It was just a deal.

That’s how it started. Black ink, red folders, a signature on a contract that came with blood on the paper and chains around my neck.

Your name was at the top of the page.

Mine was at the bottom.

And in between it said: Get her ready, or you’ll die in this life like every other useless son of a bitch I’ve bled dry.

Your father—our boss—told me what to do. Told me to bring you in, let you photograph the band, train you behind closed doors, toughen you up until you didn’t flinch when someone pulled a trigger.

I said yes.

Because I wanted out.

Because I was tired.

Because I didn’t know you yet.

Didn’t know you’d be the one to walk over to me the night I climbed onto the roof of the hotel.

Didn’t know your voice would pull me back from the ledge when I was about to jump.

Didn’t know you’d end up saving me from the war in my own head.

And now?

Now you know the truth.

You found that I was going to sacrifice you to your mob boss father for my own freedom from the mafia.

You found out who your father really is.

Found out your entire life has been a lie.

And you found out I was part of it.

I was never supposed to fall in love with you. Hell, I didn’t even believe in love before I met you.

You didn’t scream.

Didn’t hit me.

Didn’t cry.

You just looked at me like I was a stranger. Like I was something less than human.

And then you left.

The hotel’s quiet now. Too quiet.

The boys are down at the casino, probably wondering why I haven’t joined them. If they come up to the hotel they’re going to wonder why the door’s locked. Well, all of them apart from Niall, he knows.

He always knows.

“He only locks it,” Niall told you once, “when he doesn’t want to be saved.”

I’m shirtless. Always am when it gets bad.

When the memories claw up my spine and I need to see the damage to remind myself why I’ll never be whole.

The scars on my chest. My back. Souvenirs from my father. His belt. His fists. His promises that I’d never be anything but his failure.

I never let anybody see me shirtless after my only ex girlfriend Bethany—from when I was fifteen—saw them and left me. Until you. You’re the only one who’s ever seen them and didn’t look away.

But now you’re gone. And I can’t fucking breathe.

So I take whatever I can get my hands on.

Xanax. Coke. Ecstasy. Pills I can’t name.

I take and take and take until everything slows down, until the world starts to fade.

Until maybe I won’t feel anything at all.

Everything is going black. I wanted quiet. But this is too quiet. I’m slipping away.

Then I hear it.

Your voice outside the door.

Frantic.

Snapping at Liam. At Niall. Louis trying to keep calm but failing.

You’re picking the lock.

You’re coming for me.

Even now. Even after you found out about my betrayal.

And just before the door clicks open, I hear you say it—sharp, serious, voice already cracked:

“When I open this door, none of you fucking look at him until I say so. He’ll be shirtless, you can’t look at him until I put a shirt on him.”

You still care. Even after everything.

You know I won’t want the boys to see me shirtless — I won’t want them to see the scars on my chest and on my back.

But you don’t know what you’re about to walk into. You don’t know I’m already slipping.