Redeeming: Part 2 – Chapter 17

My parents didn’t raise me to ask to be loved.

Not by them. Not by anyone.

Love needs to be given freely.

No exceptions.

—Caitlin’s Secret Thoughts I broke her fucking heart so she’d be okay. Is she okay now, Sam?

I can’t get Callen’s words out of my head in the suddenly deafeningly quiet house as I walk down the stairs, careful not to trip on my unsteady legs. My bruised body aches from the near miss of the accident earlier.

A shiver rolls down my skin, just thinking about it.

One minute, we were talking, and the next, Bellamy was screaming as we both dove.

It all happened fast—so fast, it’s a blur in my mind.

The smell of rubber as the tires burned the asphalt before the car peeled away.

The way Kenzie and Wren ran out of the office, shouting instructions.

Everly’s hysterical voice as she called nine-one-one.

Mom holding my hand after she flew out of the bakery and never letting go.

Not even in the ambulance.

I was given every test imaginable, but none of them calmed me down until they hooked me up to the fetal monitor and let me hear the heartbeat.

My baby’s heartbeat.

Fast and strong and still there.

Still. There.

That sound and everything it represented scared me to death in Kenzie’s office.

The whole thing. The pregnancy. The baby. The lack of Callen. All of it.

But my God, barely an hour later, it wasn’t until the minute that beautiful little galloping beat came through the machine that I knew I was okay. Everything was going to be okay. I can figure this out, and I’ll never complain about this pregnancy again because my little pomegranate is okay.

I may not have planned it, but I want this baby.

Even if it took me nearly losing it to realize that.

I hadn’t been at my parents’ house long when I heard Callen’s voice.

I thought I was dreaming at first. As much as I hate to admit it, I just wanted Callen all day today. At Kenzie’s. At the hospital. I wanted him there with me. With us. But the dream of him may have been easier than this . . . whatever this is.

“Daddy?” I ask again with a shaking voice to match my shaking body. “What’s he talking about?”

My mother meets me at the bottom of the stairs before Callen can get to me, but his eyes carry the weight of the world with them as they look over every inch of me. They settle on the scrapes and bruises on my face, and I watch him physically break, wishing it didn’t bother me.

Mom blocks Callen. “Are you feeling okay?”

I nod and glance at my father, who’s standing silently across the room, before stepping in front of Callen. I don’t need to be protected. Not from him. If I survived him leaving, I can survive whatever the hell he’s doing here. “What do you mean you broke me so I’d be okay?”

He raises his hands toward my face, and I jerk away. “No. You don’t get to touch me.”

A bruise is blooming on his chin, and I want to kill my brother.

No matter how angry I am, I don’t want to see him hurt. Not by Maddox.

“Caitie . . .” Callen’s voice . . . that voice. God, how I’ve wanted to hear my name on his lips for months.

But not now and not like this.

“Will one of you answer me?” I channel all the anger and fear I’ve been holding on to. “Now.”

My mother wraps her arm around my waist, as if carrying my weight for me. “I think that’s a really good idea.” She looks at my father in a way I’ve never seen before. “Care to fill in the blanks?”

The room stays silent for far too long before he clears his throat.

“I did what was best for you, principessa.”

It’s like a bubble pops and sucks all the oxygen from the room.

“What did you do, Sam?” Mom’s voice is so calm, it’s frightening. She’s never questioned my father before. Not in front of me and my brothers. Not once.

Dad crosses the room, careful not to step on the shards of crystal and wood, and stops in front of me, and I know the look on his face. I know the stress in his eyes. This is all business-related. This wasn’t about Callen. This was about me. “I did what was best for you. I did what I had to do. What I’ve always done. And to keep you safe, I’d do it again.”

“Oh, Sam.” Mom stiffens beside me. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” I demand while my brothers stand silently watching as if there were a ping-pong ball volleying back and forth between us.

Dad’s jaw sets in an angry clench I’m also all too familiar with. “I’ve never discussed my business with you, and we’re not starting today.”

I try to get my fuzzy brain to make sense of all of this, but it doesn’t.

I’m not sure if it’s a protection mechanism or if I hit my head harder than I thought when I went down.

“Cait . . .”

I turn around and look at Callen. Declan stands behind him, quietly having his brother’s back. But Callen . . . he’s heartbroken, and it makes me want to scream. I’m so angry. At him. At my father. At my brother.

“You told me you loved me, and then you were gone,” I remind Callen. Anger and heartache mixes with mental exhaustion and physical pain. “You said you were wrong. That we were wrong, and you left. Moved out. You made me think I was crazy. That there was never anything there. That there was nothing between us.”

“Fucking coward,” Maddox growls, and I expect Callen to lose his mind over his best friend calling him that, but it’s as if he’s dismissed Maddox entirely.

The opposite of love isn’t hate.

Everyone thinks it is, but it’s not.

It’s indifference.

Callen ignores Maddox and keeps his focus solely on me.

“I would have done anything to keep you safe. To keep you whole and breathing. I thought I had to⁠—”

“Wait . . .” I turn slowly back to my dad. “You told him my life was at stake? You told him what? That he made me unsafe? But you never told me? My life, Dad. My. Life. How could you not tell me?”

My father has the decency to hold my rage-fueled glare and not look away, but he doesn’t answer.

“Did you tell him he had to break it off too? Was that you? Tell me it wasn’t,” I beg, but he doesn’t budge. He doesn’t need to say a word. I already know.

“You did,” I gasp as my head throbs with the realization that all of this . . . the heartache. The pain. The devastation. It was avoidable. “It was your fault. I’ve been miserable for months, and it was because of you.”

It starts to make some kind of warped sense.

Why Callen moved out so quickly.

Why this man who spent a lifetime protecting me destroyed me in one conversation.

“I could have had everything I ever wanted, and you stopped it without giving me a choice. I will never forgive you for that.”

“Caitlin—” my father pleads in a tone I’ve never heard from him before, but I move on, unable to look at him.

“And you.” I spin on Callen. “Did it even occur to you to talk to me? That maybe I deserved a say in how I lived my own life? Because I would have chosen you. You were worth it to me, even if I wasn’t worth it to you. We could have figured it out together. But instead, you unilaterally decided you knew best for me. Like I’m a child who needs to be saved. Shame on you.”

“You hating me was a small price to pay to keep you safe, Caitlin. It might not have been the right thing to do, but it was the only fucking option. You were all that mattered.” He looks so sure. So confident. And yet so pissed.

You can hear a pin drop as I turn away, unable to look at him one second longer.

I take in the destruction around me.

The bruise on Callen’s jaw.

The antique table Mom and I found at a flea market a few years ago, flattened and broken on the floor.

The crushed roses and Nonna’s favorite crystal vase, shattered.

Then I look at my brother, the one Callen tried so hard not to hurt, and I’m utterly disgusted with him and his part in all of this.

“Let’s not forget about you.” I take a step toward Maddox, and Lucky and Rome both take a step back. It would almost be funny, if it wasn’t. “God, I looked up to you. For years, I looked up to you. You had this circle of friends that I would have given anything to be a part of. You held those girls up on pedestals. Hell, you still do. Our cousins. The twins. You respected the hell out of them. I watched. For years I watched, and I was jealous.”

I pull the blanket tighter, as if it can protect me from the pain.

The pain the men in this room caused.

“But you never let me in that circle, did you, Maddox? You hold your friends up to such high standards and in such high regards. There’s only one problem with that—the higher you hold someone, the harder they fall.” I laugh. “I should know. But God forbid one of those friends is interested in me. I mean, it’s not like he’s worthy of my love. Right, big brother?” My voice grows incrementally louder with each new thought, but Maddox stays quiet. Guess he’s taking a page out of Dad’s book.

I really wish he wouldn’t.

I’m hungry for a fight.

I want a bad guy.

I want something or someone to focus all this anger on.

“He’s good enough to be your best friend, but not good enough for me?” I shove Maddox’s chest, but he doesn’t budge. “That’s rich, asshole. Do you know he didn’t want to let anything happen because of you. I fucking loved him, and he made me promise we wouldn’t lie to you. Because he respected you and me.”

“He’s not good enough for you, Caitlin,” Maddox yells back, and his anger is visceral. It’s a living, breathing thing. “He’s fucked every woman he’s ever met. Callen’s a whore. You deserve better.”

“It’s not like you’re a saint, big brother.” Disdain floods my words. “None of us are. Here’s the thing though—you called this man your best friend. But have you been paying attention? Because I have, and he’s never—and I do mean not ever—brought a woman back to the condo since the day I moved in. Not once. He wasn’t whoring around. Not at the bar. Not at the house. I saw it. I felt it. For four fucking years,” I scream at the top of my lungs, hysterical. “Four years, he wouldn’t make a move. It wasn’t until I pushed him that he finally caved.” My mother moves behind me, laying a hand on my back. “Four. Years. Maddox.”

“Caitlin,” Mom says coolly. “You’ve got to calm down. It’s not good for the baby. They told you to relax. This isn’t taking it easy.”

I shake my head, never taking my eyes off Maddox or the way he stands his ground.

“You fucked up,” I hiss. “You fucked up with him, and you fucked up with me.”

Maddox finally breaks. He seethes, but there’s a change in his eyes.

There’s a pain that wasn’t there a minute ago.

The mask falls.

“How could you, Cait? He’s Callen,” Maddox yells at me, and Rome moves between us. Maybe to protect me—or maybe to protect Maddox from me.

Tears burn the backs of my eyes as a sob bubbles up my throat, and I throw his words back in his face. “How could you? He’s Callen.” I let that jab hit as hard as it was intended. “He’s the boy you grew up with. The man you’ve roomed with. The one you trusted with your life. The one who spent a lifetime earning that trust. The only man I’ve ever loved. And you just hit him.”

Maddox rocks on his feet.

“He’s Callen,” I sob, suffocating, and step back, looking around until I find Callen, needing him to save me one more time, even if I hate myself a little for it. “I still hate you, but I’ve got nowhere else to go. Can I go home with you?”

He holds his hand out without a word, but I move around him to the front door, refusing to take it.

“Are you sure you want to go with him?” Mom asks as Declan quietly goes outside, but Callen stands here, holding the door for me.

“I love you, Mom, but I can’t stay here, and I don’t want to go home where Maddox will be.”

“Caitlin,” Dad interrupts. “We don’t know what happened today. I don’t think you should leave. This house is safe.”

“We have two very different definitions of safe, Daddy.”

This must be what shock feels like—because I don’t feel a thing as I walk away.