Chapter 29 #2
Tessa nodded mechanically, her gaze drifting back to Ares. “And after that?”
“You’ll be taken care of,” he said cautiously.
Tessa’s eyes cut to him. “That’s not the answer I was looking for.”
“It’s the only answer you’re getting,” he replied evenly. “Everything’s already been arranged. You’ll have everything you need.”
“Gabriel will explain everything before you get there,” I quickly cut in, adjusting Ares slightly in my arms. “It’s just…it’s better if I don’t know anything.”
Her jaw worked as understanding dawned. “You’re worried you’ll tell them.”
“I’m worried they’ll find a way to make me tell them.
” The thought alone made my legs feel weak and my chest uneasy, and suddenly, the small bundle in my arms felt like the heaviest thing in the world to be holding.
“If something goes wrong, if they get their hands on me, I need to make sure I can’t give you up, no matter what they do to me. ”
The pain in her eyes nearly broke me right there on the spot. “Promise me you’ll survive this. Promise that you’ll make it out of here alive no matter what. I can’t…I can’t raise these babies on my own.”
These babies. Plural. It was the first time she’d said it out loud. The first time she’d acknowledged that she was going to keep the baby growing inside of her and raise it.
A small smile tugged at my lips despite everything. “I’ll fight like hell to come back to you, Tess. I promise.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do if something happens to you,” she said, her voice fraying at the edges. “I can’t lose you too. Not after Dad. Not after everything. If something happens to you too, I swear I’ll—”
“You’ll survive anyway,” I said firmly, not allowing her to spiral down that road. “You’ll raise Ares and your baby and you’ll tell them all about me when they’re old enough. And about Dad. About all of this. You make sure they know why it mattered. That I fought for them too. That we all did.”
“It’s time to go, Tess,” said Trace from the doorway. “Caleb’s waiting.”
Tessa nodded, swiping at her face with the back of her hand. She straightened her shoulders, pulling herself together with visible effort as she started toward the door. But I couldn’t move yet. Couldn’t let Ares go without saying goodbye.
I looked down at him, still sleeping peacefully in my arms. He stirred a little at my movement, his tiny face scrunching up before relaxing back into sleep.
“Hey, little warrior,” I whispered, my voice catching.
“I need you to listen to me, okay? You stay strong for your aunty Tessa. Be brave for her, even when she can’t be brave for you.
And you remember that I love you. I’ll fight my way back to you.
I promise.” My throat constricted as I dropped a soft kiss to his forehead, breathing him in one last time.
“Be good, Ares. Always. No matter what they try to tell you that you are, no matter what darkness they say lives in you, you choose to be better. You choose the light, okay? Can you do that for me?”
He made a small sound in his sleep, and I had to believe, for my own peace of mind, that he heard me. Even if I knew he couldn’t understand a word of it.
I lifted my head and found Trace watching me, his expression devastated. Holding his gaze, I crossed to him and carefully placed Ares in his arms. He pressed a quick kiss to my temple before turning and heading out the front door with Ares cradled against his chest.
The door had barely finished closing behind him when Jaqueline appeared in the hallway, her gaze finding Dominic’s across the room. Whatever passed between them was brief and wordless, but it was enough. He dipped his chin once and slipped out after Trace, leaving the three of us alone.
Jaqueline’s eyes stayed fixed on the door long after it had clicked shut, as though she were bracing herself. As though the next minute was going to cost her everything she had.
Then she turned to Tessa.
“Be better than I was,” she said, the words coming out softer and more honest than I’d ever heard from her. “You have a chance to be the mother I never managed to be. Don’t waste it the way I did.”
Tessa’s lips parted, the vulnerability in Jaqueline’s words clearly catching her off guard.
“I believe in you. In both of you,” continued Jaqueline, her gaze moving between us and gentling in a way that didn’t suit her face. “More than I’ve believed in anything in a very long time.”
Tessa moved before I’d even registered it. She closed the distance and wrapped her arms around our mother in a bone-tight, frantic hug that had her shoulders trembling visibly. Jaqueline’s arms came around her after a brief hesitation, holding on as though she didn’t quite know how, but was trying.
When they pulled apart, Jaqueline’s eyes glistened with what I refused to call tears, even when I saw her blink them back behind her lashes.
“Call us as soon as you arrive,” she said, quickly recovering her composure as though she hadn’t just been in tears a second ago.
Her gaze touched mine last, holding it for a heartbeat that felt like an apology she couldn’t quite say out loud before she turned and slipped out of the hallway the way she’d come.
Leaving only me and Tessa.
My sister turned to face me fully as the gravity of having to say goodbye crashed down between us all at once.
I took one look at her broken self and knew I was going to have to be the strong one for once.
“Remember who raised us,” I said, my voice holding even as tears blurred my vision.
“Dad taught us how to survive. How to fight. How to protect the people we love no matter the cost.” I reached out and gripped her hand.
“Blackburns don’t break, Tess. We bend and we bleed. But we don’t break. You got that?”
She nodded, despite the tears streaming down her face.
“This isn’t goodbye,” I said sternly, needing her to believe it. “This is just—”
“See you later,” she finished, squeezing my hand.
“Exactly.”
We stood there for a moment longer, both of us crying openly now before Tessa pulled me into a crushing hug, holding on as though she could keep me safe through sheer force of will alone.
“I love you, little sis,” she whispered against my shoulder.
“I love you too, Tess.”
And then she was pulling away, turning toward the door before she could change her mind, and everything after that moved in a blur, like the whole night was sliding past me through a window I couldn’t open.
I watched her walk out into the night and climb into the SUV with Gabriel behind the wheel and Ares secured in his car seat in the back.
And I watched as the engine started and the headlights spilled onto the driveway.
But I couldn’t watch them drive away. I didn’t have it in me to stand there and watch them slowly disappear down the road without knowing if I’d ever see them again.
So I closed the door.
The house felt impossibly empty without them. My arms felt empty and my heart even emptier, and for a long, painful moment, I just stood there in the silence, letting myself feel the loss of them.
And then I locked the door on them. Locked away the grief and the fear and the desperate hope that I’d see them again. I locked it all behind walls I’d built and rebuilt a thousand times before and I left it there where it would be safe.
Because there was work to do.
And I couldn’t afford to be weak anymore.