Somewhere in the middle of things, I’d taken her hair down, and now I ran my fingers through it, the movement near hypnotizing with the sound of the waves in front of us. It gave me a breath to get my head straight because it hadn’t stopped spinning since . . . I’d
made love
to Sadie.
I didn’t do that.
I never did that.
I absolutely, without a doubt, just did that.
There wasn’t another way to describe it. The way I’d felt above her, wanting more than anything to continue to keep her safe and make her scream at the same time, was more of a connection than I’d ever had during sex. Because it wasn’t just sex, wasn’t just a release, it was a revelation.
Sadie was a life I never knew I existed, and one I knew I didn’t deserve.
The familiar stinging wound in my chest ached, and I shifted slightly underneath her.
She popped up, turning to look at me. “Am I hurting you?”
I laughed, the question so completely off the mark. She was healing me.
“No,” I said finally.
She squinted at me. “What’s going through your head right now?”
I’d told her I needed time, and she had been more than willing to give it to me. Thing was, I knew time was never a luxury we could afford. And with my already pending dark deal with Slade, I didn’t want to keep anything else from her. Not anymore.
If she knows what you did, she’ll bolt.
Maybe that would be a good thing. Maybe if she hated me once she knew what made me the man I was, then I wouldn’t have to figure a way out of the deal with Slade.
My gut simmered. Didn’t matter if she ran or not, I was still going to fight tooth and nail for her site. Because I wanted her happiness more than anything. More than twelve million dollars.
“Connell?” She traced the edge of my flexed jaw with a delicate finger. “It’s all right. There isn’t a rush. Remember? I’m not going anywhere.”
The hurt in my chest lessened and doubled at the same time. She would. Because she was too perfect for me and I hadn’t done any deed in a decade to earn a prize like her.
“I want to tell you something.” The words made their way past my choking throat, my body begging me to keep my past to myself.
“Okay,” she said, and I saw the tension set in her shoulders. Was I that easy to read or did she understand me that well already?
“I’ve never told anyone other than my mother.”
She tucked her legs underneath her, facing me with her full attention.
My heart raced against my chest, and a cold dread I didn’t understand clutched my spine. I wasn’t this scared when I’d been trapped underneath a propeller blade that had broken off mid-repair—how could this be so much harder? My life wasn’t at stake here, just my heart. And I never thought it would properly work again after Conner had died.
Fuck. Just thinking his name stung like a bitch. How would it be to spill it all?
“My brother Conner was an addict. Started off simple—alcohol, pot, a few pills—but he never could quench the urge.” I shook my head, a small smile breaking through my tight lips. “I should’ve seen it sooner. The boy never went at anything half-assed, even when we were kids, and if he loved something . . . he surrounded himself in it. Drowned himself in it.” I thought about his Power Rangers phase and how there hadn’t been an inch in his room that wasn’t covered with the theme—didn’t stop there, either, clothes, tooth brush, shower curtain,
everything.
“He was sixteen when we discovered he was in deeper than either my mother or I knew.” I rubbed my palms over my face, willing the tears back. I hadn’t cried since his funeral a year and a half ago, and I would not break here. “He’d upgraded to crystal meth. Fell in with crowds with the same flavors. I tried everything . . . threatening him, his suppliers, offering whatever he wanted to get him off the stuff. Nothing worked. It hooked him from the first taste.”
Sadie reached out and took my hand, squeezing it but not saying a word.
“He went in and out of several different rehab clinics—ten years of jumping between being clean and relapse. Nearly drained Mom of anything she ever earned—her job takes her all over the world but doesn’t pay enough to support an addict—and he’d always end up back out on the streets looking to score. Once I turned eighteen, I got accepted into the Commercial Diving Program, got certified, and placed applications to the highest bidders. Worked my way up quick and sent my mother almost all of the money, only taking a little to live off.” I sucked in a deep breath. “It kept me away from Conner, which hurt me, but I don’t even know if he really noticed. He hadn’t seen the distance between us since he started using but before that? We were inseparable. We were only seventeen months apart—he was six weeks early—and Mom had told me that I’d insisted on sleeping next to his crib every night once she brought him home. I don’t remember that far back, but I never remember a moment without him, you know?”
Sadie nodded, her lips pressed together.
“There were a few times Mom would call me off a job, saying Conner had finally found the right rehab program and had come home clean,” I pressed on. “I’d rush off the job ready to welcome my baby brother home . . . the real one, the one I grew up with.” My chest tightened. “It never stuck, though. He couldn’t stay off it for long.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “A year and a half ago, I got a call, not from Mom, but from Conner. He was still living in the resort-style rehab Mom had put him up in, and he begged me to come home so he could make amends. Said it was part of the program, part of him moving toward recovery.”
She gripped my hand tighter when my fingers started to shake. “So I did. Blew off a big job too, a paycheck that would’ve meant a whole four months of clean living for him in that luxury clinic. But he needed me, so I ran to him. Only when I got to Mom’s, I found him tearing up the house looking for the secret stash of cash she always keeps in our grandmama’s hutch. He didn’t even try to deny it, and after I’d made him clean up I forced him to talk to me. He’d been in the clinic for a couple of months—the one Mom had claimed was working better than ever before. Had told me Conner sounded more like himself, more hopeful.”
I can’t quit cold, Connell.
Conner had told me truthfully.
I have to wean myself off. Please, brother. Help me. The clinic doesn’t get it. Tapering is the key, not this abrupt stop. I’ve got a guy on the inside who can help me do it slowly.
“I was pissed—he’d broken Mom’s heart more times than I could count—stealing from her, blaming her for how sick he was, that our dad had left before we could know him because he couldn’t stand her . . . just shit a junkie said when he didn’t get his way. He wasn’t my brother anymore. Clinic-clean or not, I didn’t recognize him. So I gave him an ultimatum.” Acid boiled in my gut and tears stung behind my eyes. “Go back to the clinic and quit cold, or fuck off.”
I can’t. Just give me some cash for one last score, one big enough to ration, to get me off it slowly. I’ll do it inside the clinic. Lots of people do without them knowing. It’ll work this time. I promise.
“I didn’t believe him when he said he’d use one last buy to taper himself off. So I pulled out all the cash I had in my wallet and tossed it at his chest. Told him to get the fuck out of Mom’s house and not to come back.”
The tears I’d tried to hold back slowly rolled down my cheeks, but I didn’t blink. “I was at the airport, getting ready to fly back to the gig I’d blown off, when Mom called. Conner had gone back to the clinic, locked himself in his room, and overdosed.”
Sadie gasped, and I clenched my eyes shut.
“Ask me how much money I’d had in my wallet that night,” I demanded.
When she didn’t speak, I opened my eyes. “Ask me,” I snapped.
She shook her head, tears glistening in her eyes as well.
“Enough to kill my baby brother.”
My entire body shook, the adrenaline of that day rushing back to me at full force. “I killed my brother.” The sobs wracked my body as Sadie’s arms flew around me, and I buried my head against her.
“No, Connell. You didn’t,” she said, running her fingers through my hair.
I couldn’t stop fucking crying as if I saw Conner’s body in the casket all over again, and all the while knowing I’d given him the money to score enough drugs to end it all. “I should’ve
helped
him, Sadie.” I managed to talk between gasps of breath. “I should have believed him. I should’ve driven him back to the clinic myself and fucking stayed there with him
every day
until he was well.”
She pulled me to her tighter. “No one would ever put this blame on you. Not even Conner. He was sick, Connell. You’d tried and tried. You couldn’t have prevented this. He was the only one with the power to end the cycle.”
I rubbed my fists into my eyes, hard enough to wince, to stop the tears. The pain was raw and fresh, but confessing felt near-euphoric. “Nah,” I finally said once I’d composed myself, straightening my spine. “Even my mother knew it. She’s barely spoken to me since.” Not that she hadn’t tried, but I kept her shut out just like everyone else. She was right to blame me, and I didn’t need her around as the reminder of the loss of my baby brother. I did enough of that on my own.
Sadie took my face in her hands. “She was hurt. No one should ever have to bury a child. I’m sure she didn’t mean whatever she said to you, but if she did?”
I brought my gaze up to hers slowly.
“Then fuck her.”
The bite in her tone was colder than the air, and it made me huff out a laugh.
“I’m serious, Connell. Fuck her if she—after time for grief and rational thought—can think you are at fault. You’re not. And you’ve got to stop shutting everyone out as a punishment to yourself.” She pushed back the hair that had fallen in my eyes, and I leaned into her palm. How could she be so fucking perfect? “You’re an incredible man, and deserve to
live
, not survive like you have been. It’s time, Connell.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” I said honestly. I’d been living with the crushing weight every day since he died, using it to push me deeper under the ocean, closer to the most dangerous jobs I could find, because I wanted to be with my brother. I didn’t want him to be alone wherever he was. I wanted to sleep next to him like I had when we were babies.
She tilted up my chin. “I’m going to show you. Every day.”
I kissed her gently, breathing in her air like a much needed hit of nitrox when a hundred and fifty feet deep. “You’re the first reason I’ve found, Sadie.”
“For what?”
“To stay alive.”
Her eyes widened, fresh tears coating them. “There is so much out there for you, but if I’m where it starts, then I’ll take it.”
“Good, ‘cause I’ve got no idea what I’m doing.” And I really fucking didn’t. Opening up to her like this, making love to her like I had . . . it was all going to blow up in my face if I couldn’t save her site and get out of the contract with Slade. I wanted so badly to tell her about it but I couldn’t risk Slade finding out and making good on his threats to end her career. He could fucking do it to, with the resources he had. He’d find a way. And I couldn’t have that. She loved her job too much. I’d just have to find a way to fix everything before the bomb detonated.
“You’re talking, Connell,” Sadie said, pulling me out of my head. “And I’m listening. Simple as that.” She kissed me and turned back around, reclaiming her position between my legs, looking out at the ocean. I sighed over her hair, enjoying the way her head felt against my chest. The weight felt so much better than the sting that had festered there for years, and though I didn’t think it would last, I knew I’d do everything I could to hold on to her.
I watched the waves, feeling Sadie breathe against me and appreciating her ability to give me time after such a confession. I was beyond grateful I still held her against me, when I’d thought for sure she’d run in the opposite direction. How could she not find blame in me when even my own mother had?
Sure, Mom had tried to take back her words later on, but I knew what her heart felt, and it was nothing but loss. Looking at me was like looking at the absence of Conner. So I’d stayed away, and had no plans to reconnect, reopen that wound for her.
But Sadie, she was new in my life, knowing me post-darkness. After learning my past, and still sticking around? She gave me hope.
Can you grant me this, Conner? Am I allowed to have this happiness, when you can’t, brother?
Sometimes—usually when I was on a deep dive, the threat of death tapping on my shoulder in the cold water—I could hear Conner. His voice matching that of the boy he’d been before he’d found his vice. It called to me, broke my heart over and over again, all while soothing it at the same time. And now, I wanted to hear his approval. Because I desperately needed it. Needed this to be okay, because I didn’t know if I had the power to grant myself the leave to be happy.
I listened but heard nothing.
After what could’ve been hours, Sadie pulled me to my feet, gathering the blanket in one arm and my hand in the other. She walked us back in silence to her cabin on the boat, which was docked outside of her lab. She stripped me to my underwear and pushed me onto the bed, and I let her. I let her do whatever the hell she wanted to do to me because she owned me now.
Her lack of judgment, her acceptance of me how I was—which I knew was a big pain in the ass—made me love her. And I didn’t do that lightly. I knew just how badly it fucking hurt when you lost someone you loved.
She crawled into the bed next to me, laying her head on my chest, tracing circles on my stomach.
“Sadie,” I whispered.
“Yeah?”
“I can’t lose you.”
“I told you I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“I do. Doesn’t mean I trust myself not to fuck this up.” The contract with Slade burned hot in my mind. I could tell her. Come clean this second. She’d already accepted my past; she could understand this situation. No. I had to keep my mouth shut to keep her livelihood safe. I would not be the result of an ounce of darkness to touch her. I wouldn’t.