Page 282 of Face Off

“I know.”

“I wasn’t trying to destroy you.”

“You did anyway.”

The words leave without mercy.

Charm wraps both arms around her stomach, but I am too far inside everything I refused to tell her to stop.

“My suffering came from what you did to me,” I say. “Not your illness. Not your father. You. You promised me that when the time came, you would stand beside me. You watched me build my entire fucking life around that promise while knowing some part of you would never keep it.”

“I wanted to.”

“You wanted my love. You wanted how it made you feel. Wanting to protect it would’ve required admitting I mattered more than the version of yourself everyone else approved, and you already knew which one you would choose.”

“I was terrified.”

“So was I!”

My voice cracks, and the sound tears the final lock from the trapdoor.

“Have you any idea what it cost me to leave you?” I demand. “Not what it did to you. My cost. Mine. I knew exactly what I was giving up when I walked out of that apartment. I knew the chances of ever finding this connection again were fucking impossible, and I did it anyway because all I have is me, Charm.”

I strike my palm against my chest hard enough to send the sound through the room.

“I am the only person who has protected me my entire fucking life. I am the one who crawled out of every house that didn’t want me, survived every adult who failed me, and built something nobody could take away.”

I close the distance between us, forcing Charm to lift her face while every word grows louder.

“When I finally trusted you to stand between me and one more person trying to tell me I was worthless, you looked…” My voice rises as I step closer. “At the fucking…” The final word tears out of me with enough force to shake the room. “Floor!”

Charm chokes on a sob, but fifteen months of pain have already ripped through whatever might have stopped me. I step back and point directly at her, my arm rigid between us.

“You!” I roar. “You were the one person I trusted to protect me for once, and you left me standing there alone!”

“I know.”

“You keep saying that like knowing earns you access to everything it cost!”

“I’m trying to understand.”

“You want my pain so fucking badly?” I demand, closing the remaining distance between us again. “You keep digging for every detail like knowing how completely you destroyed me is going to feed your fucking ego. Maybe if I give you enough blood, you can finally feel guilty enough to convince yourself we’re even.”

Charm shakes her head frantically. “That isn’t why I—”

“You want to know how I broke my hand?”

Her mouth closes.

“Let me give you the answer you’ve spent four fucking days begging for.” I hold my ruined hand between us, forcing her to look at the scars crossing my knuckles. “That night at the cabin, when I made myself say goodbye and watched you leave, I tore the place apart. Decorations, cupboards, bottles of liquor—anything I could get my hands on went through a wall or shattered against the floor. When none of it hurt enough to reach what you left inside me, I started punching everything that remained.”

Her attention stays fixed on my hand while tears spill down her face.

“I kept swinging until I hit the counter and broke four bones. One of them tore through the fucking skin, Charm. Blood ran down my arm while I stood inside the wreckage of that cabin still trying to find something that hurt worse than losing you. Briggs fought to hold me while I did everything I could to make him let go. He took every hit, locked his arms around me, and kept holding on until the rage burned out, my knees hit the fucking floor, and I cried like a little bitch as they forced me in Cade’s SUV to get me to the pinche hospital.”

A broken sound escapes her, but my rage has already blown through every place where mercy might have stopped me.

“I lost what remained of my contract with Flint because my season was over with the damage to my hand. Then Milwaukee honored the offer and took over my medical clearance by the grace of God, because I had no fucking idea what I would do if hockey disappeared too.”