Fuck that.

Tears streamed from my eyes, my sob escaping my chest, loud and unforgiving. I stood quickly, my chair tipping behind me. “I have a sister?”

Nate looked up, caught my gaze, then looked back down and pretended he hadn’t seen me, hadn’t seen my hurt. My pain. My goddamn suffering. “Why won’t you look at me?” I yelled, my voice breaking. “Answer me, goddamn it!”

His body jerked like a fire had been lit, blazing from the inside out as he stood up. Two steps were all it all took for him to get to me, his whiskey breath kissing my lips as he towered over me. “Now?” he said. “Now you want me to give you answers?” His voice mocked as he wobbled on his feet and pointed to Tiny. “What’s wrong with him now?”

“Nate,” Tiny warned, standing and making his way over to us.

I pushed on Nate’s chest. “Tell me the truth!”

He squared his shoulders, his jaw clenched. “Don’t fuckin’ push it, Bailey.”

I shoved him again, glad that I was finally getting a reaction. It was so much better than being invisible. He’d cast me aside, but I was in his face now, and he couldn’t fucking ignore me anymore.

He gripped the bottle tighter, his eyes filled with rage. “I mean it.”

I don’t really know what happened next, and I have no idea why we were so intent on hurting each other, why we used the only people we loved, the only people we had, to keep the fires of hurt and despair burning, but we did.

Over and over.

Words flew from our mouths, their sole purpose to destroy until pain overpowered our voices and anger overpowered our pain. “If you wanted an out, you should have told me!” he yelled, pointing to himself. “Me! Not Tiny. He’s not the one who put a roof over your head, who feeds you and gives you all of this.” He threw his arms in the air, whiskey spilling on the floor, mixing with my tears and the footprints of my existence. His voice was rough, unrestrained, penetrating my eardrums with the unexpected volume. “He’s not the one who fuckin’ loves you, Bailey. I do.”

“You have to love me!” I shouted.

Silence pierced the air, and my hands dropped to my sides, my chest rising and falling, aching from the power of my admission.

Nate kept his eyes on mine as he took a step back, shaking his head as he did. “Fuck you, Bailey.”

“Nate!” Another warning from Tiny.

Nate’s eyes snapped to him. “And fuck you, too.” He looked between us. “Fuck you both!” The bottle of whiskey spun in the air when Nate threw it across the room, smashing against the wall, shattered pieces of glass, just like my heart, left discarded on the floor. He stepped toward me, but Tiny held him back, his arms pinned to his sides.

I shrunk into myself, my hands going around my stomach.

“Look at me, Bailey,” Nate said, his tone clipped.

I did.

I owed him that much.

“You want the truth? I didn’t want to love you. I still don’t want to love you. But I don’t have a goddamn choice, Bailey. It would be so much easier if I’d never fuckin’ met you. If I’d never heard the gunshot and run toward the sound. I wouldn’t have to be looking over my shoulder every fuckin’ second of every day, hoping they don’t fuckin’ find you. I wouldn’t have to worry about you, wondering if you’re okay physically, mentally, all of it. But it’s been months. Months. You don’t think I see that you’ve checked out? That you don’t want to be here? That you don’t want me? I’m fuckin’ here because I love you. And it’s so pathetic—you standing there begging me for the truth when you can’t even look me in the eye and tell me one yourself. You want my truths? There it is. Now you owe me yours.” He paused a beat; his shoulders slumped as Tiny held on to him. His eyes were bloodshot, his breaths shallow, his words a prayer when he said, “Tell me you don’t love me.”

My breath caught in my chest, my eyes holding his. Tears flooded my vision as I gripped the gold leaf tighter in my hand. A thousand thoughts raced through my mind, but I could only focus on one. I couldn’t give him the truth he wanted to hear. It didn’t exist.

“Ti amo, Nathaniel,” I whispered, my hand going to my chest. I made sure to look in his eyes, so he could see the truth I was about to spill. “But I wish you’d pulled the trigger.”

*

The pain was almost instant, just like it had been when my mother left. The second Nate was far enough away, the tension of the elastic band that held us together snapped, and I’d felt the searing ache like a thousand stab wounds to my heart.

I watched Tiny come back down the stairs, food in one hand, envelope in the other. He didn’t speak a word as he set them both down on the table.

I looked back down at the floor. “Is he okay?” I asked, my voice hoarse from all the tears the guilt had forced out of me.

“Everything you need to know is in there,” he said, and I glanced up at him. He was already watching me, his head tilted to the side. Then he sighed, walked over and sat next to me on the edge of the bed, nudging my side as soon as he was settled. “Can we talk?”

I focused on the gold leaf in my hand. “Of course.”

Tiny leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he rubbed his jaw. “I’m not going to lie to you, Bailey. And please don’t take this the wrong way because I have nothing against you personally, but I support you being here only because I support Nate… as a boss, as a person, and as my best friend. When you asked me to find your mom, a part of me was hopeful I’d find something that might help the situation… that might help get you out of here, and help Nate separate himself from you. You have to be fuckin’ blind to not see how much he loves you, and I’m not saying that you don’t love him because you probably do, but it’s not healthy. Not for either of you.” He took a breath, and then a moment to formulate his next words. “But in this situation, my loyalty doesn’t lie with you. It lies with him. It will always lie with him. Nothing good can come of this. You have to be able to see that. Nate’s life may be his job, for now, but it won’t be forever. He’ll want a family. He’ll want kids. And there’s no way that can happen. Not with you. Not like this.” He cleared his throat as he stood up and turned away from me. “If you ask him to, he’ll risk his life to let you go because he loves you that fuckin’ much. But if he lets you go, Bailey, you’ll take his heart with you.”

37

Bailey

It didn’t matter how long I’d stared at the pages upon pages of information, how many times I read the lines now blurred by my fatigue. It didn’t matter how many tears I’d cried or murmurs of denials I’d whispered into the dead air… I’d wanted the truth, and I’d gotten it.

And now I wished I hadn’t.

I rubbed my eyes and wiped my nose, sitting up straighter when I heard the basement door open. I’d listened to the sounds of footsteps so many times that I could tell it was Nate. He appeared at the bottom of the stairs with our standard breakfasts in his hands.

Was it morning already?

I looked down at the papers spread out on the table, my heart growing heavier with each picture, each piece of evidence, and I held back on another set of cries.