I’m not letting you go, baby girl. You need to accept that.

Don’t deny me what’s mine, Brighton.

Know what’s worse than cold turkey? Just a little bump. One tiny sip to take the edge off. The edges never went away, they only got sharper. Every addict would tell you. Gray areas couldn’t exist in a sober environment.

I’d single-handedly go to war and burn their whole organization to the ground before I ever let them harm what was mine. And there were no two ways about it- Brighton would always be mine.

The last five years had been a series of carefully orchestrated events. Every move, every strategy had been poured over in painstaking detail before it was set into motion. Pieces on a chess board. A collision of fate and circumstance. I’d planned for every hitch. Every contingency. Except the one that blindsided me like a vat of acid to the face. I fell in love with her.