Page 109 of Fierce-Jax

“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I’m judging here and shouldn’t. I have to remember what it had to be like for you. I saw what Roni went through and it was difficult, physically and emotionally.”

“It was all of those things,” she said. “But it was nothing to what came next.”

“Grief?” he asked.

“Anger,” she said. “I felt like everything we’d been living was a lie when I found the truth out after his death.”

His jaw opened and closed. “You’re going to explain that part, right?”

“I don’t think I have much of a choice right now.”

Which meant something forced this confession out of her and he wasn’t so sure he liked knowing that was the only reason he was getting it.

34

ALL IN THE PAST

“Everyone has a choice,” he said. “You know that.”

Dillion got up and went to get a tissue and blew her nose.

How she wasn’t crying while she talked about this was surprising.

Maybe she was all cried out since she’d been doing it for days and then getting up and putting cold compresses on her face so no one noticed.

She had many tricks to get rid of the remnants of a crying jag.

But she knew she had to stop feeling sorry for herself and deal with this. Three days was long enough.

There was no way to deal with it and not be able to tell those closest to her what was going on.

She was tired of holding the secret in.

“Not this time,” she said. “Alec had left a note on the counter. I hadn’t seen it when I first got home, but then noticed it. It was short and said that he was sorry, he didn’t want to lose me and he hoped I stood by him. To please stand by him.”

She’d burned that note along with everything else she had of Alec’s.

She wanted no reminder of him or the life they’d had when the truth came out.

But when she looked at her daughter, she knew that would never be the case.

She was determined to keep things simple for Gianna. And private.

Why should her daughter know what her father had done? Or what he was like?

“Did you know what he meant?” he asked.

“Not at the time. It was days later. Maybe even a week or two. I don’t remember. Everything blurred together. There was paperwork to deal with, a funeral. A police investigation. I didn’t tell them about that note.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I didn’t think to do it. And I sure the hell didn’t think they were connected.”

“What did he do?” he asked. “He was shot by a gang it said. A drive-by in an area where drugs were purchased. That much I read, but the article also said he was coming out of a store with some snacks.”

She snorted. “He was always hungry. Maybe that was his thing, to stop there on his way home and get something to eat.”

She knew nothing other than the police said that Alec had been at that store in the past on camera, but just buying food and leaving. Nothing out of the ordinary.

---