[Underground Kings 04] • Cruel Intoxication

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.