More of You: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel

by Jackson, A. L.

  As if it were hacking through the two men I had loved.

  Because I hadn’t known Jace had even talked to Joseph in all those years.

  Joseph had told me Jace was dead to him.

  Dead to us.

  It’d hurt, but I’d had to accept that Jace had left me behind. Left us behind.

  I’d accepted it and lived my life the best way I knew how under those circumstances.

  The fact it was so different sent ripples of anguish splintering through me like shockwaves.

  “He came to me through the years for money when he’d get himself into trouble.”

  I blinked at Jace. “What do you mean, he came to you? You saw him?”

  I clutched the towel around me, scrambling back a little. I couldn’t stop the horror in the words. The accusation in them.

  But Jace hadn’t mentioned that he’d ever seen Joseph. Not once in all this time he’d been here.

  In all we’d shared.

  And Joseph sure had never said he’d seen Jace in all the years that we’d been married.

  Hurt bottled in my chest, and unrest whipped through the atmosphere. These fierce lashes of anxiety and worry that clawed through my bones. As if I was about to get sucked away into a vortex.

  A hurricane I couldn’t escape. One that would destroy everything.

  “He . . . you talked to h-h-im?” I asked again through a stuttered whisper, still unable to process how that was even a possibility.

  Pain streaked through Jace’s face.

  Torture.

  “Yes. Through the years, yes, Faith. I talked to him. And I knew he’d gotten himself in deep. That he was living the way he shouldn’t. He’d come to me when he needed something. When he’d gotten himself into trouble and didn’t know how to get himself out of it.”

  Sorrow rushed.

  How could Joseph have hidden this from me?

  How could I not have seen it?

  Anger rose inside me, this slow beat through my blood that increased with each thrum.

  Something horrifying flashed through Jace’s being.

  The way his big body shuddered in the moonlight, his voice going so low.

  “I warned him, Faith. I warned him that I was done. That I wouldn’t get involved anymore.”

  My throat went dry, and I swore that I could feel my heart shriveling right in the center of me. “What do you mean?”

  “He came to me . . . and . . . fuck.”

  Guilt twisted his face in a grimace of his own torment.

  “I sent him away, Faith. He came to me. Begged me to help him. Told me they were going to kill him, and I sent him away.”

  All the air was gone.

  The empty space it’d left swelled with the most gutting kind of pain.

  “No,” I whimpered. “You wouldn’t do somethin’ so horrible. I don’t believe you.”

  Jace’s voice turned rough with the admission. “I sent him away. I told him I didn’t give a shit what he’d gotten himself into. That it was his fault, and I was no longer responsible. I’d warned him that I was done. I warned him.”

  The last cracked on his own grief.

  Grief that was overwhelming.

  Slamming between the two of us.

  The awareness of what could have been stopped.

  Jace brushed his fingers over my face. My face that was pinched with the horror of it all.

  With Joseph’s choices.

  With Jace’s.

  With what he’d ignored.

  What could have been stopped.

  “I’m so fucking sorry.”

  I winced against the feeling of his hand on my face.

  Was that another betrayal, too?

  Another lie?

  “You . . . you knew they were gonna kill him, and you turned your back on him? You let him die?”

  It was all a spill of horror. Pain and guilt and remorse as tears broke free and streaked down my cheeks.

  “You came here . . . knowing all of this? What Joseph was into? And you didn’t tell me any of it? Why didn’t you tell me, the first day you showed up here, what you knew? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  The last left me on a screech of confusion. With too many emotions binding up my insides. The reality of everything feeling as if it was goin’ to finally bury me.

  Jace was tied to Joseph in a way I’d never known. Had had an inside into everything Joseph had been involved in, even a say in it. All the while, both of them had left me a fool floundering in the dark.

  Shame.

  Jace had always worn some of it.

  But I wasn’t sure I’d seen him wear as much of it as he was right then.

  But this was the quiet kind.

  Because it was real.

  Maybe for the first time, he had something to feel shameful for.

  I clutched the towel to my chest. “How could you have kept that from me?”

  A sob wrenched free.

  One for Joseph.

  One for me.

  One for Jace.

  How could we ever get past all these things?

  “I loved you. Trusted you. I don’t understand how you could just lie to me this way.”

  He sat back on his heels. “I told you a long time ago I’d never be good enough for you. Do you finally believe it?”

  That was the problem. I didn’t want to believe it. But the truth glared back at me.

  Both men who I’d loved, trusted, had lied to me.

  Kept me in the dark.

  Made me a fool and put my family in danger.

  I stared at the man I could feel crushing my heart with each second that passed.

  “It was never a question of you being good enough for me, Jace. It was a question of what you did with your life. The choices you made. And you made the choice to lie to me.”

  Those fingers fluttered across my face. So soft and full of sorrow.

  His and mine.

  I didn’t think either of us knew what to do with that.

  “I knew you would hate me before I left here. But coming here? Protecting you and Bailey. I won’t regret that. Not for a second.” Jace’s expression crumpled. Just as quickly, determination raced in. “I have to go. End this. For the two of you. Felix is going to be parked outside as the lookout. I know you hate me. I accept that.”

  His voice twisted in deep emphasis. “I just want you to know that my love for you? It was always the truth. I could never tell a lie that great.”

  Then he pushed to standing, turned his back, and strode out the door.

  Grief crashed into me.

  Stunning and extreme.

  Annihilating.

  My body swayed, and I slipped from the bed and onto my knees.

  Sobs ripped out of me.

  Loud and pummeling.

  Blows against the walls that echoed and shook.

  I wanted to scream out for him. Beg him to stay.

  A new kind of fear rumbled through my spirit as I heard him grab a few things from the room next door, his hesitating footsteps out in the hall before he hustled down the stairs.

  The front door slammed closed with the type of finality I didn’t ever want to consider.

  Forty-One

  Jace

  Pain lanced through me.

  Cut after cut.

  Excruciating.

  I stumbled out into the darkened hall of the old house. I swore that I could hear ghosts screaming from where they were chained to the walls. Metal clanging and scraping. Shrill howls as spirits begged.

  An echo of Faith and me.

  A wail from Joseph.

  A tangle of thieves and liars and cheats.

  What had I done?

  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.

&nb
sp; 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?”

  Jace was around the desk and across the floor before either of them could make sense of it. Joseph’s back was slammed against the wall, Jace’s forearm pinning him at the throat.

  The piece of shit squirmed, trying to break free.

  He’d once been as close as a brother.

  Once.

  “And why’s that, Joseph? Why do you have what I want?” Jace spat in his face.

  You thief. You fucking thief.

  He grunted his response, the answer always clear.

  But Jace had walked away like a fool.

  That day he’d gone back to Broadshire Rim, he should have flown out of Ian’s car like he’d wanted to do and told Faith everything.

  Made her see.

  Instead of going after the one thing that would ever truly make him happy, he’d turned his back and embarked on a mission to prove every motherfucker out there wrong.

  He never should have had his brother dump him in an unfamiliar city where he’d thought his only option was completely starting over.

  If he could do it all over, he would.

  But he couldn’t.

  And he could no longer be any part of that world without losing his mind.

  He had to move on.

  Forget it all.

  “Get the fuck out and don’t ever come back,” Jace gritted close to his face, pushing him harder against the wall. “Do you understand me? I don’t care what you got yourself into. I don’t care what you owe. I don’t care what you have coming to you. Do you get what I’m saying to you?”

  Jace took a quick step back, and Joseph slumped forward, panting for a strained breath. That single bead of sweat had bloomed to a fucking sheet of perspiration soaking his shirt.

  It took a second flat for his entire demeanor to shift. He stumbled a step forward, that look he’d mastered when he wanted something twisted through his expression, written in manipulation.

  Desperate.

  Needy.

  Fake.

  “Please, Jace, I didn’t intend to come in here and act like an asshole. I just . . . I need your help. Please. They’re gonna kill me, man. Please.”