Echo (Bleeding Hearts #1)(62)
“Don’t you ever compare me with that swine.” His eyes blazed with a hatred so strong it gutted me. “If he had called an ambulance that night, Sophia would still be alive. He deserves everything he has coming to him.”
“So this was it?” I croaked. “This is what it’s all about? Destroying my family?”
“Yes,” he admitted, his tone softening a fraction as he turned away and paced the floor.
“And that included me,” I supplied, hoping on hope he would deny it.
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “Maybe at first. But somewhere along the line you changed things. It became about wanting you instead of hurting you.”
My heart plummeted into my stomach as I clutched my arms around myself, shaking my head as the tears flowed freely.
“You asked me several times,” he continued. “Why I chose you. I’ll tell you why, Brighton. I hated you. I hated everything you stood for. Seeing you on the porch that day, with your virginal innocence and your naivety. So imagine my surprise that all these years later, I can’t get enough of it.”
He sounded weak for admitting the last part, and it only added to my pain.
“You’re sick,” I shouted.
“You didn’t mind it while I was f*cking you,” he said arrogantly. “Or don’t you remember?”
“I remember that you trapped me into an agreement to fulfill your need for revenge.”
“I can live with that,” he said. “And so can you, Brighton. Things have evolved out of my control. I didn’t expect to feel anything for you, but I do. And I can’t let you go. This doesn’t have to change anything between us.”
“This changes everything!” I screamed. “You’re trying to kill my family. And I cannot even begin to imagine how you must feel Ryland, but you can’t keep going down this road. You said so yourself. You told me you had doubts…”
“I can and I will,” he said resolutely.
“Then you can’t possibly care for me."
“But I do,” he admitted. “I’m… I care about you very much. And that is not part of the game. It was never meant to be part of the game. But it happened and I accept that. I want you in my life. Permanently.”
His words cracked some of my resolve, but I couldn’t show it.
“You can’t have us both,” I whispered. “You can’t have me and your revenge.”
“Don’t make me choose, baby girl," he said grimly. “You won’t win. I will see this out until the very end, even if it costs me everything.”
I clutched my chest and dragged in a breath as I willed myself to find strength. Ryland Bennett had just sliced open my heart. Now the only thing left to do was bleed.
“Then I guess you’ve already chosen.”
I turned and walked out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When I got back to the apartment, Nicole greeted me from the kitchen. One glance at the expression on my face, and she knew.
“Brighton…” she hurried towards me, but I held up a hand to stop her.
“You’ve been lying to me this entire time,” I croaked. “You’ve been helping him this entire time.”
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry. You don’t understand…”
“I understand perfectly,” I confessed. “Jackson was your boyfriend. And you were helping Ryland to get revenge. Because my father took him from you.”
“That may have been true at the start,” she sniffled, “but it isn’t what I really wanted. I told him I didn’t want to go through with it anymore. Once I met you and I realized…”
“You mean when you purposely met me in the park,” I interrupted.
“Yes.” She cast her eyes to the floor. “I’m so sorry, Brighton.”
“You helped him blackmail me,” I whispered. “You let him have sex with me when I didn’t even know who he was.”
She looked sick at my implication. “I didn’t know,” she swore. “I didn’t know he would go that far. He didn’t tell me that, and I only found out about it afterwards. I’m so sorry, Brighton. You must think I’m a horrible person, but I’ve been trapped in his game too. He won’t let me move on…”
“The flowers?”
“Yes!” she choked back a sob. “Every year he sends me those f*cking flowers, along with a note to remind me why he is doing this. To remind me how much Jackson loved me and to justify his need for revenge.”
The genuine pain in her eyes told me what she said was true. She’d confessed the same thing the night she explained her boyfriend had died. That he wouldn’t let her move on. Meaning Ryland. But it didn’t matter now because she was right. She was just another player in his game, and I couldn’t trust her. Not really. Everyone who had come into my life in San Francisco had been planted there, and I wasn’t sure who I could trust anymore.
“I have to leave,” I stated.
“Please don’t go,” she begged.
“I have to, Nicole.” I walked towards my room. She followed along, continuing the conversation while I packed.