Page 20 of While She Sleeps

I knew I was a goner for this girl, but the way she has me ready to throw everything I’ve worked my entire life for out the window just so I can hold her startles me.

Her bloodshot eyes flick up to the dark corner, but the move only makes a rough sob crack from her chest.

I press my eyes closed, desperately trying and failing to grasp hold of any control left in my body, but somehow, without even trying, she’s torn through it all.

“Little Flame.” The words I’ve kept just for myself slip from my lips, and her body stills. As if the idea that I’ve given her a pet name is so shocking. “Come here.”

She hesitates for long seconds that feel like hours. She has no reason to follow my instructions, no reason to trust me with her tears, but there’s a flicker of interest beside the utter despair filling her blue eyes.

Slowly, she pushes herself out of her chair and takes cautious steps into the darkness I call home. As soon as she’s within arm’s reach, I pull her onto my lap and wrap my arms around her. Something deep inside me clicks into place at having her where she’s always belonged, but I force down the voice that demands I claim her right this second, even though it’s screaming at me.

I brush my fingers down her arm while my other hand slides into the hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her head gently into my chest.

She feels light in my lap, almost too light, but I force the thought to the back of my mind. We’re not at a point where I can insist she eat more, nor is that going to help how devastated she looks right now.

A rough sob tears from her chest as she burrows into my chest, seeking out the warmth and comfort she likely hasn’t felt since her brother died, and maybe even then.

The thought of the man has anger bubbling in my gut, but I shove it down. She idolized him the way any little sister does her big brother, but Travis Roberts never deserved an ounce of it.

“What’s going on, Ember?” I murmur against her hair, shamelessly breathing in her wild berry scent. It’s fucking intoxicating.

She sucks in a desperate breath, her tears soaking through my button down. I’ve imagined a hundred different ways I would make her cry in the bedroom, but this is different. This is true despair, and I can’t handle it.

“It’s my brother’s birthday.” She chokes out the words, and everything clicks into place. She’s suffering because she misses the only person she’s ever allowed herself to lean on. “He died almost a year ago, so it’s my first without him, and I asked Lucas to change nights to see you, but he forced me to come in.”

I press my eyes closed and force a calming breath into my lungs. She doesn’t need my anger right now, even if Lucas is going to feel every bit of my wrath once I can settle my girl. “I’m sorry for your loss, Little Flame.”

Her body melts into mine at the sound of her nickname, and a smile tugs at the corners of my lips. I did that. The man who has always struggled to bring comfort to others. The ruthless criminal who built his empire with a trail of blood and bodies a mile long. The man who hasn’t allowed himself to feel a single thing for decades.

“I miss him so much, you know?” She sobs. “He’s all I had. All I’ve ever had, and now he’s just gone. I keep telling myself it’s going to get better, but it never does. It only seems to get worse.”

I tighten my arms around her and swallow past the lump in my throat. It’s not lost on me I’m the reason for this pain, evenif she doesn’t realize it yet, and something I’m not familiar with settles in my gut.

Guilt.

I’ve never felt guilty about a single thing I’ve done to get myself where I am now.

Not killing people.

Not tearing families apart.

Not even when the drugs I bring into the country inevitably kill people.

I’m not a good person.

I’m not a good man.

But the woman in my arms makes me desperate to be good for her.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EMBER

Ican’t remember the last time someone held me like this.

Has anyone?

Although I loved my brother with every beat of my heart, we were never affectionate siblings. Sure, we hugged if we weren’t going to see each other for a while, and when I was little, he would comfort me when I was upset. But I never felt as safe as I do right now.

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