But I knew she’d hate me when she found out. I’d known it.
It didn’t make it hurt any less.
It did nothing to lessen the agony that sheared through me.
Violent and piercing.
Ravaging every part of me.
I stumbled down the hall, hand darting out to keep me standing. To keep myself from dropping to my knees and crawling back to her.
But I’d hurt her.
Hurt her in the worst way that I could.
I knew it. I knew it.
And it just made me that much more of a bastard that I hated him too.
That I hated Joseph for putting her through what he had.
For being such a selfish prick that he hadn’t cared that he’d put Bailey and Faith in danger.
I hated the look of grief on her face when I told her that I had sat back and done nothing. That I could have stepped in and prevented what had happened.
Refusal tried to grab on to my heart and mind. This fucked-up piece that wanted to refuse it. To lay all the blame on Joseph.
I’d told him.
Warned him and pleaded with him to stop. Gave him every chance. Played his fucked-up games for years before it’d all become too much.
Before I couldn’t take any more and the only thing stopping me from coming back here and taking Faith and that little girl from him was cutting myself fully out of his life.
Maybe that was what I should have done right from the beginning.
Come back and taken them.
I staggered into the darkness of the room where I’d been staying, quick to throw my things into my suitcase.
It wasn’t like I had all that much there, anyway. The only things that mattered in those walls was Faith and Bailey.
Faith and Bailey.
My spirit roared. Roared and thrashed and demanded that I go back into her room. Take her back.
Make her mine the way she was always supposed to be.
Instead, I slung the strap of my overnight bag over my shoulder, grabbed my suitcase, and forced myself out into the hall.
Heart slamming against my ribs, I tried to go directly for the stairs, but I was trapped. Drawn to the door of that little girl who’d made me believe.
Magic.
I could feel it radiating from the room.
Unicorns and sunshine and fucking rainbows.
I wanted to get lost in it.
In the fantasy.
But that had never been my world, and every single time I’d attempted it, teased myself with the idea that I could have something more, it’d only brought on a greater loss.
Guessed I was just a sucker asking for the pain.
I set my palm to Bailey’s door, imagining that I could feel it, her life-beat thrumming from the other side where she was lost to sleep.
Eyes pinched closed, I left the rest of what I had right there.
My love and my adoration.
Because I’d never love anything as purely as I loved her.
Struggling for a strangled breath, I dropped my head, sucked down the pain, and forced myself downstairs.
I knew the only thing I had left to give was helping Mack wipe out any threat.
I tried to quietly latch the door shut, but a gust of wind slammed it, as if that storm was beating from the inside.
Quick to shut me out.
I forced myself across the fucking porch that gleamed white.
Safe.
That was all I’d ever wanted them to be.
After tossing my suitcase and bag into the backseat of the rental car, I climbed into the front seat.
My phone rang.
The only relief I got was the number that was flashing on the screen. “Felix.”
“Yo, man, you on your way out?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I’m on my way. I think it’s important you’re there. You’ve been right in the middle of this mess from the get go.”
I hesitated, not knowing exactly what to say, but not knowing how to just let go of the two who were inside.
It was like I could feel the agony bleeding through those old walls, the ghosts stretching out with the spindly, bony fingers, trying to grab onto me.
Refusing to let me go.
I just didn’t know if I could stand to ever have Faith look at me the way she had when I’d finally confessed my involvement. “Just . . . watch over them, okay? Don’t let anything happen to them. They don’t deserve any of this.”
Felix blew out a sigh. “Of course.”
“Thank you.”
Felix dithered for a second before he finally said, “No problem, man.”
Grateful, I hung up and gunned the engine as I headed toward Mack’s.
Remembering my mission.
Why I’d come here in the beginning.
I was doing this for them. Because I owed them their safety. The ability to move on.
And that was exactly what I was going to give them.
Forty-Two
Jace
Twenty-Nine Years Old
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Jace’s hands fisted on top of his desk as he shot to standing from his plush leather chair.
Unable to believe what he was seeing.
Who he was seeing.
Shock blistered through his senses, his eyes narrowed as he stared at the man who’d just walked through his office door.
Hot hatred spiked at the center of him.
He’d have thought that, after all this time, it would have abated.
Dimmed to a slight disdain.
But it was this ugly mass at the center of him that had only rotted and festered and grown.
Like a cancer that fed off the whole parts of him until there was nothing left but decay.
Joseph took a step forward.
Anxious and antsy.
Itchy.
A bead of sweat gathered at his temple and slipped down the side of his face.
“Jace,” he said, his name both contempt and an appeal from his tongue.
“What do you want, cousin?” It was nothing but a sneer. “I thought I told you I didn’t ever want to see you again?”
There was a threat behind it.
Because Jace was done. He had no sympathy left. Nothing left to give.
Joseph had already stolen it all.
Glancing away, Joseph roughed a hand over his face. “I need your help.”
Unbelievable.
“I told you the last time that it was the last time. You were supposed to get your shit straight and never show your face here again. That was the deal, remember?”
It was the damn deal, yet there he stood, sniffing up the money tree like the sleazy, cheating bastard he was.
So goddamned squeaky clean on the outside while the inside was foul and dirty.
“Things changed, Jace.”
“How’s that?”
He didn’t answer, just shifted uneasily on his feet.
“You gamble it away?” Jace demanded. He could feel another piece of himself breaking free and slipping down into that vortex.
Deeper and darker and bleaker.
Joseph swallowed thickly. No words were needed for the admission.
Motherfucker.
How could he do this to them?
Jace wanted to end him.
Or maybe run to Faith and tell her everything.
Convince her to walk away from her husband. Wrap her up and drag her to safety.
Seeing the fury in Jace’s expression, Joseph chuckled through scornful laughter, like he had the right to be angry with Jace.
“Let’s not pretend like what you did was for me when we both know you did it for her. It’s your fault I’m in this mess.”
“My fault? You’re the one who came here begging for help. You’re the one who was all over that deal the second I offered it.”
“Because it’s the only thing she ever wanted.” Bitterness filled Joseph’s gaze when he looked over at him. “But you already knew that, right? Which was why you gave it to me.”
Jace’s hands tightened almost painfully as he pressed them to the wood and tried to remain rooted when the only thing he wanted to do was fly over his desk and throw a fist or two.
Mouth watering with how sweet that kind of vengeance might taste.
Joseph laughed as his eyes moved over Jace’s face. Like he was amassing the proof and quickly coming to a guilty verdict. “You still love her, don’t you?”
Jace’s teeth ground, restraint crumbling. “I’m warning you, Joseph—”
His scoff was straight disrespect, his own hatred bleeding through. “How does it feel to want what’s mine?”