Tainted Forever (Tainted Knights 5)

Despite how much my heart was breaking, it didn’t feel so beat-up all of a sudden. But instead of letting myself think about that, I kept us focused on Alicia. “What’s going to happen with her now?”

He closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against mine. “I don’t know. She wants me to go back to California, but I can’t. Not yet. Gray and Kassa are driving down before they head back, and I want to tell them so badly, but I also get why Alicia doesn’t want them to know. If they know she is so sick, they would cancel their wedding to take care of her. And that’s exactly what she doesn’t want. You know how independent she is, babe. She can’t stand for people to hover over her. She can barely tolerate me there because I freak out if she so much as yawns.”

“We’ll figure this out,” I promised him, stroking my hands down his arms.

I needed to touch him, to comfort him, to make this better for him. Rationally, I knew there was no stopping the inevitable. If the cancer was becoming aggressive, there might be nothing else the doctors could do. But the part of me that loved this man, that never wanted him to feel the pain of losing a parent, that part of me wanted to make it all better.

“I don’t want her to die, Kin,” he said, his voice hitching with a sob. “She and Kassa are all the family I have, you know?”

“I know, baby.”

He pulled me closer, pressing his face into my shoulder, his breath hot on my neck, his tears soaking into my dress. “I’m sorry, Kin. I don’t mean to put all this on you. I just—”

“No,” I cut him off. “I’m glad you told me. I want to help you through this, if you don’t mind?”

Jace lifted his head, his eyes drilling into mine. “Are you sure?”

Wiping a few of his tears away with my thumb, I nodded. “If you’d called me, I would have flown out to help you.”

“It took all the courage I have just to tell you today,” he confessed, his eyes closing as he leaned his head back into the seat. “Kin, you know I can’t keep a secret.”

It was a running joke among everyone who knew Jace that he couldn’t keep a secret to save his life. Which was why it was so difficult to believe he’d kept Eden to himself for as long as he did.

“I know,” I said in a voice barely above a whisper. “That’s what made it hard to digest when you kept everything with Eden a secret. If you had just told me about her when you first met her again, we might not have broken up.”

Who was I kidding? We wouldn’t have broken up if he’d just been honest with me. That he was confiding in me now, when Alicia, who was just as important to him as Kassa, had made him promise not to tell anyone, was a game changer for me.

Leaning back into the driver’s seat, I glanced out the back window. The parking lot was pretty bare, but the smell of coffee coming from inside McDonald’s was enough to catch my attention. “Let’s get something to drink, and then we can get back to Alicia. I’ll stick around until you figure out what you want to do. Okay?”

“Yeah.” His eyes opened, and he gave me a tight, pain-filled smile. “Thanks, babe.”

Giving him a smile I hoped was reassuring, I reversed the car and went through the drive-thru. Ordering large coffees for both of us, I insisted on paying and then got back on the interstate.

--

Kassa and Gray were already at the house by the time we got there. When I walked in with Jace, the three people sitting in the living room couldn’t keep their mouths from dropping open in surprise.

I gave them all a small smile, waving. “Hi. Sorry to drop in like this.”

Alicia got to her feet, and if I hadn’t known just how sick she was, I never would have realized. She gave me a warm smile as she pulled me into a hug. “You’re always welcome here, sweetheart. I’m so glad you could come see me.”

I hugged her tightly, my eyes burning with tears that I quickly blinked away before anyone could notice them. “Do you mind if I spend the night?”

“Not at all. You can sleep in Kassa’s old room if you want. It’s not like she uses it anymore.” She urged me to sit, and I took the smaller couch where Jace was already sitting.

His blue gaze met mine, and my heart twisted at the paleness of his face. This secret was eating him up, and all I wanted to do was hug him. I touched his arm, silently offering him all the support and love I had to give, before dropping my hand onto my lap.

“Did you two talk?” Kassa asked, getting straight to the point after watching her brother and me for a few minutes. “You left the gravesite service so abruptly when Jace tried to talk to you that I’m a little concerned for you right now. Did he kidnap you? Are you here under duress? Be honest. I’ll let Gray kick his ass, just say the word.”

My eyes met Jace’s again. “You tried to talk to me at the gravesite?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but you must have been lost in your own head.”

“I was just having flashbacks of Mom’s funeral,” I told him, my voice quiet, and his eyes softened. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

“I’m starving,” Gray announced, pushing to his feet. “You want fruit, babe?”

“I’ll make us some sandwiches,” Kassa said as she followed him toward the kitchen. “Kin? You want one?”