face is a torn mask of anguish, pain, fury, and something else I can’t name. Slowly, I reach out a hand towards him, careful to avoid his arm as it swings down again.

“Oakley, don’t,” Justin warns, but I shake my head, ignoring his warning.

Levi’s face is splattered with blood, the small dots standing stark against his sun-bronzed skin. Tears run in rivers down both cheeks, cutting little paths through the blood.

All at once, I don’t see the man I fell in love with, but, instead, the broken little boy who couldn’t protect his family from the tyranny of his father. I recognize not only the need for justice in his emerald eyes, but the overwhelming pain in them as well.

“Please, baby. You have to stop now. It’s over.” Gently, I rest my palm against his cheek, willing him to stop if only for a second to hear me. I won’t lose him to the darkness.

Fifty

Levi

“Please, baby… It’s over.”

Her voice is like tinkling windchimes cutting through the storm of my murderous rage; her touch is a warming comfort dragging me out of the shadows. My arm stills, chest heaving, as I lift my eyes to her, afraid of what I’ll see looking back at me, but not able to resist another moment of not knowing if she’s really there or if she’s a figment of my imagination.

The lines of reality and memory have blurred so spectacularly that I wouldn’t be surprised if I wake up any minute to the sound of Bandit’s footfalls on the stairs and the smell of coffee wafting up from the kitchen below. And yet, the feel of her trembling palm against my face anchors me and pulls me back. With that one touch, the beast recedes, overcome entirely by her presence and the need to have her in my arms.

Her eyes hold no judgment or fear like I expect, and I relax further under her touch. I know I’m crying, but I don’t care, and neither does she. She’s not afraid of my tears. There is nothing but love and recognition in her eyes as she pulls me back from the edge of darkness that she’s so desperate to save me from.