Stop this madness, once and for all.
Those copper eyes flashed with terror.
With the most startling kind of fear when Jace realized what I was doing.
I swung.
“No!” Jace screamed, and he was racing my way, flying across the floor.
Gunshots rang out. The piercing sound ricocheted against the walls.
Deafening.
Agony.
I swore I felt the sting of it just as I felt the impact of the lamp across the top of Felix’s back.
Jace was there, ramming into Felix and pushing me out of the way at the same time.
Flying back, I landed hard before scrambling back and out of the way.
Eyes wide as I watched the scene unfold in slow motion.
Felix staggered. Shock written on his face as he clutched his chest.
His big body fumbled back, and he slammed into the big window that was covered by a black drape.
It shattered and the fabric ripped free from the rod. The milky night poured in as I watched the massive figure tumble backward through the frame.
A shriek pulled from my lungs at the finality of it all. Relief and horror and shock.
That Felix could do this.
That Joseph could put us in this position.
And Jace, he was looking at me, relief and the truest kind of love pouring from the glinting gold in his eyes.
It was as deep as the blood that saturated the front of his shirt.
Dread spiraled through the center of me.
“Oh God, Jace,” I whimpered, and I tried to climb back to my feet so I could get to him. So I could stop this from happening.
No.
This couldn’t happen.
Pain flashed across his face, and he crumpled to the ground.
Panic surged, as thick as it sloshed through my blood.
Desperate, I crawled across the floor, frantic to get to him, another sob breaking free.
“Jace.”
I fumbled for him in the darkness, and my fingers ran over his face.
His beautiful, unforgettable face.
No, no, no.
Shivers ripped through my body, and I wanted to crawl over him, protect him the way he’d protected me.
“Jace,” I whimpered, hovering over him, hands shaking as I set them on his cheeks. “Jace.”
He reached up, his hand on my face.
His voice was raspy, gurgling in his throat. “Anything, Faith. I told you, I’d give anything for you.”
With the softest smile on his face, his hand dropped away and his body went slack.
And I screamed.
I screamed as I clung to him.
Begging him not to leave me.
Big hands were on my back, dragging me away while I fought to remain at his side.
To stay.
“Faith . . . you’ve got to let go, honey. You’ve got to let go.” Mack’s voice was in my ear.
Asking me to do the one thing I didn’t want to do.
Forty-Six
Faith
I could feel the tentative footsteps edge up behind me. The heavy breaths released into the dark, subdued air. The grief that saturated everything.
“He always loved you.”
Tears streaking free, I shifted to look over my shoulder at Ian.
Another bolt of sorrow crashed over me. The man resembled his brother so much that my heart panged at the sight of him.
Ian eased up to my side, strain so heavy in his shoulders I could feel it radiating from him.
Wave after wave.
“You were his entire world,” I whispered.
Ian grunted. “No, Faith, that position belonged to you. He would do anything for me, but when it came to you? He gave up everything. For a long time, I hated you for that. Terrified you were better than me, that he would like you better, and he’d forget all about me. Selfish, right?”
“You were only a kid,” I whispered. “I guess I’d felt the same way—had thought that he’d forgotten all about me when he walked away. I still don’t understand why he wouldn’t have just told me when he was gettin’ sent away. I would have understood. Would have supported him.”
Ian huffed out a tortured sigh. “Because Jace never saw himself the way the rest of us did. He never thought he was good enough for you.”
“He was more than enough for me.” I glanced over at Ian. “He was everything.”
I watched the grief streak across his face. “He’s the last thing I have, Faith. The only thing. I don’t think he ever really knew it. Understood it. He was everything to me, too. I wouldn’t be here without him.”
And I knew in my heart that Bailey and I wouldn’t be either.
That yesterday would have been our end if Jace hadn’t come to me.
“He gave it all for us,” Ian murmured, his voice catching in the quiet, the intensive care near deserted, just the quiet shuffle of nurses’ feet as they moved from one place to the next.
I turned back to the window that overlooked the darkened room, the barest glow inside where Jace was covered in tubes and wires, the man left to the hands of the machines.
I pressed my palm to the window. “And the only thing I want is to give it back.”
Ian pushed out a soft sound, the hard, hard man turning to look at me. “Do you know what he loved most about you?”
My eyes squeezed closed for a beat, and my knees shook, barely able to stand beneath the devastation that thrummed in my chest.
I couldn’t form the words, couldn’t make a sound except for the sorrow that wobbled at the base of my throat.
His words filled the air, “He loved your belief. That you looked at the world differently than anyone else. That you looked at him differently. It scared him, but it was what he loved most. There’s a reason you’re here. I think there always has been.”
He angled his head, getting close to my face. “You saved him . . . saved us from the life we were set on. From living the kind of life we were destined for. You were the reason. You were his courage. You were his belief. Don’t give up on that faith now. Because that? I think that is what would kill him.”
Then Ian, the guy who wore the biggest chip on his shoulder and an easy smile that was nothing but a wicked grin, turned and walked out.
I turned back to the glass separating Jace and me.
Pressing my palm harder to the cool surface.
Praying . . .
Praying . . .
Come back to me.
* * *
I sat at his bedside.
A day.
Then two.
Then three.
Unable to sleep. Only able to pray.
Exhaustion weighed down my shoulders, and grief weighed down my spirit.
But he was no longer on life support. His heart beating on its own. The man slipping in and out of a disoriented consciousness every so often.
That was the only thing that mattered. The only thing I clung to as I listened to the steady beep, beep, beep of the machine that tracked his heart.
I laid my head on the side of his bed, my hand wrapped in his, my eyes drifting closed as I poured all my belief into him.
I guessed I’d drifted because I startled when I felt the hand squeezin’ mine. I jerked my head up to see that copper gaze staring back at me.
Soft and hard and everything between.
My beast.
“Jace,” I whispered. His name my confession.
I shot up and rushed out into the hall. “He’s awake,” I shouted at the nurse.
She came right in, and I anxiously stood back while she checked his vitals and helped him take a drink of water.
Some of that anxiety drifted away when she said that everything looked good and the doctor would be in soon to check him out.
The second she stepped outside the door, I rushed for him, my hands moving across his face, and I started to ramble, the emotion and fears finally cresting in a tsunami that poured from my mouth.
“Jace . . . you’re going to be okay. You’re here. I’ll . . . I’m going to take care of you. I’m so sorry . . . God, I’m so sorry. You’re goin’ to be okay.”
Nervously, I tried to adjust his sheets. To make sure he was comfortable. Desperate for something to do with my hands.
“Faith—” My name cracked on his tongue, but the words kept coming from me in a nervous rush.
“We’ll put the renovations on hold, and I’ll take care of you. The way you have always taken care of me. It’ll be okay, I promise—”
He grabbed me by the wrist. “Faith, stop.”
I blinked at him, fighting the tears.
But they were there.
“Please, stop,” he begged, grief and torment etched onto his face.
A choked sound left me, everything catching up. Everything we’d been through becoming a chasm that echoed between us.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“When I’m released from here, I’m going to go home with Ian.”
My head shook. “No.”
Moisture filled his eyes, and he searched my face, so tenderly that I wanted to drop to my knees.
“I failed on the one thing I promised you. That I would never let anything happen to you or Bailey again. I walked out and left you in that bastard’s hands. I can’t do one thing right.”
“No . . . you saved us. You saved us.”
His head shook, and he turned his attention to the far wall. His jaw worked, and I saw him gathering the words before he looked back at me.
“No. You almost died because of me. Because I was too much of a coward to admit to you what I knew and who I was. I put you and Bailey in danger, again and again.”
I squeezed his hand as tightly as I could. “No.”
He smiled softly at me. Affection and the most intense kind of remorse. “It’s the truth, Faith. You know it as well as I do. I saw it written on your face when I admitted it to you. You know I’m responsible for Joseph. For stealing your husband. For stealing your daughter’s father. For failing you time and time again. I can’t bear the thought of you thinking it every time you look at me.”
“Jace, please,” I rushed, flying to my feet and gripping his shoulders.
He winced.
Pain bleeding through even though they were pumpin’ only God knew what through that bag that dripped into him.
I could imagine all the pain he was feeling came from his spirit. The guilt that moved through his face. The same shame he’d been watching me with for all those weeks, the shame I hadn’t been able to understand.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured, winding his hand out of my hold and setting it on my face. “So sorry. But I can’t stay here. Not after everything.”
“Jace,” I pleaded, and he was giving me that smile again.
“I came here for one thing, Faith, and that was to make sure you and that little girl were okay. To protect you. Now there’s nothing keeping me here.”
His thick throat bobbed when he swallowed, and his eyes dropped closed before they were open again.
Blazing as they pierced me.
Slamming me with all that intensity.
“Go. Live your life. Take that house and make it something special the way you always wanted. No one is left to stand in your way.”
Tears streaked down my face. “Jace, don’t say that. Please, don’t say that.”
His smile softened farther as he reached out, a tube secured to his wrist, his fingers gentling through my hair. “There’s too much history between us. Too much hurt. Too many lies. Go, good girl. Live a good life. I refuse to taint it any more.”
“Jace . . . please . . .”
It was a sob that broke.
A cracking in my spirit.
The last thing holding me together.
Please.
Those fingers brushed down my face. “I need to go. Figure out who I am after all of this. I am responsible for the death of my cousin. Because I was angry at him, I turned my back on my family. I’m not sure how I’ll ever forgive myself for that, but I do know that I can’t do it here.”
Weeping, I buried my face in his hospital bed, wanting to cling to every inch of him.
Knowing he was broken.
Because of Joseph.
Because of me.
Because of us.
Maybe I’d been right that night when he’d admitted it all. There would be no way for us to piece us back together. No glue strong enough to hold all the frayed threads that knitted our lives.
Unable to take it a second longer, I stood and leaned over the bed, never opening my eyes as I pressed a kiss to his mouth.
Because I wondered if he was right.
If Joseph’s ghost wouldn’t haunt us forever. Destroy us bit by bit.
I ripped myself away, the most striking kind of grief stabbing me as I forced myself out of his hospital room.
Because I realized right then. My heart had never truly been torn between two men.
And I was leaving all of it right there at Jace’s feet.
Forty-Seven
Jace
“What the fuck are you doing?” Mack raged behind me, asshole taking up all of the confined space in the hospital room. Didn’t help that my brother was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.
Both of them sucking the life out of the room.
Oh wait, that was just my insides shriveling up.
Turning to stone.
Been heading there all along. Wasn’t sure why I was idiot enough to think I might change it.
I threw a hard glare at Mack. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m packing all my nice things.”
Sarcasm dripped from my tongue as I shoved all the bullshit the nurses and the discharging doctor had given me into a plastic bag.
Bandages and scripts and care instructions and a fucking pink water pitcher that I was sure was gonna go great with the décor at Ian’s condo.
I’d be staying at his place for at least a week while I finished recovering and then I’d be dragging my sorry ass back to Atlanta where I belonged.
“I know what you’re doing, asshole. I just want to know why you’re doing it.”
My head shook as I continued to shove the shit inside the bag with a little more aggression than necessary. “You know why.”
“Uh, think you might need to clarify that, because neither of us knows what the fuck you’re thinking.” This from Ian, who was watching me the same way as I’d watched him his whole life.
My head shook. “Just leave it.”
“Not leaving anything,” Mack gritted.
Anger surged. This violent twist that churned through the middle of me.
All of it directed at myself.
I whirled around, faster than my wounded body was ready for.
But I welcomed the stab of pain.
Deserved it.
“You want to know why I’m leaving?” My head craned to the side as I stared Mack down. “I’m leaving because I can’t fucking stand the thought of her looking at me and knowing what I did.”
Mack shook his head. “She loves you.”
My voice lowered. “It doesn’t matter how much she loves me, she won’t ever be able to look at me the same, and I can’t stand that. Knowing I can’t be everything because I took part of her away.”
“That’s bullshit, man. You saved her.”
My chest squeezed, and I trained my attention on the floor. “Yeah. And that’s what I came to do. And I promised both you and myself I’d be out of here the second she was safe. We all knew I wouldn’t be able to stay, and I was a fool to think I might be able to.”
Forty-Eight
Faith
I shifted in the chair where I sat across from Mack at his desk. It was the same spot where I’d sat when I’d made my first statement about Joseph. When he’d asked me for any details of what I might have known and I�
�d felt like a complete fool because I hadn’t known anything.
Where I’d wept and had thought I’d never been so unsure of anything in all my life.
It was the same spot I’d sat when I’d come to him after someone had been in my house. After the true threat had been revealed. When I’d been given what had turned out to be a warning.
Felix believing I had actually known the location of the log Joseph had hidden and thinking he could scare the information out of me.
Now, I sat there while Mack gave me all the details I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I listened numbly as he told me that Joseph had been involved in illegal activity for as long as I’d known him.
Quickly rising through the ranks, working for Steven Ricci and his crooked family, the man Jace had tried to protect both his cousin and brother from.
Drugs.
Smuggling.
Money laundering.
Gambling.
With each bit of information he gave, a new piece of me was peeled back and pared down.
My love and respect for Joseph stripped away.
Piece after agonizing piece.
Mack looked away, seeming to waver, before he looked at me pointedly, dealing yet another blow. “I told you he’d been laundering money through the shipping company for the Ricci Family, but he was also siphoning off some of that money that belonged to their supplier for himself. Joseph made it look like Steven was the one pocketing the money. A few months before Joseph was killed, Steven was found floating in a lake somewhere in Massachusetts. Steven’s family, Felix included, blamed Steven’s death on Joseph, which I have to assume is the case.”
Only Felix wasn’t actually his name.
Caleb Ricci had been his name, his family’s ties so powerful they were able to get him onto the force with falsified information. Getting him on the inside and close to me.
Hooking up with Courtney had only gotten him closer.
Doug had also been one of the Ricci family’s men. He and Felix had been sent to fix the problem that had been Joseph. Mack assumed it had been Doug who’d been slipping in and out of my house.
More of You: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 36
