Page 63 of Penance

“I killed a man that night, that’s why I didn’t come back for you,” I whisper, and she sucks in a sharp breath.

I’m sure her reaction is not about me killing a man but rather this is the last thing she expected me to say right now.

“I fucked it up and it took longer than I anticipated to make it back to you,” I confess with a wince. “The night I came to you, I was supposed to be hunting Billy Cox.” I watch her face for reaction, her eyes flicker between mine as she remembers why that name’s familiar.

“He was one of mum’s dealers,” she whispers, and I nod.

“He was stealing, slicing a few grams off the top of his delivery. Taking profit that didn’t belong to him. Anyway, I joined that gang to make fast money, I wanted to get us away from there, Lala. I wanted to keep you safe, I should have known that was a fucking stupid idea. But I was desperate, I hated your fucking mum, she was sucking the life out of you, and I hated what she was doing to you, you were so fucking tired, like a walking fucking corpse. Bony and malnourished, bags under your eyes, your hair a mess. Everything was spiralling out of our control, and I was scared, I didn’t wanna lose you. Once I was a full-fledged member, I started earning a pretty penny, I shoved every quid away, every fucking one. Then I got a kill order, and you can’t say no in that gang, Lala. You know as well as I do, once you’re in, you’re in, there’s no getting out and no saying no to a task. I had to take out Billy, typical really, shoulda known everything always comes full fucking circle,” I run my hands through my hair and sigh.

“I stopped by your place, I wanted to see you. Have you calm my fucking nerves, like you always fucking did. Even when you were mad at me for cutting you out, distancing myself from you. Every time I came back you were there for me. But when I knocked, your house in darkness, I went and checked your normal hidey holes. I checked the petrol station’s roof, the old, abandoned gas works and then one of my boys said he’d seen you. That’s when I found you at the warehouses.”

I glance up at Lala, her eyes watching me. Studying me, taking in my movements, the look in my eyes, analysing my truth.

“I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t get back to you in time. I never should have left you. I should have just said fuck it all, grabbed you and run, we should have fucking run,” I growl.

She sighs heavily.

“You and I both know they would have come for us, Max,” she says gently. “We would have been dead before I was even seventeen,” she reasons as I scrub my hands over my face.

“I’m so fucking sorry, so, so,so, fucking, fucking, sorry,” I almost cry, tears prick the back of my eyes.

I feel like a fucking arsehole for explaining any of this, telling her at all, even trying to make her see,understand.

“Maxi,” she whispers.

Tearing me from my troubled thoughts, my head snapping up. My eyes squinting to see her properly in the darkened room. My heart pounds wildly in my chest, the beats uncontrolled and out of sync.

“I forgive you,” she tells me, so noiselessly it’s almost inaudible.

My mouth drops open, my brow wrinkling in confusion.

“I think I forgave you the second I saw you again, but I felt like by letting go of ten fucking years of anger,hatred,” I wince at that.“I was angry with myself for seeing you and letting my anger dissipate instantly as though it was never there to begin with,” she swallows. Her eyes coming up to meet mine, “maybe it never really was.”

God, I love this woman so fucking much.

“I love you, Max. I always have, I fear I always will,” she confesses, dropping her gaze.

Large droplets falling from those big, grey doe eyes. Splashing against her high cheekbones, rolling down her curved jaw.

So fucking beautiful.

“I’ve spent what feels like my whole life waiting to hear those words, Princess,” I rasp. “I have loved you your entire life, Rosie. I think I fell in love with you when you were two days old, thrust into my arms for a photograph. Even at three years old, I knew I held something precious. Little did I knowjusthow precious. I was holding the other half of my soul. You’ve owned me your whole life, even when we were apart, you still had me. Nothing and no one could ever come close to what you mean to me. I’ve been dead inside for a really long time, Lala. Seeing you again fractured something inside me. Carved my soul up into irreparable pieces, just so you could put me back together, but with parts of you this time. Because there really is no me without you.”

My voice thick with emotion, I cup her wet cheek. My thumb rolling through her salty tears, her dark lashes wet, they run down her face. She blinks up at me, her eyes glistening. She licks her lips, letting her eyes drop closed.

“We’re inevitable, Kyla-Rose, you and me. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have to work for you, earn your trust back. Show you,proveto you that I’m worth the risk, baby girl. I love you, Lala. I love you so hard it fucks me up. It makes me do and say stupid fucking shit because I don’t know how to be around you without you being mine. Please, Lala. Take the risk. Leap and I’ll fucking catch you.”

She blinks her eyes open, tears cascading down her face, splashing onto the white sheets beneath her cheek. My eyes connect with hers; filled with tears and hope. That’s all we ever had as fucking kids,hope,something thatwas foreign to us. Unfamiliar and scary as shit but we always had it, Lala and I.

Shewas hope for me.

My crumbling life, my bleak future, my broken heart.

All of it has led me here.

Back to her.

Before I can think too hard on it, before I open my goddamn mouth and say the wrong fucking thing and ruin everything. I move almost unconsciously.

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