Page 44 of Blinded By Hate

Martin is looking at Max with love in his eyes and for a second I just wish I could have that.

When can I have that? Love seems so impossible now and all I want to do is give up sometimes.

But I know someone is out there for me who won’t leave.

There was and then you fucking ruined it.

God, I need to take my meds and possibly talk to Patience about these thoughts.

“Thank you. Martin makes me happy,” Max says, smiling at his boyfriend.

I look away from them when Max pecks Martin’s lips. I look at Kayden and his face looks similar to how I feel.

Longing, wanting, waiting.

But for the moment I fake the smile and pretend everything is fine because it is.

I need to focus on bettering myself.

I can’t focus on a guy, or Hayden, to be more specific.

Eighteen

Hayden

Present

“Jaclyn King? I don't understand what’s so special about her,” my brother says, as he sits across from me in his office.

We are at his house in Lombardy. It’s about an hour or two flight from here to Gaeta, where everyone else is staying.

Rowan can’t come back and forth too much because of the academy and his family. So I came here since I needed to talk to him.

Seeing Jaclyn, touching her, having her in my arms after more than four years fucked me up.

More than seeing her at the fight did.

And then when she mentioned Nicole and how she doesn’t want to help me cheat, I almost punched the fucking wall because she literally couldn’t be more wrong. But it’s not like I can tell her because that will fuck things up for Killian.

I just have to wait for him to finish finalizing this deal before I can rid myself of Nicole and her family. They have been a goddamn headache since I met them a year ago.

“I don’t know either.” I lean into the chair and rub my jaw. “She frustrates the fuck out of me even after this many years.”

“She’s the girl who ran away five years ago?” Rowan asks and I nod my head.

Rowan has dark brown hair like mine but his eyes are different. He has hazel eyes, dark blue mixed in with brown making them unique. He’s taller than me by a few inches although I have more muscle on me. Other than the small differences we look similar.

He is what I imagined my biological brother would look like.

I knew exactly who he was when I first saw him. Kayden took me to a fight about an hour or two outside of town. We ended up at a high end club where people with tuxedos and gowns were watching grown men almost kill each other in a cage. They would bet a lot of money and sometimes even buy the fighter for some shady business they were involved in.

That night I met Rowan.

He came into my dressing room after my fight and explained how I’m his brother and I’m not the only one. I have more siblings. A few sisters and a lot of brothers.

I’ve met them all in the last four years but I’m the closest with Rowan because we share the same parents.

He told me my dad was a piece of shit who would rape anything with two legs. I know he killed him because one day when I was eighteen I got a call from him saying our father died from a gunshot wound.