Leon had clearly been harboring his hatred toward Kai since Layla died. Four years. And it could only have gotten worse for my relationship with him… He wouldn’t make it quick. He would draw it out and inflict maximum pain before ending his life.
As for Kai? I suspected he still believed Leon to be on the Circle. Hell, if I was honest, so did I. But for Kai, that meant Leon was to be held responsible for what had happened to Mo… and to her baby boy. Someone needed to pay for what’d happened to Kai’s sister and his nephew, and Leon would be that scapegoat. After all, he knew about Project Remus. Who was to say that he hadn’t been involved in it at some stage?
But the bottom line… I’d been living in fantasyland. And in the process, I’d broken my own heart by falling in love with two men who could never put their differences aside. By stalling for time and avoiding the inevitable, I was only making it worse.
I drew a deep breath, letting my fractured heart rest a moment. I needed a clear head, to not let the grief of losing Jude and my friendship with Carlos influence my choice. I had to push aside all the gut-wrenching hurt of that argument I’d overheard earlier, knowing logically that they’d been trying to actively hurt one another. Their barbs hadn’t been about me, but that was a symptom of the underlying cancer between the three of us.
“Noted,” I murmured, forcing my expression neutral so I wasn’t betraying any of the agony I was experiencing inside. “Well then, it seems pointless to continue this charade. Better to cut ties now, before any of us end up getting hurt.” As if we weren’t lightyears past that point already.
“What does that mean, mon cœur?” Leon asked with reasonable suspicion.
With a tight smile, I picked up Kai’s gun from the counter. Something told me neither one of them would make this decision easy.
Leon’s eyes lit up, and his gaze flicked to Kai. He was really asking whether I planned to shoot him? Christ. Was that what this had all come to? I needed to choose one… and kill the other? It made me wonder if that was even possible. I didn’t think either one of them would just stand there and take a bullet. Not that I could do that. I couldn’t shoot a man I loved, no matter how impossible my situation seemed.
“What are you doing, Siren?” Kai asked softly, giving the gun in my hand a cautious look. Wow, did he think I was going to shoot one of them, too? Dimly I found it interesting that Leon was so confident I would pick him and shoot Kai, while Kai was uncertain. He, at least, understood that things between Leon and I were deeper than just great sex.
A choice needed to be made. The longer I avoided making it, the more I was hurting everyone involved. It wasn’t fair on either Leon or Kai, and it wasn’t fair on me. But it did fall on me to make that choice… no one could do it for me. Maybe that was what I’d been waiting for. I’d been waiting for the guys to somehow make the choice easy on me, to offer me an excuse to pick one and leave the other. But they hadn’t done it. Instead, they’d both just proven why I should be with them and given me no reasons to not.
It should have been easy to choose. Shouldn’t it? Kai had literally kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured me. Not to mention he tried to baby-trap me. That kind of behavior ought to totally wipe him from contention. But I could have extracted myself from that situation at any point. I chose to stay. I chose to complete the job because I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving him.
He'd also killed a man he considered family, after finding out Sam had taken out a hit on me. He’d killed Sam, and all but abandoned the rest of his team… his sister. For me.
On the flipside, Leon tried to kill me. He also moved heaven and earth to save me. Twice. Hell, he’d killed people just to work with me, to get close and spend time with me. In a world of hot and cold, his ice is pure fire.
Every time I tried to convince myself that I'd made my decision, bile rose in my throat. The idea of abandoning either of them made me physically ill.
We couldn’t keep going like we were, that was abundantly clear. So I needed to stop being so fucking selfish and put a stop to the insanity now. None of the choices available to me were good. None of them. All I could do, was pick the one that hurt me more than it hurt them.
Licking my lips, I circled around the island, moving away from them both. “I’m choosing,” I announced, turning to face them both when I was closer to the doorway. “I’m making the only choice I can make, because the two of you have backed me into a fucking corner, and I hate it here. I hate this corner, I hate this situation, and I hate how you’re both handling it. It’s become painfully clear that you both seem to think of me as a replacement for Layla, or for Charlotte, or whatever the fuck her name was. But here’s the truth. I’m not her, and I’ll never be her. She’s dead.”
Kai’s frown was deep and bewildered, denial clear across his face, but Leon… he understood. He might not agree, but he understood the point I was making.
“So, you two want me to make a choice? Consider it done. I choose neither of you. We’re done.”
The silence that met my statement was so intense it was deafening. Then Kai stepped forward, the refusal to accept my choice etched all over his face. But I’d picked up a gun for a reason, so I raised it to aim at him.
“No, Kai. You wanted me to choose, and I have. Accept it. Move the fuck on.” I backed up further, but apparently Kai wasn’t taking me seriously. He followed, so I fired a shot at the light fixture above him.
Glass shattered, and he flinched, giving me the distraction I needed to get the hell out of the house. I was running away, no question about it, but I didn’t have any better options. I needed space, distance, time to process and get over my broken heart. I had every intention of coming back after I had some time to calm down and breathe. I wasn’t going for good, just for now. But I couldn’t stay and let them convince me otherwise.
Because where the fuck would that lead? Absolutely nowhere. Nothing would change, and we’d be right back in the same position.
“DeLuna, stop running,” Leon shouted after me as I burst through the front door. “Come back here and talk to me.”
“Screw you, Marx!” I shouted back, throwing open the door to the rusty old van that Tito had so generously donated. I paused only long enough to fire off two bullets. One into the front left tire of the Aston Martin, another into Kai’s motorcycle tire. Them following wasn’t in my plan. “You wanted me to pick, so I did. I picked me.”
I slammed the door and gunned the cranky old engine. Fuck them both for putting me in that position. But more than that, fuck me for putting me in that position. Had I really been so dick drunk that I believed we could live happily ever after?
Tears stung at my eyes as I drove away, and I couldn’t help glancing in the mirror. Both Leon and Kai stared after me, looking helpless and shellshocked, but I blocked out the regret that was already crowding my chest. Instead, I focused on Stanley, wobbling around in the back of the van with a Christmas bow still attached to his tallest frond.
“We don’t need either one of them, do we, Stanley?” I whispered, my voice choked up with grief. “You’re the only man I need in my life. You’d never force me to choose.”
Soft flakes of snow started falling as I drove away from the mansion, and I tossed my phone out the window. Fuck going back. There was nothing there for me anymore. I’d survive just fine on my own, like I had my entire life. At least this time, I no longer had anything left to lose.
Because I’d just left my heart and soul in the rearview mirror.
47
My hardened shell cracked with every mile I put between myself and them. But I didn’t stop. I didn’t turn around and go running back, begging forgiveness for what I’d said. Because I didn’t need their forgiveness. Nothing I’d said was untrue, no matter how much it hurt.
They wanted me to choose, and I chose me. Simple as that. I wouldn’t be forced into picking one of them over the other, because there could be no right decision. I would forever resent the one I chose and grieve the one I lost. Fuck that tragic existence.
Snow fell heavier as I drove out of Shadow Grove, with no real destination in mind. Hestia Safe Houses owed me one, though. Maybe I could seek refuge in one of their locations until I figured out a game plan. Shit, I didn’t even have shoes on.
The cold set in, despite my usual tolerance for extreme temperatures. Maybe it was the emotional exhaustion wreaking havoc on my body, but I started shivering so hard I needed to reach over and crank the heating in the shitty old rust-bucket.