Our Broken Pieces

Chapter 24

Gage~

The ice in the tumbler clinked with another pour finished; an entire bottle of scotch nearly gone.

What the actual fuck?

After Lorcan had kicked me out of his building, I'd gone straight home and had been nursing my rage with all the available liquors at my disposal. Lorcan had been right to intervene, or else I'd probably be in jail right now. However, I still couldn't shake how right everything had felt the second that I had accosted Mystic in that conference room. I'd felt like a bear awaking from hibernation; alive and ready to do what's in its nature to do.

There'd been a lot going on in my mind-and in my fucking pants-but more than anything, I had wanted to break and ask Mystic why. I had wanted to ask her why did she fucking just up and leave me, but I hadn't. Partly because I hadn't been thinking straight, and partly because did it even matter all these years later?

After my first three glasses of liquor, I also knew that I wasn't going to be able to work with her on the Darwin proposal. There was no way that I could stand to be near her and not lose my shit. I'd either kill her or fuck her, and neither was a good idea. I had too much to live for in regard to the former, and I valued my sanity in regard to the latter.

However, I still hadn't managed to calm down, and I still found myself wanting to know why she'd left me. I knew that it shouldn't still bother me all these years later, but it did. I had loved that fucking girl with everything in me. I had loved her beyond reason, and she had walked away from me without any thought to what that rejection was going to do to me, and it'd done a lot. While my father might have damaged me, Mystic had broken me.

She had managed to do the one thing that I'd been fighting against ever since I'd first caught my father being a sonofabitch. Mystic had given me everything that I'd needed to cope, and then she'd taken it all away, and now all I could think of was doing the same thing to her.

I wanted to hurt her.

God, how I wanted to hurt her.

I wanted her to suffer in her own misery like I'd had to. Fuck, like I still was.

With that decision made, I called Lorcan. Sure, it was late, but Lorcan hardly ever slept. He was like me in that work ruled his world.

"How much?" he asked in lieu of a greeting.

"How much is what?"

"Is your bail," he clarified.

Dick.

"I'm not in jail, asshole," I replied sourly. "I'm slightly drunk but that's about it."

"Jesus, Gage," he sighed, and I knew that I should be concerned.

So, if he was concerned for me, then that must mean that I was really falling off the realm of reality, and nothing good could come from that.

"What?" I snapped, knowing that I wasn't going to like whatever it was that he was about to tell me.

"I don't know," he murmured. "I guess...even though I knew the story, I hadn't really realized the damage that woman had done to you. Seeing you almost throw away everything you've broken your back to achieve was...unexpected." Okay. So, he was still in shock. I got it. "And now you're calling me drunk, and you and I both know you never get drunk."

He was right, of course. If I drank, then it was for socializing purposes, but I never indulged beyond that. My demons were hard enough to control as it was, so I didn't need anything loosening the tight hold that I had on them. Though, apparently, that was all going to come to an end now because I had to know.

I had to.

"You care. Got it," I remarked dryly, because Lorcan and I didn't do emotions. I'd take a bullet for the man, but you'd never see me hugging him.

"I'm hanging up now," he threatened.

"Don't," I hurried. "I have a favor to ask."

"Jesus Christ," he muttered. "What is it, Gage? And how many years in jail am I going to have to serve for it?"

"Not many," I told him honestly. "You got great lawyers."

"You're a bastard," he simply said. "What is it?"

"I need Mystic's address."

"Fuck me, Gage-"

"You're not my type."

"-you can't be serious?"

"I am," I assured him.

"First of all, why don't you just look it up your-damn-self? And second, you get a lot more than 'not many' years in prison for accessory to murder, asshole."

"To answer your first question, I don't want her last known address," I replied. "I want her true and real address, which is on her employee file. As for your second concern, I'm not planning on killing her, Lorcan. I just want to talk to her."

He laughed.

Dark and unbelieving.

"Bullshit," he called through the phone. "You forget, Gage, that I saw you in that conference room with her. You looked like a man possessed, and while I may be a sonofabitch, I'm not looking to see anyone get hurt."

"Because after everything you know, you think I'd hurt her beyond what she can take?" While Lorcan didn't know the details, he knew enough to know that our relationship hadn't been normal.

"I wasn't talking about her, Gage," he said, surprising me.

Maybe it was the liquor, the emotional punch of seeing Mystic again after all these years, or the unwelcomed trip down memory lane, but I honestly didn't think that Mystic could hurt me anymore than she'd already had when she walked away from me ten years ago. At this point, I just wanted to know why she walked. Then, maybe, I could move the fuck on.

"I just want to know why, Lorcan," I told him truthfully. "There's really nothing left for her to damage further." Mystic had already ruined me in a way that I wouldn't wish on anyone. "I'm tired of living with that one unanswered question, and I finally have the chance to put it to rest."

"Fine," he relented. "But I want to go on the record as saying that I think this is a bad idea."

"Duly noted."

"Also, you didn't get her address from me."

I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn't see me. "That goes without saying, asshole."

"Motherfucker," he muttered before hanging up on me.

I wasn't stupid. I knew that this was a bad idea, but I had to fucking know. Even if I never set eyes on Mystic again after tonight, I still needed to know.

My phone pinged, and I looked down to see Lorcan's text. It had Mystic's address, phone number, and marital status.

Jackass.

I didn't need that last piece of information. I had noticed no ring on her finger when I had seen her at CI. It'd been one of the first things that I had noticed when my eyes had scanned the vision that's haunted me for ten fucking years.

Still, even if she had been married, I wasn't sure that would stop me from doing what I was about to do. She could have been married with two children, a pet, and PTA meetings scheduled into 2030, and it wouldn't have mattered. No one would or could ever know Mystic the way that I did. The proof had been in her eyes when I had wrapped her hair in my fist earlier. Mystic was just as sick and twisted as she'd always been.

Unfortunately for her, so was I.