Axel reared back as if I’d slapped him and my breathing stuttered at the amount of pain etched on his face. “And you’re Ally Prince,” he said tightly, but I could hear the hurt radiating in his voice. I’d hurt him. Really hurt him.

“I’ve heard of you, Ally. I know your fucking cousin, remember. I know what family you come from. Your rich-assed oil family.” I opened my mouth to speak, to tell him he knew shit about me, when he said, “You were meant to be Aliyana Lucia… the woman that I tried to push away, but you kept coming back anyway, fucking melting me. You were meant to be Aliyana, the only woman, no, the only person who knows what I’ve been doing with my life for the last few years while inside, trying to keep my head down and not fucking suffocate under my guilt. You were meant to be the woman who claimed to feel my work. And you were meant to be the woman that told me that I was worth my weight in gold even though I told you I had a fucked up past. I’d warned you! I’d told you I was less than scum.”

My heart sank as he spoke those words, because I did say that. I was that person. But all this time, we were both pretending to be someone else. I wasn’t sure at this point if any of what we shared was real. I was so damn hurt… so shocked… so confused that I’d lost my heart to a criminal. A man I’d been led to believe was a ruthless, soulless prick.

Our heavy breathing filled up the bathroom. And, after a stabbing expression flitted across Axel’s face, he turned on his heel and stormed toward the door, turning the lock.

Suddenly panicking that he was leaving, my heart overrode my head and I called out, “Elpi!”

He stopped dead in his tracks, glanced back, and with pure pain in his eyes, said, “Turns out I was right, Aliyana. No fucker can forgive my past, no matter how hard I try to move on. Ain’t no redemption for me. You lied when you said I could be forgiven, Aliyana. You lied to my fucking face. Worst part is, I believed you. I believed you might be my light in this whole fucking mess.” Eyebrows pulled down, his facial expression became severe. “That’s what fucking hurts most.”

He opened the door and left, before I could even summon the words to beg him to wait, to talk this out.

Sliding slowly down the wall I slumped into a messy heap. I couldn’t holdback the heavy flow of tears.

Chapter Thirteen

Axel

“Who the fuck are you, Elpidio?”

Aliyana’s, no, Ally fucking Prince’s words haunted my mind. No, they had taken possession of my goddamn mind as I drove my Camino like a damn bat of hell toward my studio. I’d bailed on Austin and Levi. I hadn’t told anyone I was leaving. I couldn’t. I couldn’t face everyone in that damn rich-assed suite, everyone who wished I wasn’t there. The people who thought I was trash, looked at me like they wanted nothing more for me than to disappear… Aliyana and Molly looking at me like I was gonna walk up to them, pull out a gun and fucking murder them.

Aliyana! Christ, how could she fear me now? Now that I’d shown her the real me?

Did none of them fucking get that I did what I did in my past for my famiglia? I took the only path available to me and kept my famiglia going, I kept my mamma’s medication flowing in. And yeah, I fucking paid in blood, King blood… but what the hell else was I meant to do? I was a kid on my fucking own trying to fix problems I couldn’t fucking fix…

Seeing a red neon sign for a liquor store, I abruptly turned right and screeched my car to a stop. Storming out of my car into the store, I headed straight for the rows of whiskey. And grabbed a bottle of Patron and Jägermeister while I was at it.

I needed to drown in liquor for a while.

I wanted to forget who I was for a while… at least for tonight. Forget it all. The last few weeks, the last few years… everything… just for a fucking while.

But as I walked to the cash register, the damn Spanish record blaring through tinny speakers changed, the familiar Latino tune making me stop dead in my tracks.

It seemed as much as I wanted to forget, God had other plans.

Closing my eyes, I could still see Aliyana dancing to this song, “Amor Prohibito”, standing in her white shirt and pink Doc Martin pink boots, swinging her hips as she painted the wall of the gallery.

Hearing the little Mexican guy unlatch something from behind the counter, I opened my eyes to find him watching me, a terrified expression in his eyes. His hand was tucked under the caged counter. I really had to work hard not to lose my shit.

I’d tried real fucking hard inside to learn how to rein in my anger. But at times, I struggled, really struggled with it.

Marching forward, the man’s face paled as I slammed the three bottles on the counter and pulled out some cash. He swallowed, then shakily reached out his hand to take the cash.

Narrowing my eyes, I snapped, “Keep the change,” before grabbing the bottles and skulked out of the door.

As the cool evening air hit my face, I paused, muscles tensing as I tried to calm down. Gasping for breath, I headed to my car.

As I slid into the driver’s seat, I glanced to my right seeing a group of guys hanging out the back of the strip mall. My stomach churned. Everyone of them was dressed in dark loose clothes, crew tattoos covering every inch of their skin… and inked teardrops running down their cheeks, proving who they belonged to.

Staring at the brothers laughing as they stood together, dealing coke or whatever the fuck it was they were pushing, I felt a moment of nostalgia. The only time I’d ever felt like I belonged in this life was with the Heighters.