Page 91 of Vengeful Vows

His hot breaths fan my cheek and add to the whiskey scent making me nauseous.

That washisfavorite liquor to drown his sins with.

“I don’t want you here.”

He chugs down a three-finger serving of brown liquid from a glass he’s barely grasping before he stumbles to the bar. His clothes are as disheveled as his face, hanging limply like theyweren’t perfectly tailored for his body, and his shoulders are hanging as low as his head.

I picture a teen struggling to speak up when he whispers, “I don’t want your last memory of me to be this. I don’t want you to know the monster I can be.”

Horrid memories of similar words scream at me to leave, but when he fills his whiskey glass to the rim, my heart refuses to listen to a single plea.

He is hurting badly, and I care about him too much to pretend he isn’t.

“I think you’ve had enough,” I say, pulling the whiskey bottle out of his grasp and putting it back on the bar.

He laughs in my face. “I think you’re wrong.” He downs half the glass in one gulp before turning to face me, spilling numerous droplets on the way. “I’m not surprised. You don’t know a damn thing about me or the horrors I am capable of.”

“I know you’re hurting so you’re lashing out.” Hetsksme, so I talk faster. “Riley will understand, Ark. She?—”

“Hates me. The only part of my sister I have left fuckinghatesme.”

I shake my head, but he doesn’t see it.

“And I deserve it. I hid her away because all I saw when I looked at her washim. I made her self-respect nonexistent.” Shame and hurt fill his eyes. “I was the only male role model she had, and I fucked it up because I was more concerned about hiding my secrets than wondering what hers were.”

His anger firms so fast that he cracks his glass.

“Don’t,” he shouts when I instinctively respond to the droplet of blood rolling down his palm. “You can’t fix this.” My heart breaks when he murmurs, “You can’t fix me. It was stupid of me to ever believe you could.”

“I don’t want to fix you. I want you to let me in, to be honest with me. I want you to trust me and the process you need to face to move past this.”

“I tried!” he yells so loud that any residents sleeping no longer are. “I fucking tried and look where it got me. You’re scared of me.”

“No, I’m n-not.”

His voice is calm although he is anything but. “Then why did you stutter? Just now, why did you stutter?”

“Because… Because…” My heart knows the words I want to yell—because you’re not meant to fall in love on sight—but my mouth refuses to speak them.

Instead, I try to put the focus back on the cause of his mini meltdown. “I shouldn’t have pushed so hard. I’m sorry if it was too much too fast, but you need to remember that it’s okay to fall. As long as you get back up, falling is an option.”

“What if it isn’t? What if there is no possibility you can get back up?”

“You can get back up, Ark. You just have to fight.”

I fall into his trap, and I have no clue how to get out of it when he commences kicking in the dirt he dug out to ensure I fall. “What if I don’t want to fight anymore? What happens then? What if you’ve realized what you thought was worth fighting for isn’t actually worth anything?”

I pushed because I thought unshackling him from his demons would help him.

Instead, I pushed him away.

“I promised to tell you when it became too much.” My heart breaks when he looks straight into my eyes and says, “It’s too much.” There’s no one he hates more than himself right now, but he hides it well with another guzzle of whiskey. “I can’t do this, Mara. I can’t put you throughthis.” He bangs his chest during his last word.

My heart is frozen from the desolate look he hits me with, but it does little to weaken the pleas I toss his way when he flicks his bloodshot eyes to the side of the room and says, “Take her home, Raf.”

Rafael emerges from his hiding spot, his angst as palpable as mine. “I’m not sure you should be alone right now, Ark.”

“Take. Her. Home!” Ark repeats, his words as violent as the hate that roars from him when he says, “Or I’ll void the agreement we made today without a single iota of remorse.”

---