Before her speech developed, I never knew why. Now, on the mornings she wakes up early, restless from the night before, she speaks hurt in her tiny little voice. “Afraid, daddy. ‘Fraid you’ll leave me.”
It’s like a stake through the heart. Those are the times I grab her tight, hold on, and promise daddy’s never going anywhere.
Then the guilt sinks its teeth in. Chews my heart to pieces.
I’m a fucking liar and I don’t want to be.
I wish I could promise her I’ll be good, I’ll be enough, and no, nothing will ever drag me away from her as long as I’m breathing. I want like hell to say it and mean it, more than life itself.
But I can’t.
Because what I’m swearing up and down to honeybee clashes with the vow I made to three dead men.
I know what it means. Know the risks.
If I screw up, if I get caught trying to put Jackson Kelley under, there are plenty of ways I’ll be stripped away from her for life.
Hell is this paradox.
How the fuck do I keep both promises? How do I live with myself breaking one?
I don’t know. I press my lips hard to honeybee’s forehead, banishing the torture before I whisper the same words I do every night. “Sleep tight, baby girl. You’re safe, you’re loved, and you always will be.”
That part is true, at least. I’ll die before it isn’t.
I’m in no mood for Red waiting in the kitchen. She’s standing by the stove, her arms crossed, eyeballing me from the knees up.
I tilt my head without saying a word. What the fuck now?!
“You called my brother ‘killer,’” she says quietly. “What did he do over there? There’s a reason you hate him.”
Guilty. But I’ll be damned if I buckle so easy and spill.
“Mind your own business, Red. You’ll never understand. It’s better that way.” I turn my back, ready to beat it. Too bad she’s too fast. Those little hands reach out, catch the nape of my neck, and squeeze.
I whip around. There’s a thousand stars dancing in her evergreen eyes. “Try me. I don’t want to take his side just because we’re family, Marshal. If he’s done something truly awful, then –“
“Then the last thing you want is a grandstanding chickenshit for a brother!” I’m snarling. Somehow, her wrist made it into my hand. She’s shocked, and then it’s my turn. “Look, I’m trying to save you. I also need some damn sleep, woman. Yeah, your brother made mistakes. Big ones. That’s done now. You want to know, find out from the horse’s mouth.”
Her jaw falls open and closes just as quick. Her sharp little tongue flicks across her lips, giving me another sensation I don’t need. I can’t get hard in the middle of this. “But…”
“But nothing, Red. Listen! Ask yourself what’s the point of me dropping the ugly truth on your head? Do you really want to see every skeleton in his closet and wreck a perfectly happy family?”
She hesitates, jerks her eyes away, burning a hole through the wall with her stare. “I don’t…I don’t know anymore, Marshal. No one tells me anything.”
“That’s what I thought,” I whisper, letting her hand drop.
And that’s how it has to be.
Her silence is my cue to exit. I drag my ass upstairs with electric venom nipping at my veins.
Sad thing is, treating her like shit is the lesser evil. This predicament is my fault, too. I slipped up when I called him ‘killer.’ Put a new worry in her pretty little head that’s only making this harder.
Too goddamn bad. My lips are sealed.
No good will ever come from laying Jackson’s dirt at his sister’s door.
Not for me, not for my mission, not for her.
I’m heading for my room, resisting the urge to slam the door shut like I want to, so hard it rattles the entire house. I can’t wake Mia.
She’s too precious. I’m already risking too much hurt she doesn’t deserve, pursuing this vendetta. Her little face brings me to a stop in the hall. The pictures from when she was just a newborn hang there, framed in the moonlight streaming through the window.
So tiny, but bigger than the world itself. Knew it the first time I picked her up, and the feeling’s never gone away.
So soft and so dependent. She needs me, and even though I act like I don’t, it’s mutual.
I need her. Mia keeps me sane, focused, prevents me from lashing out like a bigger fool than I’ve already been.
I’m so lost in my own skull I don’t hear the footsteps behind me. I’m ready to throw the intruder through the nearest wall the second those hands grab my waist, but I relax once I realize whose they are.
They’re too small, too warm, too regretful to be dangerous.
“I’m sorry for down there,” Sadie whispers, tickling the nape of my neck.