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

by Jackson, A. L.

  Jace cracked a grin. “They’re gonna kill you, huh? I hope so.”

  It was his own taunt.

  His own disrespect.

  Besides, Jace knew better than to believe a single word Joseph spouted. He stepped back and pointed at the door. “Get out before I kill you first.”

  * * *

  Three Weeks Later

  Jace picked up his cell where he sat at his desk. Atlanta was spread out below him where he took in the view from his high-rise apartment.

  He felt a single thud in his chest when he glanced at the screen.

  “Mack,” he answered.

  On the other end of the line, Mack pushed out a shaky sigh. “Jace, I have bad news.”

  Jace’s heart froze in the middle of his chest.

  “We found Joseph in his car in front of the grocery store. A bullet through his head.” A bottled sob scraped up Mack’s throat. “They killed him.”

  Forty-Three

  Faith

  Tears kept streaking down my face where I was on my knees on the floor. The room spinning as I tried to make sense of the news I’d received.

  I didn’t want to accept it.

  The betrayals that had been meted at the hands of Joseph and Jace. I didn’t know which hurt worse.

  My phone vibrated on my nightstand. A string of blips calling out.

  With my insides twisted in pain, I forced myself onto my feet and stumbled that way, barely able to see through the bleariness of my eyes.

  Through the loss that thrummed and churned and seethed.

  Oh God. How was I ever gonna get through this?

  How had I been so blind not to realize Jace knew more than he was telling me? How could he come into our home and keep this kind of secret?

  There was no reconciling the two. No way to patch it or glue it or fix it.

  Joseph was dead. Failing himself. Failing me.

  And Jace was caught somewhere in the middle of it.

  My soul cried out.

  Horrified to realize I really hadn’t known Joseph at all.

  That he’d been into all the things he’d promised me he never would.

  Promising me that he was different.

  That he would give me the kind of life that I deserved.

  Maybe it was all my fault, anyway.

  My fault for letting myself love him but knowing I could never love him all the way.

  Maybe I was the one who was truly selfish, taking somethin’ for myself and knowing I couldn’t give all of myself in return.

  Maybe I was the one who’d betrayed and shamed and gone the wrong way.

  A wave of grief and guilt slammed me.

  My knees knocked, and a raw sob clawed out of my throat.

  Everything hurt.

  Excruciating.

  Blinding.

  I tried to pick up the phone, and it clattered back down when it slipped from my trembling hands, and I sucked in a breath as I forced myself to focus, to pick it up.

  To remember the only thing that really mattered was the little girl sleeping across the hall.

  Her safety and her future.

  I thumbed across the screen.

  Jace: Felix is on his way over to stay with you until this is ended.

  Jace: The last thing I will do is leave you unprotected.

  Jace: Even though you hate me, I won’t leave either of you unsafe.

  Jace: I’m so sorry, Faith. So sorry. The one thing I ask is that you never forget that I truly loved you.

  I felt the force of his devotion through the words. His love and his regret. It nearly dropped me to my knees again.

  My attention moved from the words on the screen to the picture I still had at my bedside.

  Joseph and me on our wedding day.

  My insides curled with grief.

  How could you?

  I wanted to scream and shout at him so loudly he would hear my words from beyond the grave.

  How could you?

  Immediately, the words of that letter I’d found filled my mind.

  Faith,

  The first time I saw you, I wanted you. I guessed I’d always chased after the things that weren’t mine. I’m so sorry for that. But I don’t regret it.

  Do you remember the day we got married? Look at that picture, Faith. Look at me. It was the most honest day of my life. But even that honesty was tainted because you never really belonged to me.

  I could never regret you. The only thing I wish is that I’d done it all differently.

  Look at that picture, Faith. What you see there, it’s the truth.

  Joseph

  Tears blurred my eyes as I stared at the image. Both of us so young. What I felt for him so different from what I’d ever imagined for my wedding day.

  But I’d been happy. Happy in a resigned, compromised way. Resolved to love him the best that I could.

  Suddenly, I was struck with an urge. A frenzied desperation as I lifted the frame and threw it against the wall.

  Glass shattered, the frame bent, and the picture shifted from its position.

  I gasped when I saw something peeking out from underneath.

  I dropped to my knees and grabbed the metal, shaking the glass loose, the knot in my chest expanding in this blossoming pain when the small folded piece of paper slipped out.

  Blinking through the bleariness, I carefully grabbed it and unfolded the letter.

  My heart twisted in two.

  He was always your beast. I never should have tried to compete with that.

  Instantly, I was taken back to the day we’d argued, when he’d screamed at me to throw the Beast away, that he didn’t want any memories of Jace in our home.

  I hadn’t had the heart to get rid of it and had hidden it in the back of the closet.

  I’d almost regretted not throwing it away the day Bailey had found it and started carrying it around as if it was her best friend, the quiet yielding hurt that had blanketed Joseph’s eyes when he’d come home and found his daughter carrying on about how much she loved it.

  The Beast.

  The Beast.

  Choking over the sobs in my throat, I climbed to my feet, raced to my dresser, and pulled on a tee and sweats.

  Without slowing, I rushed to my daughter’s room and I gently pulled the tattered stuffed animal out from under her arm, careful not to wake her as I knelt beside her bed and frantically searched.

  Hands pressing hard over the face and the arms.

  I froze for a beat when I patted down the blue jacket and felt the crinkle in the sewn-down pocket.

  Shooting to my feet, I hurried back out and into my room, fumbling for the scissors. Frantic, hiccupped sounds jetted from my mouth as I cut it open and found another note.

  This was a series of six numbers.

  And I remembered the key.

  The key in the drawer with the letter.

  A trail that Joseph had left me because he’d known.

  Oh God, he’d known he was leaving this world.

  Memories flashed.

  Joseph and I on the top floor as we made plans to clear a few things out. He’d brought attention to the old safe up there, winked at me when he’d said, “This baby holds all my secrets.”

  I’d thought he was joking.

  Teasing me.

  Breaths heaved in and out of my aching lungs, and my heart stampeded, so out of control as I rushed to the drawer and grabbed the key and fumbled upstairs to the third floor.

  Darkness spread out over the rambling, open space. Antique furniture was everywhere, some covered in sheets and drapes, other pieces covered in dust.

  I scrambled for the old safe where it was hidden inside an armoire, hardly able to get my hands to cooperate as I shoved the ancient key into the lock, my spirit screaming as the old door creaked open.

  Inside was a small, newer safe. The kind that had digital numbers to enter the code.

  My entire body rattled as I pulled it out and tried to squint at the numbers on the sh
eet.

  Then I froze when I heard the creak from behind me.

  I wasn’t quite sure what it was. What made the fine hairs at my nape stand at attention.

  The ugly presence that billowed through the space.

  Fear banged through me, so intense it whipped against my skin like physical blows.

  A warning.

  Intuition.

  Terrified, I turned my head to look over my shoulder.

  Felix stood at the top of the stairs.

  “Felix?” I asked, almost like a question. “Hey . . . hi . . . I’m so glad you’re here.”

  But I wasn’t glad he was there. Wasn’t relieved to see him. Because I couldn’t escape the feeling that something was off.

  His normal fun-going casualness wiped away in his slow approach.

  He was wearing his uniform . . . but somehow . . . somehow looking at him right then, it fit all wrong.

  His eyes looked . . . different.

  Harder and meaner.

  As if a mask had been ripped from his face to reveal what was really hidden underneath.

  My blood ran cold.

  “Looks like you knew where it was all along. I was beginning to think you really were ignorant.”

  He cracked a twisted grin when he looked between me and the safe sitting on the floor in front of me.

  Awareness hit me, sending a bolt of terror ripping through my consciousness, and my eyes started to dart all over the place, trying to find a way out.

  A way to get to my daughter and get us free.

  A way to scream loud enough that Jace might hear.

  I did.

  Oh, I screamed.

  It didn’t matter.

  There was no one there to hear it. No one there to save me. So, I did the only thing I could do.

  I pushed to my feet and I ran.

  He caught me from behind, and a big hand clamped over my mouth.

  The stench of wickedness filled my nostrils when Felix leaned over and breathed against the side of my face, his words a threat at my ear. “Joseph owes me, Faith. Looks like you’re the only one left to pay.”

  Forty-Four

  Jace

  Heart beating out of control, I clutched the dashboard like I might be chained to it as I watched Mack and his team bust into the warehouse from where Mack’s car was parked across the lot.

  Wearing SWAT gear, their weapons intimidating as they filed in through the door once they were given the clear.

  My blood was in a frenzy, and I had to physically force myself not to jump out.

  I was trying to remain respectful.

  Because Mack was a damn good cop. He knew what he was doing.

  But fuck.

  It was brutal sitting there, wanting to be the one who stopped this monster, and having to sit there like a pathetic kid who didn’t know how to wipe his own ass.

  Flashes of light lit up the windows as flashlights drove out the darkness, my body so hitched on what was happening inside I thought I could feel every pound of their boots, the way they moved in and out of rooms, climbing to the top floor.

  Every second that passed, my pulse raced harder, my chest squeezing as I angled closer and closer to the windshield, trying to get a better view.

  There was nothing I could do when I saw Mack reemerge through the door where they’d entered.

  I flew out and ran across the pavement.

  His expression was frustrated.

  Grave and confused.

  “What happened?” I shouted.

  He scrubbed a palm over his face. “Nothing fucking happened. That’s the problem. There isn’t a trace of anything in there. No files. No computers. No contraband. It’s wiped clean. Like not a soul has been in there in months.”

  “What? How? I thought Felix and Doug found something?”

  “Thought so, too.”

  A bluster of helplessness moved through me, all mixed up with the torment that had been written on Faith’s face when I’d told her. The combination of the two nearly dropped me to my knees.

  Mack squeezed my shoulder. “We are going to find them.”

  Unsettled, I shook my head. “None of this sits right with me. You guys found the address a few hours ago, how did they have time to up and disappear like they’d never been here in the first place?”

  He squeezed my shoulder again. “They could have caught wind of the raid and got the hell out of there. It wouldn’t be the first time it has happened.”

  I wanted to take him at his word. But there was something about it that didn’t sit well.

  Hell, nothing had been sitting well since the second all of this shit had gone down.

  But I couldn’t stop the commotion inside me. This throbbing mayhem that warned nothing was right.

  “Listen, I’m going to go back to the office. Read through the report again. See if there’s anything that we missed. I’ll drop you at your car, then you need to go and get some sleep.”

  I huffed out a sound. That was funny because I had nowhere to go.

  “Seriously, man, I know you are going crazy right now, and believe me, I want to nail these fuckers as badly as you do. But sometimes it takes time.”

  Problem was, I was worried we were running out of time. The loss swirling around me, so dark and bleak. What had gone down in that intersection two days ago was proof of that.

  “Fine,” I told him.

  Reluctantly, I climbed back into Mack’s car, part of me wanting to go into that building and do a little hunting for myself. Sure we had to be missing something.

  What I really wanted to do was to go back to Faith’s place.

  But I wasn’t welcome any longer.

  I called Felix instead, needing to check in. The reassurance that everything was all right.

  It went straight to voice mail.

  “Shit,” I muttered under my breath.

  “What?” Mack asked as he took the last turn into the station.

  “Felix isn’t answering.”

  Mack’s brow lifted. “That’s because he’s working. Doing his job rather than gabbing with you on the phone.”

  He tried to make it come out light, but I wasn’t feeling so light.

  Everything felt heavy, unable to escape that feeling that had my guts twisted and tied.

  I knew its source.

  The fact Faith would never forgive me. My mind haunted by the horror and hate that moved through her expression when I’d admitted what I’d known and, like a fool, had never disclosed.

  Had never helped when I’d had the chance. Laughed in Joseph’s face instead, my last words to him nothing but spite.

  I hit the road, not even knowing where the fuck I was going to go but knowing I couldn’t go too far until this was solved.

  Then I would go.

  Leave and never return.

  I forced myself into the rental car, my sight bleary as I hit the road. I headed in the direction of Ian’s condo back in Charleston, figuring I’d crash there.

  Streetlamps blazed and glimmered from above, and I blinked hard, trying to erase Bailey’s little face that started to take hold of my mind.

  Flash after flash.

  Jace, you sway aww the dragons?

  I could hear her little drawl pleading with me so clearly that it was like she was right there, whispering in my ear.

  My heart hammered in my chest. This bam, bam, bam I could feel all the way to my soul.

  I squeezed my eyes closed against the assault and tried to convince myself they were fine.

  Safe.

  Tried to remind myself of what I’d done. How deeply I’d fucked up.

  It didn’t matter.

  Bailey’s little voice was there.

  Mommy and Bailey and Jacie.

  Wrapping and winding and prodding.

  I didn’t know how to go on. How I was going to survive from here. Because nothing had ever hurt more than this.

  Losing both of them.

  Who knew the love of your life cou
ld grow into something bigger? That it could magnify and compound and become this vast, stunning need that glowed at the center of you.

  What made it worse was this sticky feeling that skated my skin, crawled over me like a disease, drenching me in sweat.

  I tried to force myself to drive to Ian’s place.

  Instead, I was flipping my car around and heading back toward that tiny town. Pushing harder on the accelerator.

  Drawn.

  Drawn back to where I shouldn’t go.

  I sped through the city and hit the road that led back to Broadshire Rim.

  My mind was already back there at that massive house.

  Our sanctuary.

  The place where our dreams had been made and crushed in what had felt like the same moment.

  All those memories collided, pushing and pulling and screaming out for reclamation.

  Hurry.

  That word sounded through my mind like the clanging of a gong.

  I gunned the accelerator, sweat dripping from my temples.

  What the fuck was happening to me?

  Maybe this was what it was like to have my sanity slip right through my hands, dripping through my fingers like the finest sand, spilling all over the ground.

  A frenzy around me.

  Spurring me on.

  Driving me faster.

  Harder.

  I skidded around the last turn and barreled down the dirt road that ran the back edge of the town. I forced myself to slow as I drew closer to the old house.

  I wasn’t welcome.

  It didn’t stop the devotion that burst in my blood. This feeling that wouldn’t let me go.

  Moonlight clung just over the line of towering trees that hugged the narrow lane, stretched thin and tossing the night into a thousand pulsing shadows.

  It didn’t matter that everything was still.

  Silent.

  I could feel the energy.

  Throbbing.

  Thick and foreboding.

  Screaming through the bottled hush that held fast to the air.