Cruel Intoxication (Underground Kings 4)

Promise me you’ll love again.

I hear the last words my wife said to me every day.
A promise I have never and will never fulfill.
My heart is stone.
Impenetrable.
I don’t care.

I spent twenty years in prison for a crime I didn’t commit.
The punishment is what I deserved.
For not being there for her.

I’m on one mission now.
And it isn’t to find love like I promised.
It’s to kill the man that killed my wife.

It’s near the anniversary of her death now and I’m in the woods, camping.
Hunting. Keeping my skills sharp.
And that’s when I happen upon her.

She’s stumbling naked in the forest, cut, bruised, and half dead.
I should give her to the authorities, but something about her makes the stone of my heart crumble a bit.
But years ago, I made a promise I couldn’t keep.
And this girl is better off without me.
I’m tarnished.

No matter what, no matter how tempted, no matter how much I crave her touch, I cannot give in.
Promises are made to me broken.
But can I live with broken promises?
The more I convince myself that I can, the more whiskey says I can’t.

Love is the worst bender you can go on.