Tainted Forever (Tainted Knights 5)

“Jace!” Alicia exclaimed, outraged. “How could you take your sister to a party where there were drugs?”

“None of us touched the drugs, Alicia,” Gray assured her. “Emmie would have all our balls in a vise if we even tried that stuff.”

“Thank God for her, then,” she grumbled.

Kassa paid them no mind as she watched me closely. “Was Eden doing the drugs as well as passing them out?”

“She was high off her ass,” I admitted, disgusted even now by the memory of how off the rails she seemed that night. “We recognized each other immediately, even though we hadn’t seen each other since we were kids. She looked just like our mother did. In every way, since she was tweaking out from the coke, some of which was crusted under her nose.”

“Gross,” she whispered.

“I was worried about her, so I gave her my number. It wasn’t long before she started texting me. I wanted to get her help, Kas, but she didn’t want to take it. Then she found out she was pregnant. That was when she decided to get clean. For the baby.”

“So, you did what? Found her a rehab center to go into?”

I nodded. “It took me a little while, but I got her into one and paid for the treatment. Once she was out, she told the baby’s father, and they got married a few weeks later. He’s one of Petrova’s people, and they’re both going to stay clean for the sake of the baby.” At least, that was what Eden promised me. I wasn’t completely sure whether I believed her yet or not. Addiction wasn’t easy to beat, even when there was something as precious as a baby to keep you on the straight and narrow.

Kassa was quiet for a few minutes, digesting all of that. But then her nostrils flared, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “None of that explains why you kept this from me and Kin.”

“Kas, it’s complicated. I didn’t know if it was safe for you to be around Eden.”

“What does that mean, Jace?” she cried in frustration. “Why wouldn’t it be safe for me to know about our sister?”

“Because she tried to hurt you!” I exploded, the words rushing out of me.

“What?” Kassa and Gray demanded at the same time that Alicia put a supportive hand on my arm. She knew about how Kassa and I lived before we were taken into foster care. There was plenty of documentation on just how deplorable and dangerous our mother was back then. It was a nightmare I’d only ever wanted to put behind us once we came home with Alicia. But finding Eden had brought all of it back, and I was still trying to work through what were memories and what was just my overactive imagination at the time.

“Before Eden was taken into child services, she tried to smother Kassa with a pillow.” I groaned and pushed my free hand through my hair. “Or so I thought. I was a kid, Kas. My memories were little-boy memories, and my imagination altered things. I talked to Eden about it, and then I did some digging into our own case once we were put into the foster system. It wasn’t Eden who tried to smother you. It was our mother.”

“Wh-why would she do that?” my sister whispered, horrified.

Gray put his arm around her, kissing her temple reassuringly. “It’s okay, butterfly.”

“Hell, I don’t know what to tell you, Kassa. She was a junkie, loved her parties more than she loved us, or anyone else, for that matter. Eden was put into foster care, but then when her dad was located, she went to live with him in Florida. That was why we never heard from her again. But when our mother relinquished her rights to us, our father was never mentioned, so Alicia was able to adopt us.”

“I don’t even remember our dad,” she said sadly.

“I don’t either. I mean, I have some memories of him, but I can’t see his face clearly. I guess I was too young the last time he was around.”

We were all quiet for several long minutes, the only noise the annoying sound of Gray chewing his food from time to time.

“Okay, so what happened once you realized Eden wasn’t a threat to me?” she asked after a brief hesitation. “How long was it before you came to that conclusion?”

“A few months. It wasn’t until after she got out of rehab that we had a conversation that didn’t involve one of us screaming obscenities at the other.” I tapped my fingers on

the tabletop. “But afterward, she begged me not to tell anyone. Eden wasn’t ready to face you, and she had a lot on her plate with the baby on the way and sorting out her relationship with her new husband. She made me promise not to tell anyone, not even Kin. Otherwise, she said she would disappear, and I didn’t trust her not to start using again if I wasn’t holding her accountable. I was worried about the baby, Kas. I didn’t want what happened to us to happen to our niece or nephew.”

“Dude, I get you keeping all this from Kassa,” Gray surprised me by saying. “I’m not happy you’ve upset her, but I understand. What I don’t get is you not telling Kin. That’s just not right, man. She’s your woman. You two have something good. You should be telling her everything that goes on in your life and trust her to keep it just between the two of you. She deserved to know regardless of your promise not to tell anyone. Your loyalty should be to her, first and foremost.”

“I know,” I told him, realizing the magnitude of my fuckup.

“That’s all you can say? ‘I know’ seems pretty damn inadequate if you ask me.” Gray pushed his nearly empty plate aside, glaring at me. “I tell Kas everything. Even when I know she might be mad or hurt, I still tell her. It’s not that I want her to know everything. Sometimes, I could really do without her bitching at me. It’s because I need her to know. Because I love and respect her enough not to blindside her with secrets that could tear us apart.”

“I don’t need a lecture from a guy who fucked everything with a pussy up until he grew a pair of balls and then handed them over to my sister,” I snarled at him, pushing to my feet.

“Jace,” Alicia scolded. “Watch what you say, mister. And be respectful of your sister before I smack you upside the head.”

Kassa hmphed at me. “You should really take a close look at the words that come out of your mouth sometimes, big brother. You make it sound like Gray treating me like his life begins and ends with me is a bad thing. Why is that? Don’t you love Kin enough to let her have every part of you?”