Page 61 of Coup De Grâce
No, he would have hated all of this, and it wouldn’t have been more than two days before he tossed up his hands and decided this was not the life for him. He would have found some othercause to take on, and before I knew it, we’d be on the road again, fighting the bigger fight.
My chest tightened in sadness as I thought of all the things I would have missed out on with Rafe. Not that we’d ever really discussed the future—not in that sense. It was inevitable that we would never have a family or even consider settling down anywhere.
Not that I’d ever wanted that before. I was molded to fit the life I had now, but with Rafe’s death, everything seemed to still inside me. The life I had was no longer pleasurable. I didn’t give a fuck about taking anyone down. I didn’t care about the next good cause or who was suffering.
No, the only thing weighing on my shoulders was how much I had sacrificed and how much I inevitably lost.
And for what?
Rafe was gone. The love of my life hadn’t bothered to fill me in on the greatest mission of his life. I was left all alone while he walked into what he knew was a situation that would be his end.
I brushed a stray tear from my cheek and did my best to pull myself together as we pulled down the long drive to OPS. The mechanic’s shop at the front of the property looked like it was being rebuilt, and Duke—the owner of the garage—watched us carefully as we entered.
I always had the feeling there was more to him than appeared, but it wasn’t until Rafe clued me to his real purpose that I understood why he was there. Why he was always watching everyone who came and went.
Why everyone in town assumed he was nothing more than a mechanic when it was clear he was there for some other purpose.
We pulled to a stop and I got out, slamming the door behind me as I studied the growing properties. Houses lined the back side of the grounds, while a newer building sat where the olderone had once been. There had to be a story to that, but I wasn’t really interested.
Things that used to interest me about OPS were now background noise. The only thing I truly cared about was ending this so I could move on with life and try to figure out where I went from here.
“Hey,” Jack said, stepping up beside me. “You’re awfully quiet.”
I shrugged, not wanting to talk about it. “What’s there to say?”
“You know, you could stay here,” he offered, nodding toward the houses at the back. “You would be welcome.”
“By who?” I snapped, fury rising inside me. “By the woman who got my husband killed?”
Jack looked uncomfortably over at Jason, shaking his head slightly. Yeah, I was supposed to play nicely with everyone. Deep down, I understood that Isabelle was a victim. I wasn’t stupid. If Rafe had confided in me, I might even feel differently about the whole fucking thing.
But he hadn’t. He’d left me in the dark. I was forced to find out along with everyone else that my husband was gone and wouldn’t be coming home. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t feel an overwhelming urge to dig up Rafe’s grave and stab him a few times for leaving me out in the cold.
And Isabelle was just a reminder of all he sacrificed for a woman who wasn’t his wife.
“If this is too much for you…”
“What?” I asked curiously. “I can take a back seat? I can wait while someone else sorts out the problems of my life?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Listen, Jack. I know you all mean well. But there is absolutely nothing you can do to make this okay. My husbandchose to leave me. In the end, he was everything to me, and I was nothing to him.”
“That’s not true,” he argued.
“Yeah? Then why isshehere and he’s not?”
Jack sighed, knowing there was no good answer for that. It didn’t matter. Not really. There was no turning back the clock and changing what had happened. I would never know if Rafe ever really loved me as much as I loved him. I would never know if he felt regret over his choices.
It was as if he committed suicide, leaving me to deal with the fallout. He walked onto that island knowing he would die, and he did it anyway. Only, there was no suicide note. Not to me, anyway.
The only thing left was the broken pieces of my heart and the anger simmering constantly under my skin because of the choices he made.
“Let’s get this over with,” I muttered, stalking past him. Once inside, I instantly felt out of place. The looks of shock on every face we passed only made my skin itch. I wanted out of here now.
But I straightened my back and marched on because there was nothing else to do. This wasn’t just about me. Johnny had nearly lost his family, and the things we learned needed to be discussed before anyone took another step. We had to work this out now before it was too late for all of us.
Because they would come for us.
