Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
brOOKS
Jace tilts his head toward the door, and I carefully push myself up from the couch, not wanting to disturb Briar.
She devoured a quarter of the huge pizza Jace ordered and drank two glasses of bourbon before her eyes began to droop.
Which means I still don’t have any fucking answers—though, at least she’s fed and resting.
And in danger.
From my life?
Or hers?
I hate you.
I’m just…sorry.
As opposite as those sentences are, I know she meant both of them.
Without my shoulder to lean against, she starts to slump. I catch her and Jace helps me tuck a pillow under her head. I snag a blanket from the back of the couch, wrap it around her, then follow him down the hall and out the front door.
He crosses his arms. “You going to fix this?”
“I thought I fixed it before.”
“You know what I thought of that decision,” he mutters.
“Yeah.” He made it pretty fucking clear I was making the worst mistake of my life.
And considering what remains of the woman I once loved, the woman who ate tonight like she hasn’t had enough food for five years, then fell asleep like she’s been hovering on the brink of exhaustion that entire time, I know, without a doubt, that he’s not wrong.
“She really hit you hard enough to give you that?” A nod at my cut temple.
“Sort of. I slipped and hit my head on the desk after she kicked me in the junk hard enough to almost make me pass out.”
His brows fly up. “That’s not the Briar I know.”
“I’m not sure the Briar we know exists any longer.”
He sighs. “Fuck, man. This is a mess.”
I don’t say anything.
Because what the fuck can I say?
“You want me to look into the files she stole?”
“Nah. I already know what it was she took.”
His brows fly up. “Corporate espionage?”
“No, they were personal.”
“How personal?”
“About as fucking personal as it can get.” My temple throbs and I reach up, barely catching myself before I rub at the still-healing cut there. “My dad’s journal.”
He curses.
“Yeah. He left it to me in the will and I read all of ten pages before I shut it in the safe.”
“That was enough?”
“To remind me of the bastard he was?” I nod. “Abso-fucking-lutely. The real question is who knew it was there in the first place, and what their connection to Briar is.”
“I’ll look into it. Want me to loop in Jean-Michel?”
I hate the idea of anyone else knowing about my fucked-up family and the horrible things they were responsible for, but if anyone can find out things I won’t be able to, it’s Jean-Michel.
“If he’s willing to help me on this, I’ll owe him.”
Jace’s mouth quirks. “I know he’ll take you up on that.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
He pauses…then his smirk fades, his gaze boring into mine. “I also need to make it explicitly clear that you will not hurt her again.”
I wave a hand at my temple, mutter flippantly, “I don’t think that’s a problem, man. Especially with air freshener in reach.”
She’d brought the can to the coffee table, setting it on the glass surface.
A reminder.
But also within arm’s reach.
Jace steps closer, still spearing me with his eyes. “Don’t make a fucking joke. Not now. Not about her.” He clamps his teeth together and looks away. “You didn’t see her that day, after you left. You didn’t have to get her off that mountain or set up her new life—”
My temper starts to burn. I was there. I said the words and watched her heart break.
I left. I had to.
For her own good.
For her safety.
For—
“And what happened to that?” I snap. “She was supposed to have an apartment, money. She was supposed to be safe and secure and—”
“Supposed to be means fucking nothing and you know it,” he snaps back. “As far as I knew, she was using the money. It’s not like I had access to the account to check its balance and you sure as fuck weren’t sharing any details.”
No. I’d closed myself off to everything.
Everyone.
Sighing, he shoves his hand through his hair.
“The last time I checked in on her was about six months after you broke it off. I tracked her down at work and she asked me—no, she begged me to stay away from her, said every time I came by it was setting her back, that it was like she was on that mountain again, watching you walk away from her.”
Fuck.
“That’s when she told me she was selling the apartment and moving.
When she asked me to give her the space to do that, to have a fresh start.
” He looks away, jaw clenching. “You didn’t see her, man.
Not in the aftermath. Not as she tried to pull the pieces of her life together.
” His gaze comes back to mine. “I had to let her go.”
And now we’re here.
I nod, chin dropping to my chest, my sigh forceful, regret sitting heavily in my chest. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”
He’s quiet for a long, long moment.
Then he murmurs, “I know you do.” He squeezes my shoulder.
“I call Pascal, Jean-Michel, and we’ll figure this shit out, I promise.
But right now, you need to get back inside.
She needs…a doctor, a nutritionist, a fucking therapist. She needs to feel safe.
And she needs to know the truth of why you left that day. ”
I promised myself she would never be dragged into the nightmare of my family’s legacy.
I promised myself she would only have freedom and safety and as much care as I could provide.
I promised myself I would never hurt her.
And given the woman she is today, it’s clear I broke every single one of those vows.
“I’ll tell her.” His brows lift. “And arrange for the rest.”
A nod. “We’ll help too.”
“I know you will.”
A nod. Then he turns for the elevator, but before he hits the button, he stops, glances back at me. “Brooks?”
“Yeah?”
His expression goes as hard as steel. “You hurt her again and you’ll be nursing a fuck of a lot more than a bruise to the temple.”
Inclining my head, I acknowledge the well-deserved warning.
Then I walk back into my apartment, lock the door, and head straight for the living room, for the couch.
Only…it’s empty.
Briar’s gone.