It was the best sound I’d ever heard.
I knelt down and unbuckled him from his seat and lifted him to my shoulder. “I’ve got you, Henry,” I murmured as I patted his back. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the caterpillar toy and handed it to him. He settled quickly as his fingers closed around it.
“Come on, let’s go find your daddy,” I said. Even though Levi wasn’t Henry’s biological father, he’d most certainly earned the title and then some.
Ronan grabbed the car seat and, with the woman in tow, followed me from the apartment. I heard him talking on his phone, presumably to Declan Barretti, a captain in the Seattle Police Department. The man and his extended family had become close to Ronan and several of his men over the past year.
When we exited the apartment, I was glad to see that Levi wasn’t just outside the apartment building. He’d kept his word because as we rounded the building, he was still sitting in the car. As soon as he saw us, he jumped out and ran to us. I gladly handed him the baby as he cried and thanked me and when he put his arm around me, I hugged him back.
I just hoped it wasn’t for the last time.
Chapter 25
Levi
I didn’t hearthe knocking on the front door at first because I was too busy staring at the spot where my brother’s bed had once been. After his death, I’d taken every one of my brother’s possessions, along with the twin bed, and carried them down to the dumpsters. I’d done it on the day the garbage was being picked up and I’d waited until after my father had gone to work to do it. He’d beaten the shit out of me for it when he’d gotten home that night, but I hadn’t cared.
It had been worth it.
Because nothing of my brother had remained after that.
I’d even gone through the family albums my mother had left behind and found every single picture of Ricky and removed them. I hadn’t even once considered saving any of the pictures for Henry because I hadn’t wanted him to know anything about his father. I hadn’t really planned how I’d handle it when he grew up, but now it didn’t matter.
Because Henry was gone.
I’d thought I’d been prepared to let him go, but it had nearly killed me. Maybe because I hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly after getting him back. I’d still been reeling from the fact that T hadtaken him in the first place. Then Phoenix had carried him out of that apartment, unharmed, and I’d lost it. Less than an hour later, a woman from Children’s Services had shown up at my apartment to take Henry away.
She’d said it was until things could be straightened out with custody since Dina was dead.
But I knew there’d been nothing to straighten out.
Henry was gone and it was for the best.
Phoenix was gone too, but only because I’d pushed him away.
As we’d gotten back to my apartment building after the cops had arrived at T’s place, I’d taken Henry into my apartment and answered the questions the police officer who seemed to be friends with Phoenix and Ronan had asked me. Both men had stayed with me throughout it all, but when I’d told the cop that I had a confession to make about something, Ronan had stepped in and asked his friend to give us a minute alone. When the cop had stepped out, Ronan had told me that neither he nor his husband wished to see me go to prison for something I hadn’t done.
I’d tried arguing with him, but the man was even more stubborn than Phoenix. He told me that if I confessed, Seth wouldn’t back up my story at all. He was fully prepared to say only two people had been involved in his parents’ deaths.
None of it had made sense to me, but I couldn’t deny that I was secretly relieved.
Because I really didn’t want to go back to prison. And if Seth didn’t benefit from me being punished, it almost made the whole thing moot. In effect, Ronan and Seth had taken the wind out of my sails.
And now I had no idea what to do with myself.
After the cops had left and Henry had been taken away, it had just been Phoenix and me since my father hadn’t been around. But I hadn’t been ready to talk to Phoenix and I’d told him as much. When he’d pressed the issue, I’d told him a half-truth…that I no longer trusted him.
I’d never forget the look of hurt in his eyes for as long as I lived. He’d left after that and I hadn’t heard from him again.
My words had been partially true. Because that was how I’d felt at the time. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Yes, he’d lied to me. But the more I’d thought about things from his side, I’d started to understand the position he’d been in. And I hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about my relationship with T. Through his eyes, my actionshadlooked suspicious. And while it was too late to do anything about it now, I realized if I’d told him about T and what he’d been doing, Phoenix would have believed me.
I’d been tempted to call him a few times over the past week, but every time I dialed, I hung up again.
Because I had nothing to offer him.
And because I now understood what Seth, his husband and their children meant to Phoenix. They were his family.
I couldn’t take that from him. Because even if Seth and Ronan had forgiven me, I was still a reminder of what Seth had lost, what had been taken from him. That fact didn’t exactly make for comfortable family get-togethers.
