She threw her arms around him and finally let the tears fall hard and uncontrollably. Her body shook with the force of it. Heat flooded her chest and cheeks as her sobs took over. She felt ravaged from the inside out.
All the while, he stroked her back and held her firmly against him.
“Is he ever going to want to look at me again?” she said through the tears.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh God,” she said. “What will I tell Drew and Laura?”
He tucked the wet hair back from her face. “The truth.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You can. They love him as much as you and will want to know.”
“It’ll break them.”
“No. It will help you all to share the pain.” Beckham tilted her face up to his. “Share it with me. I can handle it.”
Her eyes, bloodshot, stared up into his as her emotions exploded outward. He clutched her harder as the pain hit him fresh. But in the process, she felt his resolve to help her. To love and care for her. And for the first time, she wondered if maybe she hadn’t dreamed his conversation with Katarina.
“Grieve for the dead, not the living,” Beckham said. “This is not the end. Just the beginning.”
…
The next day, Gabe finally called to be picked up. And as much as Reyna wanted to stay behind, it had been five days since they’dfound Brian. Drew and Laura had the right to know that she’d found him.
They met Gabe a couple blocks away from Five Points, the club run by the Irish mob of which Gabe was the leader. He hopped into the backseat and slammed the door shut.
“How was the club?” Reyna asked.
“Some fuck is trying to take over, and all hell broke loose when I was gone. I had to put a few people to fucking ground while I was there. Jesus Christ, you’d think it’d be easy enough to intimidate the fuckers. But no, they want to come at me like I’m fucking new here,” Gabe barked.
Beckham cleared his throat. Reyna’s eyes were round as saucers.
“It’s fine,” Gabe said with a laugh and a wink. Typical Gabe. “It’s back under control.”
“Did you say you put people toground?” Reyna asked.
Gabe shrugged a shoulder. “All in a day’s work. Didn’t think I was all rainbows and sunshine, did you, sweetheart?”
“Going to find out how much of rainbows and sunshine I am if you call her sweetheart again,” Beckham threatened.
Gabe ignored him. “Yeah, well, motherfucking contact won’t respond. I keep getting rebuffed. I mean, it was a last resort to try to reach out to him anyway, but the dude could have had the decency to tell me to fuck off properly.”
“We weren’t expecting a miracle,” Beckham said. He almost sounded satisfied that Gabe had failed.
“How’s Brian?” Gabe asked.
Reyna winced.
“That bad?”
“Worse,” she whispered.
“He’s coming around,” Beckham said. “Just not too happy with himself.”
“I bet. He was a do-gooder type. Can’t see him being okay withkilling all those people.”
