I’ve looked up to him for decades.
That’s done with now. I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for this.
The scent of Macy’s body wash announces she’s behind me a second before her cautionary tone. “You need to forgive yourself before you can consider forgiving your father.”
“I can’t,” I murmur, the truth more crushing than my guilt.
This isn’t how it was supposed to go. I am supposed to save the victims and then take the bad guys down. I’m not meant to look the other way because they’re related to me.
Proof this woman knows how to coerce me out of the darkness shines through when she murmurs, “Then maybe you should retake the test. You might feel different if you get a perfect score this time around.”
I’m as competitive as I am cocky, and that, along with the adrenaline still surging through my veins, has me pushing my anguish to the back of my thoughts for the second time this morning.
When I twist to face Macy, she gives me her handwritten score of my run. She marked it with a red felt pen, the score at the top closer to a B than the A+ I usually strive for.
“Seven out of ten?” My voice is lofty with shock. “I took down all the perps with eight minutes left on the clock. How is that anything less than a ten?”
“You didn’t take downallthe perps.”
I snap my eyes to hers, ready to call her out as a liar, but then I remember she is the only person being honest with me, and I need to cling to that faith more than anything else.
“You said there were six perps.”
Macy arches a dark brow, looking smug. “I said six perps entered the mirrored house. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t already someone dangerous lurking in the shadows.”
I track back over the past thirty minutes before murmuring, “The stroller was empty, wasn’t it?” I didn’t hear any cooing or infant cries. I saw a stroller and instantly brushed off the woman behind it as innocent.
Nodding, Macy moseys to a bench beside the stimulator, digs her hand into a bag, and then holds out a bottle of water in offering. Stimulators like this don’t just make you sweat under the collar. They suck the life right out of you.
I accept the bottle before gulping half of it in one go.
When I join Macy on the bench, our shoulders touching, she asks, “Feel better?”
I snort, acting like I hate how well she knows me. It is all a lie. “Yeah.” I rake my eyes over the setup that returned some epinephrine to my veins as a reluctant smile tugs at my lips. “Though I should probably tell you if this is your idea of therapy, you’re shit out of luck. The Rogers don’t do therapy.” My grin vanishes. “Well, not as far as I’m aware.”
Macy doesn’t tell me I’m wrong or remind me of all the wonderful things my family has done for me or given me. She patiently waits for me to stop acting like our therapy session isn’t exactly that—therapy.
Everyone in this industry knows an hour or two at a gun range is the best therapy any agent can get. That’s why Macy brought me here. She wants to help me—even though my healing might hurt her.
I stare at my hands while flexing my fingers before finally admitting the cause of my angst. “I hate that Cameron’s fear stems from my father’s threat. That she’s been looking over her shoulder for years because ofmyfamily. She had to live in the shadows, never really free, because of me.”
“You didn’t do this, Grayson.” Macy’s eyes speak the words she will never say.Your father did.“And Cameron chose—” When I glare at her, silently warning that I’m not in the right headspace to place the blame for any of this on the shoulders of a victim, she swallows before changing the direction of her focus. “You can’t carry all this burden. You shouldn’t be carrying any of it.”
“It’s hard not to. If I’d been smarter, and if I had pushed harder… maybe I would have unearthed the truth years ago. Perhaps then Cameron could have had a real life.”
“You’re acting like she hasn’t lived, but she has, Grayson. Maybe not the life she would have lived if she had been with you, but she has lived.”
And there stems the catalyst of my anger.
Cameron has lived.
My father has lived.
Everyone has lived… except me.
And perhaps Macy.
I peer at Macy in confusion when she murmurs, “It’s not too late, you know.” She nudges me with her knee like my daft face isn’t cute as fuck. “If Cameron is who you truly want, and a life with her is your objective, you’re still in with a chance.” When I scoff, confident that the bridge is beyond burned, she talksfaster. “You’re Grayson Rogers. You don’t give up. It isn’t in your vocabulary.”
