Page 31 of Blinded By Forever
“Hayden?” she whispers my name, soft and filled with desperation. Her hand cups my face, trembling slightly. “Hayden, look at me. You’re awake.”
I blink, the light above me makes my head throb but I force my eyes open.
“The lights,” I mumble.
Her touch disappears, the light turns off before she returns and her hands are on my face again.
Jaclyn’s hovering over me, her hair pulled into a low messy ponytail. Her eyes are glassy with unshed tears and her lips parted like she doesn’t know whether to speak, cry, or kiss me.
I did it for her.
My hand found hers and I squeezed tightly. “You yelling at Killian again, princess?”
Her breath hitches and then she laughs. It’s watery and full of disbelief.
“Oh my God.” She leans forward and kisses my forehead and then my cheeks.
Her lips hover over my mouth like she doesn’t want to hurt me. “Kiss me,” I practically beg.
She smiles before leaning down and kissing me. I swear that kiss makes me instantly feel at peace and better.
It was a soft and desperate kiss, like she couldn’t believe I was alive and here.
My forehead rests against hers when we finally pull apart, barely breathing, still burning. “I thought I was going to lose you,” her voice cracks. “I didn’t know if I’d get a phone call, funeral notice, or a closed casket. You can’t do this to me, not again.”
I swallow hard and my throat feels like it is coated in sandpaper but I force out, “I didn’t want to leave.”
“But you did leave. And look where it got you.” Her hands move over mine, like she is grounding herself, like she needs tofeel me to believe I’m real. “You don’t get to just disappear into this mafia bullshit and hope I’ll be waiting when you come home bleeding.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Bullshit,” she snaps. “Don’t give me that line. Protection doesn’t mean shutting me out or risking your life and bleeding all over an abandoned apartment floor.”
I close my eyes briefly. I hate that she is right, that this entire spiral started because I thought I could handle both worlds again.
I thought that the rush and my loyalty would be enough but I learned the hard way that the only thing that matters to me is Jaclyn and my life with her.
I can’t throw it all away just because of one rush.
“I thought if I just finished this one job...”
She stands and backs a few steps away from the bed. “There is always one last job, Hayden. There is always some threat or mission or ‘I owe him’ and I’m done competing with that. You’re not just mine anymore, you’re our kids’. You’re River’s hero. Her dad, that is supposed to always be there to protect her and her mom from the nightmares and the monsters.” Her voice cracks as she tears up. “You’re Easton’s whole world. The person he looks up to. And Junior, he is basically a mini you. Why do you think I named Junior after you? You’re literally his idol, Hayden. What am I supposed to tell them when you don’t come home?”
The room goes quiet.
She sniffles and wipes her cheeks. “I can’t do this again. I won’t. So either you leave that life behind or I walk away like I did all those years ago. I don’t want to, God, I don’t want to but I will if I have to.”
My chest aches worse than the bullet wound.
“Then I’m done,” I say quietly. “I mean it, no more. No more side jobs, no more Killian, no more bullshit. Just you and the kids. That’s it.”
Jaclyn blinks. “You mean it?’
“I’m looking at the only thing that matters right now. And it’s not some loyalty to an empire I didn’t ask to build, it’s you.”
She steps forward, her fingers brushing my jaw. I lean into the touch, even though the movement sends a jolt of pain through my abdomen.
“You scared the hell out of me, Hayden.”
