Chills skated his skin, and not the pleasant kind.
“You didn’t tell them about us? About my daddy’s involvement?” She purred it, winding around him, her fingertip running the line of his jaw.
“You might be the only reason they’re still breathing,” he told her, teeth clenched.
She smiled in her coy way. “I’m not evil, Mack. I just know my place. Just like you should.”
He did. Understood it fully.
Don’t mix light with darkness.
Beauty with ugliness.
Selflessness with greed.
“My daddy’s gonna get back down to business once things settle down. You have your place with us.”
He gripped her by the wrist. “Don’t want any part of it.”
She just wound her other arm around his neck and pressed herself to his body. Her voice turned low with the seduction she wore like her own personal brand. He finally got that was her way of existing. How she persevered in this sordid world.
They’d both done what they had to do to survive.
“Of course, you do, Mack. It runs in your blood. Stop pretending you’re someone you’re not.” She hiked up on her toes and whispered in his ear, “You are just as guilty as your daddy. How many cars have I personally watched you take across state lines? I know you, just like you know me.”
His hold loosened on her wrist, and she grinned wickedly when it was freed, and she wound that one around his neck, too. “I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine? We fit, Mack. Belong together. Don’t you agree?” She pouted like she thought it was appealing, like he was supposed to ignore the threats weaved through her words.
Stitching through him like a rusted needle.
She held the truth over his head.
It didn’t matter. And he didn’t give a fuck if she turned him in.
He knew his place.
She hiked herself up and pressed her mouth against his.
He felt nothing but hatred.
Hatred in the kiss that he returned.
Hard and full of spite.
It felt like a branding.
Chains of condemnation that wrapped around his soul.
Because this was who he’d always been. Pretending he’d been anything better was nothing but a cruel, sick joke.
Thirty-Three
Mack
I climbed down our tree. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I got sucked into a spiral of rage and turmoil. A battering to my heart and mind.
Anger seethed in overpowering waves.
Dragging me under.
Fuck.
I should have been upfront with her. Just . . . laid it out instead of being a pussy.
A coward.
I should have warned Izzy about Clarissa. Come clean. But that’s what shame did to you—it made you want to hide it. Sweep it under a rug. Pretend that you weren’t guilty.
But the bitter truth remained that I was.
Fucking guilty.
Guilty all along.
My heart screamed to hit the porch, knock on the door the way I did every morning, and have the smiling, excited faces of those boys jerking open the door to wish me a good morning.
But I couldn’t do that.
Not until I fixed this.
Found a way to ensure they were safe.
I trudged across the rambling lawn and away from the house as the sun climbed for the sky.
Needing to get away and knowing I couldn’t go far.
So goddamn unsure of my place and what I was supposed to do that I couldn’t see straight.
Couldn’t make sense of the war raging inside of me.
Torment unending.
Grief stunning.
All the while, devotion blew through me with the force of a hurricane.
I started to twist through the hedge of trees that rose up like a wall surrounding Izzy’s property. Got the sense that maybe they stood like soldiers to protect this place.
A shroud to cover their home in grace.
Or maybe they just existed as a barrier to separate our two worlds.
I’d let that disconnect divide us for thirteen years. How could I allow it to happen again? But I could feel that choice fading away, joy slipping through my fingers.
I trudged over the overgrown grasses and through the tangle of limbs before I stumbled out into the meadow that had been ours. The brook babbled as it tumbled over its bed of smooth rocks, and rays of morning light slanted through the leaves and tossed the meadow in gold and silver glitter.
The distinct scent of wild jasmine filled my senses with the warmth of her.
It’d always felt like a fantasy.
A fairy tale.
I stood in the middle of it. Breathing it in. Trying to calm the rage that rioted within.
To find a direction.
An answer.
I froze when I felt a faint presence looming from behind.
Warily, I looked over my shoulder. Suffocating guilt struck me when I saw Izzy’s father standing between two trees at the very edge of the meadow.
This was a man I’d respected. One I’d let down almost as badly as I’d let down Izzy.
Last night, Izzy’s parents had freaked the fuck out when I’d called to let them know what had happened. Rightly so. Izzy had begged them to stay home. Be with the boys. Told them that was what she needed most—for the boys to remain unaffected and unaware.