Chapter 19 #3
“You should never have been in that apartment in the first place.” I tape the gauze down. “Don’t involve yourself in another family’s problems. If I’d come ten minutes later, what do you imagine he’d have done to you? What would he have done to the girls?”
Her face crumples. “I know. Believe me, I’ve been over it and over it. It’s my fault. I brought them here, I should have come here alone. I—”
“Stop.” I take her by the upper arms. “You’ve gotten it into your head that the girls are all I’m worried about.
Do you know how precious you are to me? Do you even understand what I felt when I saw you all beaten and bruised?
” I run my thumb under the bruise without pressing.
“I nearly killed him, Jessa. Because he put his hands on you.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“If anything had happened to you—” I drop my head. My jaw locks, and the rest of the sentence dies behind my teeth. The wolf paces inside me, refusing to lie down.
Her hand comes up to the back of my neck. “I’ll be more careful next time.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I say fiercely. “If you want to get involved in your friend’s affairs, then I will handle the entire situation. You are not to put yourself in danger again. Do you understand me?”
The Jessa I know would bristle at being talked to like this, but the woman in front of me nods meekly. “All right.”
“Come on.” I get to my feet and put a hand down for hers. “Let’s go home.”
She takes it. I wait for her to say this apartment is her home. The correction never comes. She only nods, and I tighten my grip on her fingers.
A shelf of photo frames sits under the window, and one of them stops me dead on my way out. Mia is perched on a mall Santa’s knee, four years old, gap-toothed, both fists locked in the man’s red sleeve, her brows drawn together, her lower lip stuck out.
Jessa comes up beside me. “She was four. It was the Santa by the food court, and she wanted it so badly that we stood in that line for an hour. Then she got up there and hated every second.”
I look at my daughter behind the glass. Sadness tears at my chest.
“I missed out on so much,” I whisper.
The words weren’t meant to leave my mouth. She stills beside me. Her scent turns to salt and ash on the back of my tongue. I take my hand off the frame. Her fingers thread through mine, then I lift both our hands and press my mouth to her knuckles.
“I want to be part of everything from here on out.” My voice isn’t steady. “That means birthdays, games, dances. I don’t want to miss anything else, Jessa.”
“I have home videos of some of her first milestones. I’ll show them to you.”
I turn to smile at her, then the bruise is in front of me again, purple spreading over her cheekbone. My heart shakes in my chest.
Come tomorrow, Jared won’t have a thing left worth holding on to.
By time I get everyone in the car, Jessa asks, “What about Rachel’s things?”
“Tell her to order what she needs. I’ll pay for it. She can move back day after tomorrow once I have somebody fix up the damage to her apartment and get your car picked up. And stop playing the hero from now on.”
Her spine goes rigid under my palm. “Rachel is my friend.”
Now that she’s feeling steadier, she wants to show me her teeth.
“She is, and I’m not asking you to drop her. I’m glad you’ve got a friend in this town.” I open the car door for her. “What I’m telling you is that when a violent man is involved, you tell me first. A voicemail from the parking lot doesn’t count. You call me and you say, ‘Marcus, come with me.’”
“I’ve never had to ask anybody’s permission for anything in my life.” Her chin comes up.
“This has nothing to do with permission.” I stop on the last landing and turn to face her.
“I’d never have told you no. Instead I’d have driven you here myself, walked you into that hallway, and stood behind you while you packed a bag for your friend.
Then Jared takes one look at me and goes home to sulk.
” My voice drops. “You’ve done everything alone for ten years, and I understand why.
That doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it. I’m not trying to control you, Jessa.”
She holds my eyes for a good ten seconds. Her jaw sets, then her shoulders come down. “I hear you,” she mutters at last.
The girls pile into the back of my car, and I shut the door on the pair of them. “I’ll send someone for your car,” I tell Jessa. “It’ll be at the house tonight.”
She doesn’t argue about that either. That frightens me more than the bruise does. I pull out onto the street, and that’s when I see him.
A gray sedan sits across the road, thirty yards down, the engine off. Behind the wheel, a man rests one arm along the door, watching my car. He doesn’t look away when I catch him at it, and his gaze tracks us until we turn the corner. I know the face.
Kylan.
My hands lock on the wheel.
I’ve never met the man, but I have enough information to identify him from a distance.
I check the mirror, my blood going cold. The sedan hasn’t moved an inch. What is the head of the hunter syndicate doing parked outside Jessa’s building?