This was the moment I said it out loud. “She died.”
She’d died, and so had a part of me.
thirty-four
BILLIE
Jace was on his feet in the next heartbeat, and as he all but jumped the fire to reach me. Rhett stepped in between us, and while the expression on Jace’s face gave me no indication what his intentions were, I had no fear that he would hurt me.
“Move. The fuck. Aside,” he snarled at Rhett. “I would never hurt Billie. You fucking know that.”
Rhett hesitated a second. “You’re not thinking clearly, Jace. Take a second. There are more ways to hurt someone than just physically.”
At this point I’d caved in on myself, arms wrapped so tightly around my center to try and prevent my body from crumpling to the ground. Sobs continued to choke me, and my eyes burned like someone had a blowtorch on them, but the tears remained at bay.
When Rhett finally stepped aside, Jace got very close to me. I could feel his energy. When I was near Jace, my body reacted like I’d stepped a little too close to electricity, sending sparks across my skin. “Rose,” he breathed, and I couldn’t keep looking at my feet. I had to look at him. “How did she die?”
Die. Dead. Dead dead dead. Our daughter died.
“There was a fire,” I choked out, the words barely understandable. “At my old house on the hill.”
Jace made a sound of disbelief. “The house is still there. I’ve seen it.”
Moron. Just… fuck. “They rebuilt it. I guess you didn’t bother to visit for a few years after making it big, and by the time you could fuck with coming home, it was like nothing had happened.” Except everything had happened, and I’d been broken beyond repair. “I can’t believe your parents never told you.”
He ran a hand over his face, none of the lines smoothing, as his pain visibly showed. “No one was allowed to mention your name. Not for fucking years. It was the only way for me to keep moving forward.”
That explained his absence in my life. Explained why I’d been alone, going through the worst event that ever happened to me. Jace screwed up his face tightly, as if fighting off tears of his own, and that was when the floodgates released for me as audible sobs shook me so hard that I could barely breathe through them.
“My parents died in the fire,” I choked out. “And I fell trying to escape and almost died too. When I woke up in a hospital, I had burns, some lung damage, and our—” I couldn’t get more words out. I tried to say it over and over, and in the end, I mouthed it at him.Our girl didn’t make it.
Rhett, who had been giving us space, must have had enough, as he stepped in behind me and wrapped his arms around my body, holding me through the shaking sobs that were rattling my body. “Your parents died in that fire?” Jace rasped. “When I allowed Mom to speak about you, she just said your parents passed years ago. Way too late to offer condolences.”
This dumb fucking fuck had wiped me from existence to the point that he’d never even listened when his parents had tried to tell him. “Yes. They died, and I was alone. I was in and out of the hospital for months, getting multiple skin grafts on the burns, and I fucking waited for you to find me. I waited for you. But you never showed your face.”
“What about Angelo?” he shot back, ignoring the rest. “Why wasn’t he there for you? Did he know about the baby?”
Were we still doing the Angelo thing? After everything I’d just revealed?
I sagged against Rhett, who was so quiet as he held me together. “Angelo knew everything,” I rasped. “And he was there for me. Or at least he tried to be, but I was so fucked up, Jace. I can’t explain what it’s like to go to sleep pregnant, feeling your baby kick, and then have to deliver her tiny, lifeless body. She was gone, just like that. Ripped from my life like everything else I loved. Angelo tried, but I was too broken, and I pushed him away. By the time I had myself together, he’d moved on with his life. He was a mafia prince, married to Valentina, with no room for me in his life.”
That was the point I’d truly been alone.
Jace’s chest heaved as he sucked in breaths, and if I had to guess, there was a war inside his huge body. I recognized the rage… and the pain. I was waiting for his next line to cut me deep, and he didn’t disappoint. “If you’d have told me about the baby, you wouldn’t have lost her,” he snarled, before he clenched his fists tightly, arms visibly shaking. “I would have been there to protect you both. This is all your fucking fault.”
Right. I pressed a hand against my chest, expecting to feel a gush of blood from that slice. Jace had delivered his usual deep cut, touching on the very accusation I’d butchered myself with over the years. The blame game was a fun one because there was literally no way to know what might have happened if I’d made different decisions.
“Jace, you’re way the fuck out of line,” Rhett snapped, his calm gone as he held me tighter. “It was a tragic accident, and you should just be damn grateful that Billie is still here.” Jace’s shaking got worse, and the look on his face… I’d never seen him wear that expression, not even the day I ended our relationship. This was the pain of death, and I recognized it intimately.
If I’d thought Jace Adams hated me before, it was nothing on the white, hot, raging inferno of hate he was directing my way now.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, just too broken to fight any longer. “I was sixteen. A fucking child myself. I thought I was doing the right thing, trying to save your future, and I promise you, my punishment has been to live in the worst torture of a hellscape for the following eight years.”
He wasn’t hearing me, his eyes stormy but glazed, like he’d disappeared into his own head.
As angry as I also felt, I wanted to go to him. To offer the comfort that no one had offered me when I’d dealt with her death.Penelope.I’d given her a name; it had been mandatory to get her paperwork. Didn’t feel like the right time to tell Jace though, especially since it was his grandmother’s name, one of my favorite people in the world, who had passed away when we were twelve.
“Jace,” I said softly. “I know how you feel—”
