Beyond The Broken Glass3: Finally Mended [complete]

11.) Bonus Chapter: And For That I'm Sorry

The next couple of days were filled with silence. She ain't say a word to me. She would move around me whenever I tried to cross paths with her. She wouldn't let me touch her. It was like living with a complete stranger all over again.

"Where you gonna go?" I asked her for the millionth time since she declared she was packing up the kids and leaving. "It ain't like you got money at your disposal."

"I don't know but I'll figure it out. Now please stop asking."

That was the first thing she's said to me in days. No cap. Mostly it was just me having a one-sided conversation.

"Why do you think you can just take my kids and leave? Why would you be selfish like that?"

"I tried like hell to save us from this. I tried to make it work Brandon. I really did." She said to me while wrapping her arms around herself as she took a step back. "I can't do this anymore. I love you but this is draining."

"That ain't love Bri. You don't just up and leave somebody you love."

"Neither is what you give and that's why we just need to go our own way."

"Are you serious? You wanna leave right now. In the middle of a crisis?"

"There's danger everywhere."

"Brielle—know what—fuck it. I ain't never been one to chase no-damn-body." I threw my hands in the air. "You can keep the house. But you can't take my kids."

"Why are you making this hard?" She mumbled as she wiped the tears from her face. "It hurts so bad and you still don't care."

I learned not to touch her when she was like this. It wouldn't help anyway. She suffered through her shit in silence. I was the same way but for a different reason.

"Yeah. I wish shit could be different but it ain't. So you learn to work with what you got and don't complain."

"What happened to us? This is not living." She sighed as she dumped herself on the floor. She looked defeated. Like she just gave up on everything. Including me.

"We got caught up in the wrong shit and now we paying the price."

"I wanna go back. I want my old life back."

I told her to stop doing that shit. It don't help nothing. She just makes herself miserable. I was so busy watching her that it was too late for me to notice he was peeking around the corner. At the moment I just wanted to hurt her feelings the way she hurt mine. So I said it without even thinking about the consequences.

"I hate yo ass man." I let my words slip and just as I caught sight of him he ran off to his room. His feet lightly yet audibly thumped across the floor.

"The feeling is mutual." She said as she stormed away from me. This shit is stupid from the very beginning all the way up until now. I should've just left her ass alone. I should have stuck to my guns and left the city instead I was trying to save a girl in distress, now I'm stuck with her and all her bitterness. At this point, I don't know if the love outweighs the anger. Maybe it's best to let her go.

I sat on the couch listening to them giggle as they did whatever it was that they were doing. Ralph would be pissed if he found out that I just willingly let her leave without fighting for her, but it wasn't shit left to fight for. We would raise the kids the best way we know how and move on like that.

I was so deep in my thoughts that I didn't hear her come into the room. Only when she appeared in front of me did I snap back to reality. She looked miserable, just like she said she was. Her eyes had bags out of this world and her cheeks were slim a major difference from the day I met her.

"We need to talk."

"About?"

"What it will look like in the future—for the kids." She sat down on the floor in front of me and wrapped her arms around her knees. "I'm not taking them from you. I just—"

"So what would you call it?" I cut her off before she could finish her dumb ass statement.

"Protecting them. Brandon, there are still people in this world that wish harm on you, and if they want to get to you who's to say they won't try through your kids? I don't want them getting hurt."

"You sure this isn't your way of trying to cut me off?"

"To live the rest of my life without a partner? You're forgetting that to the world we," She pointed between me and her. "Are technically dead. There's no going off and finding love and getting married. No matter how much normality we desire we just can't have certain things."

"That's the point I was trying to get you to realize. But you so fuckin' hell-bent on being normal that you don't even know what normal for us is." I told her as I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees.

"I just want them to have a happy childhood. I want to be happy. We deserve to be happy after all the sadness we went through. Why is that so much to ask for?"

"Because in this world everything ain't just one way or the other. Everything ain't simple. If I had everything I wanted I would be in Miami running my father's businesses with my brothers and nem beside me. But instead, I'm running from some niggas that my pops would have been shot in the head. But I'm running, running because I gotta look out for you, running because I gotta protect Milani, running because I gotta be here to raise Kyson. I don't do what I wanna do, I do what I gotta do."

The tears that were gathering in her eyes finally spilled over. She turned her head away so I couldn't see them. But I knew they were there. They always were. I'm not saying this shit is ideal, this ain't the life I wanted either but it's the life I was handed. When Darius died shit fell apart, my mama went bad, my sister went bad, my brothers turned on me and my uncle wanted to kill me.

Now look, I had to leave my mama and my sister behind. I had to kill my own brothers before they killed me. Derrick and Eric were supposed to ride for me. but instead, they put a seat at a table before me. They chose their sides and they had to pay for it. Darius wanted us to run his business as a family but they chose Ray over me. It's gone haunt me for the rest of my life, but I had to do what I had to do. It was either me or them.

I don't know what my future holds but I can guarantee you I'm not about to spend the rest of my life running with my tail between my legs. That was never in Darius's DNA so I won't let it continue to be in mine. The first thing was to get them out the way and after I put them away I'm setting this whole damn team on fire. Starting with Boone's little army.