Hard to Fight (Alpha's Heart, #1)(30)

“You always run out on men without even a good morning?” he murmurs from the bed.

I don’t look at him. I can’t.

“I, ah, I have to work this morning.” Liar.

“Right,” he mutters.

Swallow back the pain, Grace. Do your job. This is your choice. This is your career. This is what you signed up for. If you can’t hack it, you shouldn’t have fought for it.

I don’t realize I’m crying until warm arms circle around my waist and soft, sweet lips hit my neck. “Baby,” he murmurs.

God dammit. One word, and he’s crushing my soul. “I have to go,” I whisper.

“Why?”

“I told you why.”

He spins me around gently and pins me with eyes I just want to forget. I don’t want him to look at me like that. I don’t want him to think I’m someone he can have.

He tilts his head to the side and studies me. “There a reason you’re crying?”

“I, ah—” I swallow. “No.”

“Was it that bad?”

I laugh softly. “No, it was amazing.”

“Come away with me, Gracie.”

God. Stop saying my name. Just stop. “I can’t.”

“A few days, to get to know each other.”

My heart lurches. A few days away with Raide. What I’d do for a few damned days away with Raide.

“I can’t,” I croak.

He reaches up, running a thumb over the tear dripping down my cheek. “I don’t know you, Gracie, and you don’t know me—but what I do know is there have been few women in my life who make me both angry and happy at the same time.”

“I make you angry?”

He smiles, and dammit if I don’t want to melt into him. “Yeah, you piss me right off. Yet, at the same time, I want every single part of you. Can’t get you out of my head, lady, no matter how hard I try.”

I clench my jaw.

“You challenge me.”

I swallow.

“I like that.”

Oh shit.

“You make me want to put you over my knee.”

My bottom lip trembles.

“I f*ckin’ like that.”

“Raide,” I whisper.

“Come away with me, Gracie.”

“No.”

“Baby.”

I step back. “No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

I let my eyes dart around the room, trying to find something, anything. “I don’t know you.” It’s the best I’ve got.

“So?”

“So you could be anyone, Raide. I don’t know anything about you.”

He studies me and I expect him to blow me off, but he doesn’t. What he does, is blow my mind.

“My sister is dead,” he begins, and my mouth drops open. “She was dating a man, didn’t know him well—all I know is he was beating her. She was all I had, Grace. There was nothing else. She called me one night, told me he was scaring her, that he had been hitting her. I got in my car and went to her. By the time I got to her, she was dead. Stabbed. He was standing there, staring down at her, knife in his hand. I lost my shit, I beat the living shit out of him. I was going to kill him, don’t doubt it, but the cops got there as I was leaning over him, knife in hand. You can guess who they blamed.”

Oh God. My heart burns for him. Emotion explodes in my chest, making my knees buckle. I knew Raide didn’t do it, but hearing him say it, hearing him admit it to me makes my heart swell with sadness for him. I can’t imagine how hard it’s been. Tears burn under my eyelids and I fight to keep them back. Everything inside my body hurts for this man, it hurts because he’s suffering, he’s in pain, and that f*cking kills me.

“Why are you telling me this?” I rasp.

“I’m telling you because you want to know me. You don’t want to know my favorite color or my favorite food or where I like to vacation—you want to know the worst part of me, and that right there, lady, is it.”

I blink back my tears. “Why didn’t you say what happened?”

He looks past me at the wall. “Because he told them I came in, tried to get his sister away, and that when she didn’t come, I lost it. He was beaten, she was beaten and stabbed. I had the knife. I had the bruised knuckles. That f*cker was clever—he had no marks on his hands, must have hit her with his palms. I have a previous record for breaking and entering, and assault when I was younger. Who do you think they believed?”

Poor Raide.

Oh God. Poor Raide.

“And the trial?” I can’t help myself, I have to ask. Any normal person would ask that question. They’d want to know what’s happening. They’d want to know why he’s not in prison.

“I got bail,” he says. “And now I’m lookin’ for him.”

I flinch. “You’re looking for him?”

He’s only confirming what I already guessed.

“He deserves to pay, Gracie. He took her life, he took her from me—” His voice cracks and my heart breaks, it tears right open. “—so I’m going to make him pay before I go down.”

I close my eyes, and my body trembles. Revenge. He’s going to get his revenge. I want to be angry with him for that, but how can I be? He’s broken, he’s hurting, and he’s going down for something he didn’t do. That man, he took away everything Raide had left. Pain rips through my chest and I want to reach out and just hold him. I want to make it better, yet deep down in my heart, I know I’m only going to make it worse.