We never spoke of my unhealthy relationship with Gage after that. Alaric just checked on me and made sure I was always in a good headspace. It’s been over eight years, but I haven’t spoken to my parents or sister in all that time. My parents had acted like Gage was a monster and Destiny had treated me like a girl too stupid and weak to see the signs of abuse.
Did I regret the rift with my family? No.
Did I regret leaving Gage? Every damn day.
I was already reaching for the doorknob when the second knock bounced off the door. When I swung the door open, shock paralyzed me when I saw Gage standing in all his six-foot-two masculine glory.
A furious-looking glory, but glorious, nonetheless.
“Gage?” Not saying a word, he muscled past me and walked into my apartment just as sweet as you please. I stood like a stuck mannequin with the door held open as I watched him take in my apartment.
My apartment wasn’t much, but it was enough. It was affordable and worked for me. The furniture was a mix of this and that, which I had been able to afford when I had gotten out of college and had started out at Marksman. And, over the years, I never bothered to upgrade. It wasn’t as if I entertained much.
As for the apartment, itself, it was a basic two-bedroom, one bath, living room and kitchenette that could be found all over Chicago. However, it was a safe neighborhood and had been within walking distance to Marksman had it been necessary to walk. I mostly took cabs, but I wasn’t allergic to walking. Granted, Cavanaugh Industries wasn’t within walking distance, but I wasn’t even sure if that mattered anymore. I wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to have my job. And, all, thanks to the raging male currently standing in my living room.
“Gage?” I repeated.
He turned to face me, and I cursed the Heavens for blessing this man with the face and body he had. The dark brown hair and startling blue eyes had always been a combination that rendered me stupid.
“Shut the door,” he commanded.
I snapped out of my haze, realizing that I did, indeed, still have the doorknob in my hand, holding the door wide open. The hairs on the back of neck warned me not to shut the door, but the rest of my body was begging me to. And I was officially super fucked in the head because I shut the door.
“What are you doing here?” Then a thought occurred to me. “How did you know where I lived?”
His eyes raked over my person and I knew he couldn’t be too impressed with what he saw. It was late evening on a Monday after a jacked-up day. It was safe to say, I wasn’t looking my best. Besides, my pajama pants and blue ribbed tank top was not meant to be seen by anyone other than Rowan.
When Gage’s blue gaze locked on my brown one, he ignored both my question and stalked towards me like a man possessed. My back was pressed against the front door as he leaned down and asked, “Why?”
My body began to tremble at the sheer nearness of him, but my heart started thumping a rough, painful tattoo in my chest at his question.
I knew what he was asking.
Ten years later, he was finally asking for an explanation. An explanation I would have gladly given him ten years ago had he not disappeared on me.
A part of me wanted to hold on to that anger and resentment, but if I had any chance of moving on from this destructive man, who had been a damaged boy, I needed to give my explanation just as badly as he needed to hear it.
Would he forgive me?
Would he laugh at me?
Would he still hate me?
It didn’t matter.
Nothing else matter, but this moment.
This fork in the road was going to send me going off into one direction or the other. One that had Gage in it or the other that didn’t.
He leaned in closer. “Why in the fuck did you leave me, Mystic?”
Chapter 26
Gage~
As much as I wanted to hear her reasons, a part of me feared they wouldn’t be good enough to keep me from killing her.
Yeah, I told Lorcan I wasn’t going to kill her, but standing in her apartment, facing her, angry and damaged as I was, I wasn’t too sure anymore.
Her big, brown doe eyes were filled with sadness and regret, but I wasn’t going to let that affect me. I didn’t want her regret. I wanted her pain.
“Gage-”
“Tell me!” I roared in her face.
Her eyes started to water and that just pissed me off more. “Mm…my…my parents found out, Gage.”
Of all the things I expected to hear, that wasn’t it. “Bullshit,” I snapped.
“It’s the truth,” she cried. “It’s the truth.”
I stepped away from her because I was holding on by a thread and I wanted to hear it all before I finally killed her. “How?” I asked. “How in the fuck would your parents find out, Mystic.”
She let out a deep, shuttering breath. “The…the day I… uh, left, I was called into Mrs. Berny’s office. I…I thought she was calling me in to discuss graduation since I still hadn’t given her a plan of action yet.” I hated how her voice sounded like the truth, but it wasn’t like I could prove or disprove her story when it was all said and done anyway. No one else was here to back up her claim. “When I got there…” A tear escaped and I hated that it bothered me. “…Mrs. Lemas, Mr. Grant, and my parents were in her office with her.” Mystic’s hand reached up as if she wanted to touch me, but she quickly dropped it back down to her side, but not before wiping the tear away. “Apparently, since we had to dress out for P.E., Mrs. Lemas began to notice my bruises. She took her concerns to Mrs. Berny.”
That didn’t make sense. It was Mystic’s word against a gym teacher’s suspicions. I shook my head. “So what?” I argued. “She saw some bruising. That could have meant anything.”
Mystic nodded in agreement. “You’re right. It could have. Except, instead of calling me in to ask me about it, they had called in Margot and talked to her first.”
I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel any more hate for that girl than I already had when she refused to tell me where Mystic had run off to, but I was wrong. “And?”
Mystic closed her eyes, defeat emanating from every pore. When she opened them, they no longer looked sad and regretful. They looked empty. “She told them everything, Gage,” she said, her voice matter of fact. “She told them we had an…abnormally aggressive relationship.”
I almost snorted. What we’d had was sick, twisted, violent, and soul consuming. It had not been abnormally aggressive.
It had been brutal.
“Margot told them I was beating you,” I surmised, wishing I could find her and wring her fucking neck. I knew Margot had a jealous streak in her back then. One Mystic had refused to see because Margot had been her only friend, but it had been there. I’d seen it every time I had refused to share Mystic with the world around us. Hell, everyone had known what Mystic had meant to me.
What she still fucking did, if I want to be honest with myself.
Mystic nodded. “Yes, she did.”
“And what did you say?”
Her entire body slumped against the door. It was as if she’s waited ten years to get her side of the story out and it was exhausting the fuck out of her. “I told them the truth,” she replied. “I told them that you were not beating me. I told them we were a couple and you didn’t do anything to me that I didn’t want. I told them they didn’t understand and that it was none of their business.” She shook her head. “I was already eighteen by then, so they couldn’t do anything about our relationship.”
So, what fucking changed?
I stepped to her and caged her in with my hands planted on the door on either side of her head. “And?”
Her chocolate orbs searched mine, and, in that moment, I wished I could kill her. I wished I could erase her off the face of the earth, because I was fairly certain she was going to take what was left of my sanity with her when we were done with this conversation.
I’d always been weak when it cam
e to Mystic Anderson, and that was proving to be just as true today as it had been ten years ago.
“My father threatened to have you arrested and sent to prison for abuse and statutory rape,” she confessed. “Mr. Grant added that he’d ruin any chance you had to go to college and make a future for yourself.”
I reared back, rage making my body vibrate. “Statutory rape?” I seethed. “What the fuck?”
“Margot told them we’d been having sex since we were fifteen, and my father had done his homework with that little bit of information. He knew you had turned eighteen four months before I had.”
“So,” I bit out, enraged at finding out how our relationship had been attacked from all sides. “They couldn’t have proven that we had sex during those four months.”
Mystic shook her head. “Gage, I…I hadn’t thought about that,” she admitted. “I had been blindsided and…there was no way I was going to let you get arrested for abuse or rape.”
I was livid.
I was fucking livid, and unfortunately for Mystic, she was the only person here that I could take it out on. “So, you just left?!” I yelled. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me what the fuck they were doing?”
The blank look in her eyes vanished. It was quickly replaced with her own brand of rage. “Trust you?” she screeched, her hands curled up into fists at her sides. “Are you kidding me?”
I could feel my eye twitch with the need to put my hands on his woman. “You trusted me to wrap my hands around your neck and not kill you while I fucked the shit out of you, but you didn’t trust me with that?”
Her face flushed, but I wasn’t entirely sure it was all from anger. “Two weeks, Gage!” she yelled at me. “Two measly weeks!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I was shipped off to my aunt’s, in Montana, that very night, Gage,” she replied, filling in the blanks of the last ten years. “No phone, no anything. I was so terrified of you being sent to prison, I went. But I hadn’t given up on you, you sorry sonofabitch!” We were facing off like two raging bulls, the poison of the past bubbling over. “It was two weeks before I was able to sneak onto my aunt’s computer to try to contact you. I had some silly, delusional fantasy that I’d tell you what happened, and you’d come for me. I had already made these half-ass plans of what we’d need to run away together.” She was lying. She had to be lying. “But you want to know what happened when I logged onto her computer? I discovered that it only took you two goddamn weeks to erase me from your life. I had been blocked from every one of your social media accounts. I had been blocked from your life!” Her words were cutting deep beneath the surface of all my anger. If she was telling the truth, then she’s not the one who walked away.
I was.
“What the fuck did you expect me to do, Mystic?” I snapped. “From my end, you just up and fucking left. Your dad even handed me the goodbye letter you wrote.”
I realized her anger and pain were every bit as deep as mine when she yelled, “What did I expect?! I expected you to keep your word! I expected you to never stop coming for me! I expected you to prove all that shit you spewed when we were together. All that shit about how you would never let me go. But you did! You gave up after a whole whopping two weeks, Gage!” Her entire body was shaking. Her chest was heaving, and her face was red with hate. “I left because I was scared. But, more importantly, I left because I refused to be the reason your life was ruined. And you let me go because you’re nothing but a liar!”
I was on her before my mind could fully process what I was doing. I had her slammed up against the wall, my fingers digging into the flesh of her arms. The thud of her body hitting the door could be heard throughout the apartment.
I knew my mind wasn’t right. I knew, in this moment, I was a danger to myself and anyone dumb enough to get in my way, but I didn’t care. I was damaged enough not to fucking care. However, if Mystic was telling the truth…
“I never lied to you,” I raged through clenched teeth. “Never.”
Her eyes were watering, but those were tears of pure, unadulterated rage. “Did you, or did you not look for me beyond those two weeks, Gage?”
We both knew the answer to that question.
We both knew the truth.
And it was a truth that was going to change everything.
Chapter 27
Mystic~
I was angry.
I was angry and hurt.
I may have hurt him, but he’s the one who had let me go.
He had let me down, and I’ve been suffering for it for ten goddamn years.
The horrible part about it all? With his hands digging painfully into my arms, I didn’t care about how much I had hurt him or how much he had ruined me. Just like in the conference room at CI, I was catapulted back to that fateful day in the park restroom.
The day that, the boy I feared, had taken what he wanted from me and I had fallen in love with him for it. The day where fear and desire had warred with one another to create a bond forged in vehement fire. Violence had become my religion, and Gage was the temple where I had worshipped.
And staring up at this beautiful, broken, enraged man, I was ready to drop to my knees and rediscover my lost faith. His hands were going to leave bruises and my core soaked my underwear with the knowledge.
This was the hell that embroiled drug addicts, alcoholics, and gamblers. The struggle of knowing something was wrong and unhealthy but being too weak and powerless to walk away from it. Because, even though I’d been the one to leave all those years ago, Gage was the one who had ended us.
“What was I supposed to do?” he asked, regret lacing each word. “You vanished, Mystic. You vanished and everyone close to you told me you left by choice.”
This bastard.
“Since when had you ever given me a choice, Gage,” I tossed back. “That afternoon in the park restroom? Any time after that? The night of Margot’s birthday party? All of a sudden, you believed I was making choices without you.” I got in his face because I was done carrying this burden. “You walked away from us. Not me.”
His hands tightened around my arms and he shook me a bit. “If I’m the one who walked away, then why haven’t I been able to go a day without thinking of you?” he barked. “If I’m the one who ended us, why can’t I fuck another woman without imagining your face on her body?”
That stung.
I knew Gage was too much of an alpha male to go ten years without sleeping with another woman, but I didn’t want to hear about it. Granted, I hadn’t kept my legs closed these past ten years, but this was all about perception. He had blocked me from his life.
He had.
So, while the sex had been unfulfilling, I still never felt guilty over it. Sure, I had felt guilty that I couldn’t enjoy as much as I had led my partner to believe, but I never felt guilty for trying to move on, even if I knew it would be near to impossible. My celibacy, now, was out of unfulfillment, not because of Gage Evans.
And because I didn’t want to be the only one dancing on the edges of this hell alone, I got petty and vindictive. “Trust me when I tell you that you are the one who ended it. If you hadn’t, I would never have been able to move on and get underneath the next guy.”
Gage’s hand snaked out and circled my neck and squeezed. Did I think he was capable of strangling me to death? Yes. Did I think he would? I wasn’t sure. Was I scared that he would? No. Was I losing my mind, as well as this argument? Yes.
Yes, I was.
His face was a magnificent picture of masculine rage as he seethed, “You dare mention the men you’ve slept with to me?”
“Because you think I’d want to hear about the women you’ve slept with?” I fired back. “You gave me up!” I screamed. “You gave me to them!”
Gage’s other hand crawled up in my hair, tangling it a painful grip, before his mouth slammed down on mine. It wasn’t tender or particularly loving.
It was violence unleashed.
I cried out when his teeth sank into my bottom lip and copper flooded my mouth. I couldn’t speak for the past ten years, but the Gage I had known in high school had always been a biter. He loved leaving his mark and he had made them with his teeth often. If his hands hadn’t been bruising my flesh, his teeth had been tearing into it.
When he pulled back, his lips were painted red, and his snarl was feral. “You ever mention another man to me, and I will fucking destroy you,” he threatened. Little did he know, it was an empty threat. He already destroyed me ten years ago.
“Then don’t throw the other women you’ve fucked in my face,” I countered, not caring that it made me sound like a jealous harpy. Because I was jealous. Gage was never supposed to have known another woman, just like I was never to have known another man. We were supposed to have been each other’s one and only.
I hated that we weren’t.
“Oh, baby,” he cooed evilly. “The only woman I have ever fucked was you.”
“Gage-”
“They were warm bodies, but it was your face I saw every damn time,” he continued. “I couldn’t get my dick hard unless I imagined they were you. But because I knew they weren’t, I could only take those experiences so far. No one has ever replaced you, and I know, now, that no one ever will.”
We had just demanded denial from one another, but we were doing just the opposite. “I fucked them hoping I’d find another you,” I told him honestly. “But I still haven’t.”
His fist tightened in my hair. “Right here. Right now, Mystic. In this moment, only, will you ever have a choice with me. Make it,” he demanded.
Did that mean he believed me? Did that mean he forgave what he had believed had been my transgressions against him? More importantly, could I do this and not fall down the dark, dangerous rabbit hole that was Gage Evans? Could I walk away a second time? Would I let him walk away?
I stared into his dark blue eyes and saw everything that was wrong with him. I also saw everything that was wrong with me reflected in them.
Our Broken Pieces (The Pieces Series Book 1) Page 12
