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“I need to talk to you,” I rush the words out of my mouth, knowing my time is limited. “You don’t have to go into that ring I-”
“Get her out of here, Dickie,” he spits at the man next to him.
Dickie takes a step toward me, and I shoot to the other side of the room.
“Please I just need a minute-”
A loud sound makes another metal door tremble, and I jump in surprise.
“You’re on, White!” A voice shouts from the other side.
“Jamie,leave,” he snaps at me in rage.
“No! No, you have to listen to me. I spoke to Nathan, he wants you out of that fight. He sent me here, Jake. I know the bad blood there is between you two, but you have to trust him just this once. He’s getting you out of this, I promise you. He’s getting both you and Rose out of Bianco’s clutches, please believe me.”
There is a slight surprise in Jake’s eyes before he reels it in. He shakes his head in a sarcastic chuckle.
“Angel,” he murmurs as he slowly walks toward me.
He takes my face in-between his hands, making me notice the wraps he’s wearing from his wrists to his knuckles. “After everything that happened, how can you still be so naïve?”
He drops a kiss on my forehead and smiles. God that smile, it’s broken, it’s from someone who’s completely given up. It’s crushed and accepted loss.
“I love you,” he whispers before letting me go.
“No,” my voice wavers with sobs that are slowly taking over as tears start pouring. “No, Jake, you could die out there.”
And it’s insane, because two days ago, I wished he was dead. Two days ago I thought he had put my mom in jail. But he didn’t, he saved her instead, and him? He didn’t ask for anything in exchange.
He turns around with a hand on the door handle, and shrugs. “I don’t think our story was ever meant to have a happy ending, Angel. If it was, we would have known it by now.”
“That’s not true! Please,” I cry. “Don’t go, do it for me. For me!” But he’s not listening anymore.
I grab his arm and pull back with all my strength. “It’s insane, isn’t it?”
He raises an eyebrow and I keep going while I know I have his attention.
“The things one would do for love. It’s terrifying. We think we’re safe from the craziness that hides within ourselves.” I take a shaky breath, so scared to let this sort of truth pass between us. “That madness that comes out when we fall in love. Had I known that the first time I fell in love I would become this crazy, obsessed, addicted woman, the complete opposite of myself, I would have avoided it at all cost. Spending my life as a nun would have been a better idea than falling deeply in love like I did with you.”
“I let our love consume me, it left me with nothing of my true self. Or maybe…I don’t know, maybe it showed my true self. Had I known I would be left with a consummating burn, a fire of hell ready to destroy everything in its way. Then I guess I would have stayed away. From you, from Nathan. From the Whites.”
I shake my head, chuckling sadly. “I wouldn’t have. Thinking about it, if I could, I’d do it all over again. All for love. Foryou. Stay with me, Jake. Don’t go.”
He takes a deep breath, and I watch his strong chest rising and falling. I watch his defined shoulders tensing and releasing. He runs a hand through his ink-black hair, and his sharp jaw tenses.
Come on, Jake. Give in to me like I did to you.
“Don’t let her watch,” he orders Dickie before freeing himself of my hold and disappearing down another hallway.
I run after him in a last desperate attempt. Dickie grabs me but I knee him in the crotch right away. He folds in two in a groan, and it gives me time to run after Jake.
“Please, Jake!” I scream in a frenzy. “Please!”
The hallway leads to a huge industrial room. It looks like it used to be the main room, but all the machines have been taken away. All there is left is a large hangar that fits what looks like more than a hundred people. They’ve all parted to leave a path in the middle for Jake to walk. I look to the end of the path.
It’s not just a boxing ring.
It’s a cage.
