Chapter 12 #2
“Turn out so…good. Most kids who grow up like you did end up behind bars or”—she had to stop and swallow—“worse.”
“Dunno.” He shrugged with his eyebrows. “Guess I just don’t have the heart for crime.”
It was more than that, though. So much more.
Where others offered judgment, Hew offered grace. Where others gave up, he stood firm.
He didn’t deny the dark side of life. He’d lived it. Been born in it. Been raised in it.
And still…still he’d chosen the light.
He was…incandescent, she supposed was the word. And she’d spent months warming her frozen soul beside his glow. Looking for it when she felt herself getting lost in the deep black shadows of her own trauma and grief.
Now, she swallowed thickly and turned back to the fluffy white clouds.
She couldn’t continue to look at him, to see all the hurt and the horror that hid in the shadows of his eyes.
It hurt her too much, and she knew he’d stop and comfort her if he understood how close she was to breaking down into a ball of tears and chest-heaving sobs.
And this wasn’t about her.
It was about him.
“Didn’t you have grandparents who could raise you?” she asked, hoping he couldn’t hear the huskiness in her voice as she battled the lump in her throat.
“Ayuh.” His accent deepened. “Mom’s folks took me in at first. But my gramps died of an aneurysm when I was about eighteen months old. Gran followed not long after of a broken heart.”
She slid him a quick look and caught one corner of his mouth twitching.
“At least that’s how my five-year-old self remembers the story my social worker told me when I asked her,” he explained. “I suspect the truth is, Gran died of a heart attack.”
So much death. So much upheaval before he’d even been old enough to learn his ABCs.
“I wish I remembered them.” He sighed. “I have some stuff I found online. Obits from the newspapers and such. And about ten years back, I called my parents’ old high school.
Asked to have a copy of their senior yearbook shipped my way.
I love lookin’ at their pictures. They were nothin’ but babies themselves.
Far too young to be bringin’ a baby into the world.
But, even still, I like to think I was made in love. ”
“You were,” she assured him. “Your mother kept you despite her tender age, and your father was found shielding her in the end. That tells me everything I need to know about them. They loved each other, and they wanted you.”
It sounded sticky when he swallowed. “I took a lot of comfort in that when I was a kid.”
She suspected he took a lot of comfort in that still. But she didn’t say as much.
Instead, she asked, “What about your dad’s parents? Why didn’t they take you in after your mom’s folks died?”
“My dad’s ma couldn’t handle the loss of him, apparently. Went to the grave six months after buryin’ her baby boy. His dad hit the bottle hard after losin’ both of ’em. Wasn’t fit to take in a puppy, never mind a toddler.”
“Jesus,” she whispered.
“Not exactly a Shakespearean comedy, huh?”
“What were their names? Your parents, I mean.”
“He was Thomas Birch. And she was Natasha Smith. Although the yearbook lists them as Tommy and Tasha.”
“Tommy and Tasha,” she repeated reverently. Together they’d made the most beautiful man she’d ever known. “Will you show me their pictures when we get home?”
“Ayuh. If ya want me to.”
“I want you to.”
And he had. He’d pulled the yearbook down from the shelf in his closet and opened it to pages that had yellowed around the edges from where he’d run his fingers over them.
Tommy and Tasha had both been gorgeous.
Hew had inherited his mother’s auburn hair and his father’s square jaw. But more than that, he’d inherited their light.
The teenagers had seemed to shine from the pages of the yearbook. And not just with the glow of youth, but with the brightness of something deeper. Something more fundamental and—
Hallelujah!
She snapped out of the memory when she felt the zip tie give way under the relentless pressure from the glass shard’s edge. Every part of her wanted to stretch out the tension in her muscles and joints. Keeping her arms behind her back took all the self-control she possessed.
She knew the zip tie lay somewhere on the floor behind her. But didn’t dare look. Didn’t dare move.
She couldn’t draw attention to herself until it was time. Until she was ready.
Shifting her weight ever so slightly, she winced when the chair creaked. But lifting her chin a little and cracking open one eye showed her captors paid her no mind.
They were having some sort of discussion at the far end of the room. The men were gathered around Black Widow, their faces rapt as they hung on her every word.
Neck or eyes? She thought as adrenaline tried to pulse through her sluggish veins. Neck or eyes?
If she went for the eyes, she imagined screams, blindness, chaos. Maybe her captors would panic. Maybe they’d rush her victim to the hospital and reduce their number.
One less gun for the Black Knights to contend with when they get here.
They’d come. She knew they would.
She wished they wouldn’t. She wished they’d stay safe and sound inside the high brick walls of the compound.
But they’d come.
Because they were family. Because they considered her family.
The jugular, she thought, and imagined stabbing one of the men in the throat. Imagined the shock in his eyes. But no scream. Just gurgles followed by collapse and a pool of blood.
That too would deplete the number of her enemies by one.
But her arms felt like they were lined with lead, and her shoulders ached something fierce from the hours she’d spent restrained. She had no strength. Little stamina. And only a small chance she’d actually hit what she was aiming for with enough force to do any real damage.
Still, it was a chance worth taking.
Anything she could do to help her situation, to help the Black Knights, was worth the effort. Even if it came at the cost of her soul.
Uncertainty suddenly gripped her.
Can I do this? Can I take a life?
Guess I’ll find out, she thought determinedly.
All this was happening because she’d been dumb enough to hop in her car despite the late hour, despite the rain. Because she’d been so caught up in her own tangled thoughts that she hadn’t recognized she had a tail.
It was her duty to level the playing field if she could. She would level the playing field.
Which one will answer my call? Which one will come to me, thinking I’m beaten and broken? she wondered as she counted her ragged heartbeats.
Her thumb brushed against the jagged shard. Touching. Testing. Tensing.
Holding her breath, she waited for the perfect opportunity to make her move.