Chapter 35 #3
Dewi shrugged. “If he believed Manuel and wasn’t letting him engage in a snipe hunt.
Or if Abundio even knows who we are. How will he know we had anything to do with this?
I mean, people will assume she was so grossed out by a guy old enough to be her great-grandfather getting her pregnant that she couldn’t handle the shame.
Besides, Carl and Mateo were careful to make sure Manuel didn’t send specifics to Abundio about our location or identity. ”
Ken stared at her. “Abundio obviously somehow tracked down Ray Dorland. Ray had no clue who Abundio was, because we told very few people, trusted people, about the Seguras, and none of them would’ve talked. Peyton Primed them.”
“The only thing I can think of is that Abundio had Russian connections of his own, asked around and showed pictures, and somehow that connected him back to Dorland. Maybe they were part of the abduction network. I don’t know, and frankly, I no longer care because I won’t go poking around any of that. ”
She clasped her hands in her lap and stared at the floor.
“Yes, I was wrong to not tell you everything. Yes, I was wrong to go to Mexico. Yes, this was a messy situation, but now it’s cleaned up.
It’s done. And I completely understand if you don’t trust me.
I promise, I will never do anything like this again.
Meaning I will not ice you out of a decision. ”
He stood and slowly paced, not looking at her.
“How do you think this makes me feel?” he asked.
“That you basically lied to me—and let’s be honest that, in this case, it was a lie.
It was a huge-ass omission and deception, so that gets slapped into the ‘lie’ column.
Especially after all that talk about being open with me.
You literally had just told me you’d be open with me. ”
She nodded. “I know.”
“That’s all you can say? ‘I know’?”
“I was wrong. I was out of line. I hurt you. I deceived you. I knew this would hurt you if you found out. I put the pack ahead of you and, regardless of my intentions, that was wrong in this case. And I will not ever repeat this act, this intention, this type of verbal gymnastics. No loopholes.”
She finally met his gaze. “But the compromise is that there will be times you absolutely will not want me to go do something, you will tell me no, and I will go to Peyton, and he will overrule you despite promising you he would always do what you ask.”
“So, you’re saying this is my fault that you lied to me? Gaslight, much?”
“No! I’m saying that, in light of recent events, I was trying to reduce your stress. Ideally, you never would’ve known, and that was my fuck-up, too.”
He stood with his hands on his hips and stared at her. “So, this was a ‘my bad, I got caught’ and not a ‘my bad, this was fucked up from the start’?”
“Even if I hadn’t got caught, I never would’ve done this again. And eventually, after telling Peyton, I would’ve told you.”
He stared up at the ceiling, his lips pressed into a tight, thin line, his jaw tense. “Would you have pushed Peyton to let you go on the lab raid if I hadn’t already said no?”
“Maybe,” she admitted.
“Jesusfuck,” he muttered, his head dropping, shaking it. “Do you not have any sense of self-preservation?”
“I absolutely do. That’s why I wanted this done immediately.
I wanted it done quickly, quietly, with as few people as possible, and with low risk.
That’s what I did, and her death cannot be tied to us.
No elaborate kidnapping that would’ve dragged us deep into the shit with them.
No fucked up Manchurian Candidate bullshit.
Just in and out, less than an hour total from start to finish, not even twenty minutes of direct, anonymous contact with her. Explain how that’s a bad thing?”
“I don’t know how to feel about this, Dewi.”
“That’s fair and valid. And I deserve every bit of it.”
“How can you be so calm about this?” he nearly yelled.
She sighed. “Because I likely would’ve felt worse if she hadn’t killed herself.
Because I knew the future that baby had in store for it had it been born.
And, frankly, that was the greater of the two evils, in my opinion.
Because I couldn’t have lived with myself knowing I left a baby in harm’s way with an abusive mother. ”
He turned and headed for the closet.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
He snorted. “Not that it matters, but for a fucking run. Alone. I need time to process all of this. The baby’s asleep in her crib and I forgot the monitor downstairs in the living room, so you should probably go get it.”
Slowly, her soul feeling a thousand times heavier now, she walked downstairs and found the monitor. She turned to head back and spotted Badger in the kitchen, where he froze when their gazes locked.
Dewi bitterly laughed. “You didn’t turn invisible by freezing.” She walked over. “Did you hear that?”
He slowly nodded. “Enough. I take it some o’ that I shouldn’ta heard?”
She set the monitor on the counter. “Yes. Most of it. Please, don’t ask me. Just tell Peyton you overheard something if you want to know.”
“I didn’t hear a thing, fuzzball.” He walked around the counter and hugged her, holding her, and she didn’t care if it made her needy. She closed her eyes and remembered times when she was a kid, how he hugged her. Her dad. The only dad she really knew.
“I fucked up,” she whispered, hating the taste of those words. “I fucked up and hurt Ken. I had to do something for the good of the pack. But that doesn’t matter, because I still hurt Ken. And I don’t know how to make it right.”
He heavily sighed. “Ye’ll talk it out together when he calms down.
Ye’ll apologize and mean it and ask what ye can do to make it up to him.
And then ye grovel as long as needed. Yer mates.
It’s not like either of ye’ll leave. But ye need to acknowledge ye know what ye did and the pain it caused him and give him time to figure out what he needs from you. ”
“I wish I could just make things normal from now on. If I hadn’t done this, it might have led to another lab situation.”
“He’ll understand that. Doesn’t mean he won’t hurt, though. Bein’ in charge means makin’ difficult decisions for the greater good. If it were easy, any gobshite could do it, but it’s not easy, and only good people like you and Peyton are qualified to take care of the pack.”
“What about you and Da?” she asked.
He chuckled. “I told ye, I don’t want it. And Duncan already did it once. Ye need to learn how to lean on us and open up. Yer not Atlas—ye don’t need to be carryin’ the weight of the world on yer shoulders.”
“Thanks, Badger.”
“Hot cocoa, with the marshmallows?” he gently asked.
She started to nod when she burst into tears, his fatherly tone shattering her impenetrable shell into a million pieces. “Yes, please.”
He hugged her again before releasing her. She sniffled as she climbed onto one of the kitchen stools and stared at the baby monitor in her hand.
Enquist, if you were still alive, I’d happily kill you all over again for ruining my fucking family.