“I’m not worthy, Em, because it never would have happened if my head hadn’t been swimming under the shitstorm I’d left brewing at home.”
I take a deep breath before speaking; trying to figure out how to express what I feel in a way that he’ll believe me. “Do you honestly believe that?” He nods. “I believe that you do and I hate that. I have no doubt in my mind that, if you looked back now with a clear mind, you would see that, even if you’d been your best that day, you still could have missed something. Baby, you don’t deserve this burden. I understand that you need someone to blame, but place that on the people who placed the bomb that triggered this all. Do you think every soldier who goes into the battle zone has no stress, no worry, and no distractions? I highly doubt that. You were the sole survivor of a terrible, tragic accident, but you survived. Be proud that you were able to overcome and get your men home.”
“I-I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Well, then, I just have to help you.” I give him a small smile and squeeze his arm. “Do you want to keep going?”
When he nods, I return it with my own before bringing my attention back to the box.
The next item I pick up is a letter, and after reading it, my blood is boiling. I understand grief. I’ve watched it up close and personal within our group, but what I don’t understand is using that grief to lash out at those who do not deserve it.
“Good God, Maddox. I’m not going to argue with you. You have believed this for so long, but let me tell you this much. She was hurting, baby. She needed someone to blame, and just like you blame yourself for something that is unjust, so does she. She took the blame out on the only person who made sense to her. I honestly believe that she regrets each of these words now.”
He doesn’t try to argue with me. He’s going to believe it, but I’m going to keep working on him until he understands just how wrong he is.
The more items we go through, the more I look at him in shock as I try to make sense of it all. From the outside, it’s so easy for me to see how wrong he is, but I can’t wrap my head around it. Not until we get to the bottom.
There, I see a picture of a much younger, happier, Maddox, tattoos missing from his body. He’s standing tall with a big smile on his face. And in his arms is a stunning blonde. From just this picture alone, I can see the evil in her eyes. I don’t have to know her personally to know that she’s rotten to the core.
“That is Mercedes. I had just asked her to marry me before I left. I was young and dumb, blinded by the thought of a pure love. I spent my whole life wishing for just one person who would love me for me, so when she entered my life, I grabbed on and didn’t let go.”
“What happened?” I ask, not sure that I want to know the answer to that question.
“My mother happened. Well, to be honest, I think it was a fair mix of my mother, brother, and the power that came behind the Locke name. Something I wasn’t interested in then and I still have no interest in now. I wanted a life away from them, and even though I couldn’t give everything, I foolishly thought that she would be happy with just me.”
He goes on to tell me a tale so twisted that it sounds like he pulled it right off the Lifetime Movie Network. He touched on this back when we were at the cabin, but to hear his life up until he became the version of himself I see in front of me now in so much detail is almost too much.
I want to cry for him, hold him, fix him, but standing in the frontline of all those feelings is the rage I feel for three sorry sons of bitches somewhere in the middle of Texas.
CHAPTER 27
Maddox
What I wouldn’t give to be inside her head right now. I expected her disgust when I laid all of my pain on her lap—literally—but I never anticipated her anger for me to become a force to be reckoned with.
“I hate them,” she forces through her clenched jaw. “God . . .” She shakes her head but doesn’t finish.
“Hating them doesn’t do anything, Em. Trust me. I’ve been doing it for so long that I should know.”
Her gaze burns into my skin as I pack up the box and close the lid. When I go to remove it from her lap, she stops me by slamming her palm down on the top.
“Don’t you dare. We’re going to keep this out, and each day, we will come back to it. We can pull them out one at a time, all at once, or just look at the fucking thing for all I care—but one thing we will be doing is talking about this. I’ll talk until I’m blue in the face and you’re going to sit there and listen to me. And, Maddox?”
“Yes, Emersyn,” I respond, waiting to see where she’s going with this.