Page 227 of Reckless Obsession

“I won’t hate you,” I cut in softly, my tone completely level.

Maksim’s dark brows dip slightly. For a split second, the cold mask falters, caught off guard by how calm I am and by the fact that I’m not throwing myself between them, screaming at him, or trying to save the man tied to the chair.

“Tristan…” Jake chokes out from behind him, coughing around a ragged sob. “Tristan, please, look at me.”

I clench my jaw.

Slowly, I let my eyes drift from Maksim back to Jake. I pull my hands from my coat pockets and cross the concrete floor until I’m standing directly in front of him.

He looks up at me through a curtain of sweat and disheveled hair, tears cutting clean tracks through the grime on his bruised cheeks, his eyes wide with a desperate, pleading vulnerability.

I know that look.

Years ago, that exact look could bring me to my knees. It was the look he wore every time I caught him lying, every time I found another hotel receipt or an unfamiliar name on his phone. He would cry, weaponize that fragile grief, gaslight me into believing I was the paranoid one, and manipulate me into forgiving him over and over again until my own sanity wore down to nothing.

Now, looking down at him, I feel completely numb.

“Do you remember when we met?” Jake whispers, his voice trembling as he tries to find solid ground.

I hold his gaze, my face unreadable. “I remember.”

“You were so fucking quiet.”

I say nothing.

“You barely spoke to anyone. You were always sitting somewhere by yourself, looking like you wanted everyone to leave you alone.” His smile grows a little. “I remember thinking you hated me.”

“I didn’t hate you.”

“You didn’t make it easy to tell.” He shifts slightly in the chair, the movement pulling a grimace from him. “I kept trying to talk to you anyway. I’d sit beside you even when you didn’t ask me to. I’d find excuses to be around you. I’d drag you into conversations. I wanted to be your friend so badly.”

“I know.”

“We eventually became friends,” Jake continues, his chest rising and falling in shallow, desperate breaths. “And then we became more. You let your guard down for me, Tristan. You were the one who leaned in and kissed me first on the rooftop in Chicago. You were the first one to say I love you.”

“I was,” I acknowledge evenly. “I’m not going to rewrite history, Jake. That happened.”

A flicker of hope sparks in Jake’s tear-filled eyes. He leans forward as far as the restraint allows, trying to bridge the distance.

“And our wedding…” he breathes, swallowing hard. “On the coast. You were so sure of us that you went and got our date tattooed right over your chest because you said you wanted it carved into your skin forever.”

I look at him for a long moment.

Then I say, “I do not have it anymore.”

Jake goes still, and the fragile smile falls apart completely.

“What?”

“I had it removed.”

His eyes search my face, as though he is waiting for me to say I am lying.

“Why?”

“Because I did not need it anymore,” I say. “And because every time I looked at it, it made me angry.”

Jake’s breath catches. His mouth opens, then closes again. Tears finally slip down his cheeks, though he wipes at nothing because his hands are bound behind his back.