Pieces of Us: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel

by Jackson, A. L.

I blinked at him, tryin’ to make sense of this. “What . . .” My tongue darted out to wet my dry lips. “Tell me what she was doin’ there.”

  His thick throat bobbed as he swallowed, and a blister of guilt moved across his skin. “I thought she was what I deserved, Izzy. A reminder of why I could never be with you. A reminder of why I had to let you go. And fuck . . .”

  His upper body angled for me, as if he wanted to reach me, but his feet remained planted on the floor. He pressed his fingertips over his heart. “I wish I could take it back. Every horrible choice I made. But I can’t, Izzy. I can’t take back anything. But you have to know, the second I touched you, I never touched her again. I wouldn’t.” Remorse trembled through him. “I couldn’t.”

  “Why, Maxon? Why did you choose her?” My biggest insecurities came flooding out. The feeling of not bein’ enough breaking free.

  Agony carved every inch of that gorgeous face. My heart clattered against my ribs.

  “I couldn’t stay with you then, Izzy. Couldn’t drag you into the mess I was in. I thought . . . I thought I would end up in prison, too. And even if I didn’t, I wasn’t a good guy. I never would have asked you to live that life. I shouldn’t have brought you back into this disaster now. Seems my heart doesn’t know how to resist you. How to stop loving you.”

  His head slowly shook, and I felt the confession before he spoke it. “And yes, I was with her for those years you were away. Not because I wanted her, Izzy, but because she was what I thought I deserved. She was a representation of my shame. She was a penalty for not getting to spend my life with you.”

  Tears blurred my eyes. “You saved us. Saved us. How could you ever think you weren’t enough? You were everything.”

  The plea broke on the sob that worked free of my throat.

  He erased the space that separated us. A storm surge. A tsunami. The impact of him had always been devastating and whole.

  He reached out and gripped me by the face with those big hands.

  “I was responsible for it in the first place. I was the reason you needed saving.”

  “No, Maxon, you weren’t. Just because he was your father doesn’t make you responsible for his actions. It was on him. It was always on him, and I will hate him until my dying breath for stealing you away from me.”

  My head shook as it all began to make sense. To come together.

  “You loved me the whole time, didn’t you?”

  Guttural pain pinched his face. “Of course, I loved you.”

  Blue eyes churned with misery. A toiling sea of regret and love. “From the first time I met you, I promised I would be there to protect you. And that’s what I had to do in order to do it.”

  Hurt squeezed my ribs. “That’s not what I ever asked of you.”

  A frown creased the corners of his eyes. “I would have done anything for you, Little Bird. You knew that.”

  “Anything but stay with me,” I whispered, coming to the full truth of the matter.

  I guessed that made me angry, too.

  “And what . . . are you just gonna walk away from me now because you think you’re not good enough? Go back to her? Because that woman thinks you belong to her in some sick way?” I challenged, giving this man my whole heart.

  “Convince yourself that your life is too dangerous? When are you gonna stop punishin’ yourself? When are you gonna see you are worth it, too?”

  Guilt streaked across his face, flickers of that old disbelief. The lie that he wasn’t good enough.

  He squeezed my face tighter. “I’m trying to be, Izzy. Fuck, I’m trying. But I don’t know how I’m going to fix this. End it. But I can’t allow for you or the boys to be in danger. I can’t, Izzy. I can’t risk you.”

  I wrapped my hand around one of his wrists, tears soaking my face. “I won’t pretend like what you do isn’t dangerous. That this threat isn’t real. I was terrified last night. So scared. But do you know what I was scared most about?”

  A blanket of tears ran sticky on my cheeks, my sight blurred by this crater I could feel splintering through the middle of us.

  “I was scared that I might have lost you. That’s the real risk.” I gathered up his hand, splaying out his palm, pressed it at the thunder battering my chest. “Of losing this. Of losing us.”

  “What if the boys lost you because of me?” Grief cracked on his words.

  My lips trembled, and I shook my head. “That’s not gonna happen. You will always find a way to protect me. You always have. You have always heard me callin’, even when you were out of earshot.”

  He dropped his forehead to mine and rasped out an anguished breath. “I want to be that guy. I do, Izzy. I’m not sure I know how to be.”

  He straightened, and panic roared through my nerves. Wild and uncontained. I grappled to get his hand back into my hold. “Don’t you dare leave me, Maxon Chambers.”

  One of the boys started moving around in the next room, waking with the day, most likely Dillon with his endless energy.

  Maxon stiffened, as if he had no idea where he was supposed to go. If he should stay or if he should leave.

  “I’m going to fix this. Whatever it takes, I promise you, you and your boys will be safe.”

  He started for the window, and that panic screamed.

  I moved for him, wanting to reach for him, grab him, beg him not to go.

  He was halfway out when I whispered the words, “Your love isn’t selfish, Maxon. Lovin’ someone isn’t selfish. The most selfish thing you can do is live for your fear. To live for your past. Live for us, instead. Love for us. Give your courage to us. That is all you have to do.”

  “Mom?” Dillon called, and Maxon gazed at me through the window.

  He sent me the saddest smile before he was gone.

  Thirty-Two

  Mack

  Seventeen Years Old

  “I’m out.”

  Mack watched the words penetrate his father where he was leaned over a car he was parting out. His spine stiffened, and he slowly swiveled around to face him.

  He might as well have stayed with his back to him. Wasn’t like Mack couldn’t feel the hostility vibrating through the monster, anyway.

  Clarissa’s father, Kiel, grunted his disgust from the other side of the car.

  Mack didn’t give a shit what either of them thought. He just let his hatred blaze back.

  His father’s blue eyes flashed disgust as he took a step toward him. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me. I’m out. I’m not doing this anymore, and I sure as fuck am not dragging my friends into it.”

  Things had gone south for Ian and his brother Jace. The two of them had gotten into a fucked-up tangle of greed and pride with their piece-of-trash-mother’s boyfriend. Jace had taken the fall. Mack knew it. Knew it all the way to his core. He wasn’t going to let Ian get embroiled in the middle of something just as corrupt.

  Desperation equaled destruction.

  Mack knew that now. Too well. And he was ready to stand for something. Something better.

  His father cracked a malignant grin. “What, you think you’re better than this? You think you’re different than me?” His tone was mocking when he asked it.

  Anger constricted Mack’s chest, and he lifted his chin. Maybe he did. Izzy promised night after night that he was. When he’d lie tangled up in her arms and legs, bare flesh against bare flesh, she’d whisper that he was better than the trash he’d been bred to be. That he was better than following in his father’s debased footsteps.

  That he had something so much better then a wicked, worthless heart.

  He wondered if his father saw every thought play out in Mack’s mind because that grin turned into a sneer. “That little bitch has been after you again, hasn’t she?”

  A cyclone of resentment twisted through Mack.

  All the beatings.

  All the words.

  The loss of his mama.

  The agony. The grief. The hatred.

  Through
all of that, Izzy had been the one good thing that remained.

  Mack took a violent step forward. “You don’t get to talk about her like that.”

  Kiel growled, asshole pushing up to his feet, wifebeater stained and his teeth yellow and a big-ass wrench in his hand.

  He was nothing but a bad joke.

  A cliché.

  Just like Mack’s father.

  His father who was chuckling a cruel, dark sound. “And what do you have to say about it?”

  “I’m saying I’m done with this life. With you. As soon as I graduate next month, I’m leaving with her.”

  With a shake of his head, his father scrubbed a greasy hand over his face and smiled.

  Mack didn’t make the mistake of thinking he might be offering him his congratulations.

  A second later, his father was pressed up in his face, two of them chest to chest, aggression sparking between them.

  “Warned you a long time ago about them, Mack. Told you to stay away. They’ve messed with my life enough. You let her fuck with your mind? I’m gonna fuck with her body. See how she likes that.”

  “You touch her, and I will kill you. You won’t see the next day. I promise you.”

  Smugness held fast to his father’s expression. “You are who I say you are. You do what I tell you to do. You sit pretty, shut your fuckin’ mouth, and do your job. Or else it’s gonna be you who ends up in the ground. Got me?”

  * * *

  Mack climbed out of his car. Late afternoon light glimmered through the lush leaves, the only beautiful thing about this place. He looked around when he sensed that something felt . . . off.

  Like the peace he was breathing was artificial.

  An undercurrent of upheaval riding on the atmosphere.

  A knot climbed his throat, and he was struck with the same rage and revulsion that took him over every time he stepped foot on his father’s land.

  Though today, it was intensified.

  Following that unsettled sensation, he ducked into the house.

  Empty.

  He ducked right back out and strode over to the shed. He yanked the sliding door and pulled it open, metal track and wheels grinding their protest.

  His eyes scanned the interior of the squalid shack, hatred spilling from him as he stepped inside.

  Clarissa was on a stool in the corner where she always sat, texting someone on her phone. Her attention immediately snapped to him, her dark eyes flashing with something he didn’t want to read.

  He ignored her the way he always did. Refusing to give into her ploys to get him back. Like she could ever come close to comparing to his Little Bird.

  Kiel was in a Mustang, removing the stereo system. Just another day on the job.

  “Where’s my father?” Mack grated.

  Kiel edged out, and he looked at Mack from over his shoulder. A grimy smile stretched across his mouth. “Takin’ care of something he should have taken care of a long time ago.”

  Unease shivered through Mack’s being.

  “Yeah? And what might that be?” Mack said, voice twisting in a low threat.

  He hated this prick just about as much as he hated his father.

  Kiel’s expression hardened. “Don’t worry about it, boy. Get your ass over here and get to work, way you shoulda been doin’ all along. Know that delivery didn’t make it to Florida two days ago. Think your pa wasn’t gonna notice? ’bout time he taught you a lesson.”

  Panic screamed across Mack’s flesh, and he was no longer playing games. He surged forward, ready to fight the answer out of him if he had to. “Where the fuck is he?”

  Kiel’s eyes gleamed. “Made a little trip into town.”

  Mack’s head spun, furiously trying to figure out what angle his father was gunnin’ for, which sick, twisted scheme he was playing next.

  Clenching his teeth, he backed away from Kiel whose expression turned smug.

  He wanted to knock it from his face.

  He stared down the bastard for another beat, trying to get a read on him, before he slipped out of the shed and started for his car. That unsettled feeling blazing. None of it sitting right.

  He started to jump into his car, not even sure where he was heading, but knowing he’d spend his whole fucking day hunting down his father so he could put an end to whatever the fuck he was up to.

  Clarissa’s voice whispered from behind. “Wait.”

  Dread prickled the hairs at the nape of his neck, and he wanted to ignore her, but there was something about the agitation in her tone that had him turning around.

  Skittish, she looked over her shoulder, clearly checking to make sure her father was still inside. Then she rushed over to Mack’s side, her words coming at him in a lowered hush, “He didn’t go into town.”

  That dread spiked, barbs pricking his flesh. “Where the fuck is he?”

  She peered through the woods in the direction of Izzy’s house before she set her gaze back on Mack. “You don’t belong with her, Mack, not at all. But I don’t want anything bad to happen to her, either, and I’m pretty sure your daddy is up to somethin’ real bad right now.”

  He knew his father was a monster, but also, a coward. A fuckin’ coward who would take his fists to his wife and his little kid, hiding behind the cover of his shitty walls, never doin’ it out in the open.

  She was agitated, rubbing her fingers together nervously. “Don’t tell my daddy I told you.”

  Fuck. He wasn’t taking the chance. Didn’t give a fuck if Clarissa was messing with him the way she loved to do. Wielding her manipulation.

  He just had to see her, his Little Bird, make sure she was safe and okay. Unharmed. Then he was going to hunt his father down and beat the fuck out of him, once and for all. Show him where he really stood. That he no longer had any control over his life.

  Izzy’s father was away on a business trip, and he knew that left Izzy and her mama alone.

  He bolted through the thicket of trees, taking the trail carved out by his nightly visits to her, the earth packed down, a pathway leading to his sanctuary.

  He flew across the meadow and the tall copse of trees that separated their land on the opposite side. He burst out on the expansive lawn, and the massive house came into view, the scenery picture-perfect.

  In it was a disorder.

  A riot of distress.

  He could feel it, and fear bottled up tight across his chest.

  Immediately, he knew Clarissa hadn’t been spouting her normal BS.

  He streaked across the lawn, as silently as he could, attention darting everywhere, searching for anything amiss. He glanced up at their tree, her window closed tight, and he rounded the front of the house.

  Quietly climbing the steps, he crossed the porch and carefully, slowly tried to turn the knob.

  Locked.

  Fuck.

  He angled his head back, for a second thinking Izzy and her mama must have went into town, but the feeling that sucked the peace out of the air promised they were there.

  That something was very, very wrong.

  Heart thundering in his throat, he jumped off the porch and wound around to the far right of the house where there was a side door that led into the kitchen.

  Terror clutched his spirit when he saw one of the small square windows had been busted out, a few shards of sharp glass still hanging in the frame.

  The door was partially ajar and resting on the jamb.

  Dread curled around his being, and he drew in a breath as he inched up the two steps and nudged the door.

  Creaking, it slowly swung open to the rambling kitchen. Rays of sunlight streaked in through the bank of windows at the back, almost blinding. Everything was completely still.

  Too still.

  Sweat lined his brow and dripped down his back, and he quieted his footsteps as he crossed the kitchen, his lungs locked tight when he barely opened the swinging door and peered out into the main room.

  Oh God.

  He almost buckled at t
he knees.

  Disgust and hate and horror stabbed him in the gut.

  Izzy’s mama was on her knees facing away from him. Her wrists tied behind her back. His father leered over her, a knife at her throat, spouting all the bullshit he’d spouted to Mack for all those years.

  “You fuckin’ whore, puttin’ your nose in my business where it doesn’t belong. You really think I wasn’t gonna pay you back for puttin’ me in prison? For taking my wife away? Now my son?” He leaned in and growled the words up close to her face.

  She trembled, and a low, terrified moan escaped her mouth.

  “Debt’s come due, bitch.”

  Rage clotted Mack’s blood, and he peered through the crack, desperate as he scanned the room for Izzy, petrified of what he might find at the same time.

  Fear clouded his eyes when he didn’t see her, and the shame and horror that he had done this to them rose up so fiercely that he could no longer breathe.

  Could no longer see anything but what he had to do.

  His mission.

  His reason.

  His father leaned over Mrs. Lane from behind, blowing more vile threats in her ear.

  He had his back turned to Mack.

  Mack didn’t hesitate.

  He barreled through the door and flew at his piece-of-shit father.

  At the destroyer of beauty.

  Hate and disgust and violence streaked through his veins, every cell coming to terms with his purpose.

  His father whirled around with the movement, the glint of the blade he held in his vile hand sparking in Mack’s view.

  He didn’t care.

  He bashed his shoulder into his father’s stomach. A shocked grunt scraped from his father’s mouth.

  They crashed to the hard floor, the knife clattering on the wood as his father lost hold.

  Mack dove into the disorder, his fists flying as he began to shout, “Run, Mrs. Lane. Get Izzy. Get out of the house!”

  Whole time he prayed that she could hear it, too. That she was capable of running. Hate ratcheted higher at the thought that she might not be able to. That this perverted, depraved man might have touched her.