Page 132 of The Finish Line
Sean gawks at me. “You dare say this shit to me?”
“Yeah, I am. I need to know how far you’re going to go with this.”
“Who the fuck are you?” His voice is raw with pain.
“I’m the man who would step in front of a bullet for either one of you, no questions asked, but I’m also the man who held your fucking hands before I shaped them into fists. I’m the same man—up until I met her—who put you both above everyone else. But right now, who am I right now? I’m the man who loves her enough to not let anyone or anything in front of her.”
Sean’s voice shakes with hate as he looks over to me. “You playing I saw her first?”
“Yeah, I am. And I think you fucking knew what line you were crossing, or else you wouldn’t have hidden her from me.”
Sean rears back, his right catching me in the jaw a split second before Dominic pushes me back, relieving me of the brunt of the blow. Dominic rights me and glares back at Sean before turning to me. “You didn’t believe me, brother, but I believe you, now. Cecelia may be yours, but The Triple Falls chapter is mine, and as long as she’s here, she’s under my fucking protection. I’ve been running things here since you’ve been globetrotting, and if we’re going by rules, and business is business, you best goddamn mark her for no other reason than that. If you need anything from us from here on out, you’re going to have to ask nicely. Until then, we’re both done with you. You listening, big brother? We’re done with you on the non-business front. Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
The lividity and finality of his tone rips a place inside of me that can’t be repaired. My relationship with my brother is never one I would ever have put into question a year ago. It’s the one place I had peace, solidarity, consistency, and I’ve ruined it with my actions. But amongst the wreckage, I found a different place, one that I never believed could exist for a man like me.
Exhaling, I cup the back of my neck, and I find myself leveling with him in a way, a plea to hear me—fighting for his attention over his anger and hatred, a barter I never imagined I would have to make with my own blood. With the boy I raised and the man I shaped. But I can feel the shift, and it’s crippling. It takes me several seconds to speak before I look between them. “I’ve never asked you for anything, and I’m not asking you to forgive me, not now, but I feel I’ve given enough to ask you both this. For her, not for me, for Cecelia. You both brought her into this, and I’m keeping her in it for her safety and for my greed. I love her. And no matter what happens from here on out, I need your word that when the time comes, she comes first. And make no mistake, I know what part I played, but the truth is, we all made this more than business.” I turn to Dominic, knowing the truth about that day at the library, knowing full well he saw her and was always aware of her. “You brought her in when I told you to keep her out of it. I told you what would happen. I just didn’t know how it would play out. We’re all to blame. All of us.”
Dom charges toward the back door and slams his way through it. I stare after him, the hole he left in me burning as I run a palm down my jaw. I can feel the world we created slipping through my hands as my need to get back to Cecelia increases ten-fold.
Am I losing her right now for the same reasons? My greed, my need for her, for something for myself. For the first time in my fucking life—and with her, in those precious weeks we had where our walls disappeared entirely—I felt liberated, like the version of myself I would have been had I not gone down this path. All I want now is to discard all of it for more time with her. With this knowledge, I have a clear understanding of why I deserve their wrath. Maybe she created the same sanctuary for them.
Maybe Dom and Sean became the more desired versions of themselves with her. We all have sacrificed in some way for this life. Maybe she was their sanctuary. And I hate it if it’s true. If they found the same pleasure, the same belonging I have. I dismissed their feelings because I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that they fucking shared the woman I moved heaven and earth just to steal weeks of happiness with. And together, they passed her back and forth and took pieces of my treasure, pieces I can never get back.
This is my price, my penance for being the thief I’ve become. For falling in love, for stealing her. For living my life, for once, for myself.
But I have consequences to face that will complicate things far more than what’s going on here.
Resigned this is just the beginning, I face off with the man I’ve loved like a brother since the moment he crash-landed into our lives. In seconds, my hurt shifts, and I’m grieving for the boy that he was and the man he’s become and meant to me. We’ll never be the same. None of us will. It takes all my energy not to let the anger be front and center, though every fiber of my being screams for flesh and blood. But this blood I can’t have, and my greed for her will never be sated.
The agony of that truth has me seething as Sean steps up to me, his eyes a mix of rage and the same type of ruin. “Why?”
“You know why. You’re right there with me! But I’m not fucking sharing her, not with you, not with my brother, not with a goddamn soul! That’s where you fucked up, Sean, and you know it. Her place is with me. End of.”
“You think so?” His condescending smirk has my blood boiling. “I wouldn’t be so fucking sure. I know what I saw today, and maybe I can’t fight a lost cause, and that’s my cross to bear. But I also know what you laid witness to as well back in that yard. I saw the fear in your eyes. Fear for the parts of her you’ll never have. The part that belongs to me, the other to your brother. Claim her all you want, mark her, piss all around her, but you’ll never have her fully. Not. Fucking. Ever. You’ll always be sharing her with us, no matter what you fucking do. You’ll never possess her the way your thief’s soul needs to own her. And you get to live with that. We all get to live with that.” He shoves his way past me, and I slam my fist down at the hood of the truck.
“Sean!” I swallow hard, the burn making my voice raw and unrecognizable to me. It’s agony knowing it’s true, but I push through it for what’s important. “For her. For her. Not for me. I’m asking for this. She comes first.”
“Jesus, man,” he scoffs, “the fact that you still need assurances is pathetic. Using her as an in was the excuse I came up with for you mere days after I met her. This has always been about her.”
Seconds pass, the howl of the wind outside shakes the bay doors. “Why didn’t you claim her?”
His eyes slice. “Because none of us were worthy of doing so with the lies floating between us. And those lies existed because we had your back. Because we believed in you and our cause. And until she knew the whole truth...” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t fucking matter now, does it?”
“None of us deserve her,” I state honestly. “None of us.”
“You least of all, you selfish fucking prick.” I feel the slam of the door behind him down to the marrow in my bones.
*
Retrieving a bottle from Dom’s trunk, sweat pouring from my forehead after my midnight run, I forgo the house, walking around to the back porch to collapse in the lounger, my heart cracking from the memory I re-live daily.
Staring at the bottle, I know cracking it open won’t erase a single word we exchanged that night or make the heartache any less intense.
It’s the definition of insanity.
Even after an exhausting day of fighting and make-up fucking with Cecelia, even with the knowledge I’ve reclaimed her heart, even with the closeness between us I’ve longed for since returning has sealed some of the hole that’s been there over half a decade—I can’t shake this.
And I knew it would happen.