He sat there so pitiful, so dejected, and Morgan was conflicted. Eighteen-year-old Mo would have wrapped her arms around him. She would have broken every rule to have him a part of her world, but he had proved to be a disappointment. He had burned her, and she hadn’t been the same since. At twenty-one, she was a bit older, a bit wiser, a bit tarnished, and she held some resentments. She couldn’t deny that she loved him still. Even after 912 days, he made her entire body react just by being in her vicinity. He activated her spirit whenever he was around. She didn’t know what to say to him, what to do with him.

The buzzing of her phone caught her attention, and she picked it up to find she had missed calls. Bash. Ethic. Alani. Even Bella had been trying to reach her. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

“Don’t marry him, Mo.” Messiah’s words stopped her feet from working.

She was in the threshold of the door—all she had to do was keep walking—but her fucking feet wouldn’t move. His hands around her waist, pulling her back into the room, back into his arms, as he kissed the back of her head. He breathed deeply, inhaling her scent because he didn’t know if she would ever let him get this close again.

She turned around and marked him with sad eyes. She reached into her purse and removed his guns, placing them on the stand by the door. “There is a part of me that’s going to always wonder what we could have been, Messiah, but there is also a part of me that will always wonder who I could have been if Mizan had never come into my sister’s life. If my daddy and my mama and Raven were alive, and I had them. When I look at you now, I see him. I don’t know how I didn’t see him in you before. The anger issues, the quick temper. I’ve always been afraid of him, Messiah. I used to be extra good when he was home. Try to be extra nice to him so he wouldn’t get mad and blow up on my sister. He thought I liked him, because I used to pretend to try to keep him in a good mood so he wouldn’t hurt her. I was terrified of him, though, and with you being here, it’s like I’m a little-ass girl again, staring at him, pretending that my heart isn’t in my throat. I’m afraid of you now, Messiah.”

Messiah nodded as his temple throbbed, and he sniffed away his emotion. He was trying his hardest to keep it together. She could see his struggle, but damn if antipathy didn’t stop her from soothing him.