Fight for You: A Second Chance Romance (A Warrior for Her Book 1)

by Ayden K. Morgen

  "I feel like I'm dying. Every day, it hurts even worse and all you care about is you. You said you'd always protect me, but you didn't. You're a liar," she says, whispering this time. Her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip. "I can't trust you anymore. I can't count on you."

  "January, that's not–"

  "I can't be with you anymore." Tears pool in her eyes. For the first time in days, she's crying. Only she's not crying for the brother she lost or her mom. She's crying over me. "You need to leave."

  "January, baby girl, please don't do this," I plead even though I don't have that right. Even though I see the resolve stamped across each delicate feature of her face. I destroyed her world, and now she's cutting me off before I can take anything else from her.

  "I don't ever want to see you again." She pulls my ring from her finger and holds it out to me. "It's over, Cade."

  Those three words—It's over, Cade—tear through me, ripping me apart from the inside out. Hearing them is like finding Titan and Jana on the sidewalk all over again. It hurts every-goddamn-where.

  "Take it."

  I shake my head, shoving my hands into my pockets. I'm not taking that ring back. It's hers even if she doesn't want it anymore. Even if she doesn't want me anymore. I've taken enough from her. I won't take this too. I won't make her beg me to leave. After everything, I owe her the chance to end this with whatever composure she's got left.

  "I'm sorry," I whisper, choking on the words as I back toward the door, determined to give her what she's asked for and leave. "I'm so fucking sorry, January."

  She stares at me, not speaking.

  I step outside, every cell in my body screaming at me to march back in there and fight for her. But I can't, because then she really will hate me…and I can't live with that.

  I'm a fucking coward, but at least this way, she never has to know how badly I fucked up.

  Somehow, I stumble away from her house. I don't go home though. I just stagger down the street and then I keep going. Day turns to night and then to day again. I keep moving until I'm lost. But I don't go home. I don't go anywhere. I just wander around, completely fucking lost. Each breath I take burns like acid. Her words lash at me like a whip across my back, driving me onward. The accusation and sorrow in her eyes taunt me until I'm practically running across the city, trying to outpace the memory of them.

  Somewhere around day three, I finally manage to shove the brutal memories down into a little ball and think through the pain. I start focusing on what happens next. On where I go from here.

  The answer leads me back toward home.

  I stop at a corner store and pick up what I need before I bypass our block and keep walking.

  When night falls, I creep in through Kaleo's window. His house is a wreck. He should be ashamed to be a grown-ass man living like a fucking pig. I kick my way through the mess of shit in his floor, turning his bedroom upside down in search of what I need. Everything in his closet and drawers ends up in the floor along with the trash and dirty clothes. I finally find what I want hidden in a loose panel behind his dresser.

  The gun is an unfamiliar weight in my gloved hands. It's loaded. I make sure there's one in the chamber too. Once I'm sure I know how to handle the weapon, I shove a pile of clothes and food wrappers off a chair in the corner and sit down to wait.

  I don't know how long I sit there, staring at nothing, but eventually Kaleo appears.

  "Surprise, motherfucker," I growl, grabbing him around the throat and putting the gun to his head as soon as he steps into his bedroom.

  His body goes limp as I press the muzzle of the gun to his temple. A pathetic whimper leaves his lips. I'm pretty sure he actually pisses himself. At least I'm guessing that's what just dribbled onto my shoe, but I don't care enough to confirm that suspicion.

  "Kincaid," he mewls like the little bitch he is. "I didn't know, man." It's the same shit he said the day Tony attacked January. Ignorance is always his excuse.

  He won't be using it anymore.

  I pull back the hammer on the gun, grunting when he cries out in fear. I don't feel satisfaction. I don't feel relief. I don't fucking feel anything. I haven't since January told me that she was done with me. Every person I ever cared about is gone, and the motherfucker in front of me is responsible for part of that, but I feel nothing.

  It's almost a relief.

  "I know who killed them!" he yelps.

  I hesitate for a second.

  "You let me live, I'll tell you," he says, tripping over the words in his haste to get them out. "I'll stay off your block. I'll leave you and January alone. Don't kill me, Kincaid. Please."

  "Who?"

  "Omar Adams, Deshawn Cortez, and Jermaine Adcock," he says. "They're Southside Crips. Enforcers."

  "Where are they?"

  He rattles off an address.

  "You sure?"

  "It's Jermaine Adcock's house. They hang out there."

  I nod and press the gun to his temple again.

  "Kincaid! Please, man!"

  The enraged, wounded part of me whispers that I should pull the trigger and blow his fucking head off. He deserves it. After all the evil he's perpetrated, he deserves to die with piss in his shorts and tears in his eyes. But I can't do it. Because I don't know who will take his place if I do.

  Kaleo is beaten, whimpering and pleading for his life. He acts so hard, so big and bad, but he's just a pathetic little boy, hiding behind people like they're human shields. He's a piece of shit…but he's a piece of shit I now know how to control.

  "I know about the guns and the drugs. I know you're pimping out girls. Imogen Ballantine and Cheyenne Trundle are sixteen years old."

  "I don't know Imogen or Cheyenne," he lies.

  "Bullshit. Titan collected all kinds of info on you, Kaleo. I know all your dirty deeds." I dig through my pocket with my free hand and pull out my phone. Scrolling quickly through the videos, I load up one of Kaleo and Dante that Titan took a few months ago. All the evidence he collected was in his bedroom, exactly like he said. There's enough there to send Kaleo to prison for a long time.

  "Cheyenne's fifteen, Kaleo," Dante says in the video, his voice full of hesitation.

  "I don't give a fuck how old she is, D," Kaleo laughs. "That's prime pussy. Tell her she can work off her debt on her back. She's a whore anyway. Might as well use it to my advantage."

  "Fuck," he whispers as the video plays.

  "You're a sick motherfucker," I growl, stopping the video. "Pimping out teenage girls?"

  "I can explain," he says like there's some reasonable excuse for the things he's done. We both know there isn't though. The only explanation he has is greed. He thought he was untouchable. That he could do whatever he wanted because he had his hands around Titan's throat. He thought I wouldn't come for him so long as he had Titan on a leash, that no one would, but he never counted on Titan being the one to ruin him. He was too fucking stupid to think that far ahead.

  "Please, Kincaid. I'll do whatever you want. Please don't kill me."

  "The block belongs to January now," I tell him, holding the gun steady against his temple. Either he agrees, or he'll be my first murder tonight. "You don't set foot on it. You don't go anywhere near her. If your people even step a toe onto her block, I'll come for you."

  "Okay," he agrees, practically sobbing the word. "Okay, man."

  "The pimping ends right now. I find out you're even thinking about putting your hands on another girl, I'll fucking kill you."

  "Even the older–?"

  I crack him in the back of the head with the gun, driving it down hard against his skull.

  He cries out and falls forward, his face slamming into the edge of his dresser. Before he can hit the floor, I yank him up and throw him into the wall, shoving the gun in his face.

  "What the fuck did I just say?" I roar at him.

  "No girls. Okay, Kincaid. Okay." He holds his hands up, babbling and crying. Blood smears across the wall from the gash on the back o
f his head. There's another cut above his eyebrow where he hit the dresser. "I'll cut them all loose, I promise."

  I keep the gun pressed to his cheek for a long moment, just watching him cower and cry. He's pathetic. All that talk about how he's the baddest motherfucker out here, but he's begging for his life like the cockroach he is.

  "Give me a reason to kill you, Kaleo. Just one, and I'll be on you so fast you won't even see me coming."

  "The block is January's. I'll let the girls go. We're cool, Kincaid. We're cool, man."

  I nod, satisfied he'll keep his word. He's too fucking terrified to try to wiggle out of this. He knows that video alone is enough to destroy him. And I think he knows I'll kill him without hesitation or remorse. I'm done playing defense, trying to keep people like Kaleo from taking what doesn't belong to them.

  I'm making the rules now. If he breaks them, I'll kill him. It's as simple as that.

  Getting into Jermaine Adcock's house is as easy as getting into Kaleo's was. Seems guys like them are all the same. They think they're tough, that no one will step to them. That no one would dare come after them inside their own homes. They're wrong.

  I find the first of the three, Omar Adams, passed out on the couch with a bottle of Hennessey knocked over beside him. I kick his boot to wake him up. He doesn't get to die in his sleep. They didn't give Titan and Jana any mercy. I won't give him any either.

  "What the fuck?" he asks, jarring awake. "Who the fuck are you?"

  "Kincaid."

  The confusion in his eyes is laughable.

  "You killed Titan James," I say.

  Recognition flares in his gaze as soon as I say Titan's name. Kaleo wasn't lying. This motherfucker killed Titan.

  "He was going to pay you," I say and pull the trigger on the gun I stole from Kaleo. The shot is loud, echoing in my ears. There's nothing satisfying about it. I still feel nothing.

  Omar's brain splatters all over the arm of the couch. He dies with his mouth hanging open and his hand on the back of the sofa where he was trying to push himself up into a sitting position.

  I'm moving again in an instant, making my way carefully through the house. I find Jermaine in a bedroom, bare-ass naked with a line of cocaine still on the fucking mirror beside him. If he heard the shot that killed his friend, I don't think it registered in his cocaine-addled brain because he's still rolling up a dollar bill.

  He jumps to his feet when I step into the room, but he's too full of blow to comprehend what's happening.

  "You remember Titan James?" I ask him.

  Like an idiot, he nods. That's all the confirmation I need.

  "This is for him," I say and pull the trigger, pumping two bullets into his chest. He crashes backward, collapsing onto the bedside table. The mirror tumbles off the side of the bed, white powder sifting to the floor.

  Deshawn's harder to kill. He hears me coming and starts firing through the bathroom door. I crouch down and wait for him to empty the magazine. As soon as he stops firing, I kick the door open. He's trying to jump out the window, his pants around his ankles where he tried to get them on in a hurry and failed.

  "I'm gonna kill you, motherfucker!" he yells when he spots me.

  "Like you killed Titan James?" I ask.

  "Fuck you!" He reaches for his gun.

  I don't know if it's the same one he just unloaded or not, but I'm not willing to take the chance. They've already given me everything I need to know Kaleo didn't lie to me about who killed Titan and Jana. I fire twice in rapid succession. One shot goes wide, slamming into the wall. The other hits Deshawn in the side where's he's turned halfway toward me and halfway toward the window, torn between staying to fight and fleeing for his life.

  "Fuck Titan's bitch ass and his mama!" he yells loudly and tries to haul himself the rest of the way through the window.

  I pull the trigger again and then again. I don't stop firing until I've unloaded the gun in him. He slumps over, his upper body halfway out the window while his lower body is still in the bathroom. He doesn't move.

  Satisfied none of them will ever be a problem for anyone again, I shove Kaleo's gun into my pocket and hurry from the house. People are hollering out front, asking what's going on. I jog through the backyard, keeping to the shadows as I strip the gloves off my hands and yank the beanie off my head.

  By the time I hear sirens in the distance, I'm three streets away, headed toward Kaleo's territory. If anyone sees me, I'm banking on them thinking I'm one of his. If they don't buy it and I get busted…well, at least there are three less murderers running loose.

  That's the best I can do for January. I couldn't save Titan. I couldn't protect her. She'll probably never even know that the men responsible for destroying her life are gone. There's no justice here. There's no peace in knowing they're dead. But their deaths are all I have to give her.

  Maybe, someday, it'll be enough for her.

  Maybe, someday, it'll be enough for me too.

  Chapter Nineteen

  January

  Present Day

  The front door closes behind Cade with a soft click. His words echo in my ears, playing over and over in distorted patterns that leave me shaking and gasping for breath that just won't come. My stomach roils and pitches.

  I clamp my hand over my mouth and stumble blindly toward the bathroom. My knees hit the tile floor and I cling to the porcelain bowl, vomiting up everything I've eaten today. It all tastes like stomach bile and ashes.

  Cade. God, Cade.

  "No," I whimper, choking and gagging as the walls I erected years ago to keep myself alive come tumbling down. Memories tear through me, each hitting with the force of a bomb blast. They hurt. Oh God, they hurt.

  Cade's big body engulfs mine, keeping me safe from something I can't even comprehend as shot after shot explodes outside. I know something is wrong. I can feel it in my bones, but I don't understand. My mind refuses to let me put it all together.

  He jumps to his feet and glass falls all around him. The sheer terror on his face has my breath stalling in my lungs. He barks at me to stay inside and then runs out the front door as a vehicle peels away at a high rate of speed.

  I stumble to my feet and follow behind him, scared and confused. I don't understand what's happening.

  I turn toward my house, looking for Cade. My mind lurches, trying to make sense of what I'm seeing.

  Titan's lying on the ground beside my mom, surrounded by garbage and pink wrapping paper. Neither of them is moving.

  A whimper climbs up my throat when I see the blood pooling around Titan's big body.

  I didn't understand what I was seeing until I heard Cade screaming. He sounded like someone was burning him alive as he yelled the word no over and over, begging for someone to help him. Not even as I stood there, staring at my mom and Titan on the ground, did I believe my world had just ended. Not until Cade fell to his knees beside Titan and I saw the blood all over his hands did the magnitude of the situation hit me.

  My mom and Titan were dead, shot to death for reasons I'm only now coming to understand.

  Cade told me he had so much blood on his hands that he'd never wash clean. Maybe I should have believed him when he said it. But I didn't.

  I still don't believe it, because what happened to my mom and Titan isn't his fault. It's mine.

  That's the painful truth I've been trying so desperately to bury for the last ten years. That's the painful voice in the dark that taunts me…the one I'm so afraid of that I've never even let myself think about that night. That's my secret.

  It was my fault.

  I knew something was wrong—seriously wrong with Titan—but I didn't want to face it, so I just pretended it wasn't happening. I pretended I didn't notice when he suddenly started bringing in more money, or when he'd be gone all night and then sleep all day. I pretended not to hear the whispers from my classmates about him when they thought I wasn't listening. I pretended not to see the text messages or hear the phone calls that constantly pu
lled him away when he did bother to come around for any length of time.

  I ignored every sign, even when they were staring me right in the face…because I didn't want to accept the truth. I was so mad at Titan, so disappointed he was pushing me away that I watched him drown and never even tried to throw him a life-preserver. I just stood there and let it happen.

  Cade thinks I pushed him away because I blamed him.

  I pushed him away because I felt so damn guilty that I couldn't look at him without feeling like I was going to break into pieces. When I told him to leave, I wanted him to fight me. I wanted him to save me from the darkness clinging to my soul, the pain that threatened to annihilate me with every breath I took. I, desperately, wanted him to fix it for me. Instead, I pushed him out the door.

  Knowing the extent of what he's been suffering through alone kills me. He blames himself because I told him it was his fault. All he ever tried to do was protect me and keep together the only family he had left.

  He's been punishing himself for the last decade, holding onto guilt that doesn't belong to him—guilt I forced on him—so I wouldn't ever have to know the truth. He lived a lie for years so I never had to know that the real monster in the dark…is me.

  It's always been me.

  "Mama! Titan!" I wail as the dam breaks wide open and all the pain I've been so desperately trying to ignore slams into me. I pitch forward, striking my head on the edge of the sink.

  When the world starts to go black, I'm still conscious enough to hope it's forever.

  I wake up in the bathroom floor with my head pounding. Blood rushes in my ears, playing counterpoint to the roar of recriminations and accusations I can't seem to escape. Images of Titan, my mom, and Cade assail me, tearing me apart over and over. Even breathing hurts as their images twist up with my own guilt until memories of them scream that I'm the reason for all this pain.

  Blood pours from the bullet wounds in Titan's chest and streaks his spiky black hair. He points a finger at me, mouthing that he hates me. That he should be alive and happy.