I’m grateful for our current position because that has my knees weakening and drops of anguish spilling down my cheeks. I wouldn’t want him to see my face right now, so I don’t consider turning around. Being myself for this job means I truly don’t know where I end and it begins. But with the flash of my mother’s bruised and battered body in my mind, I can’t manage to mask anything.
We stay this way—him holding me, breathing me in, and me dizzy and desperate to find my footing.
But a fresh wave of anger rolls over me as I try to process him noting the resemblance. “You knew her that well?”
“No.” He pecks my temple, the kiss lingering for a stretch. “I knew about her. I’d seen her. I was working here at the time, training under my father. Do you want the story?”
I nod, unable to find my words, but he doesn’t seem to expect them.
“My father, Hayden Noire, had an affair with the wife of one of his members—your mother. That wasn’t uncommon.” He heaves a sigh, conveying how taxing this is on him too. “I’m going to depersonalize the explanation so we can get through it. Yeah?”
Such a simple suggestion, and yet instantly, it eases my anxiety. This will sound like any of my cases, not the haunting tale of my mother’s demise.
And maybe thinking of it in those terms will assuage the immense conflict swimming in my veins. His arms shouldn’t feel like a shield. I shouldn’t want to sink into him, not while he details her brutal death that sounds to be due to his evil father. I’m already a traitor to my family. Just the notion of me standing like this with Axel would turn Tripp’s stomach. But I can’t bring myself to pull away when his warmth is the only strength holding me up.
“Yeah. Depersonalizing is better.”
“The woman wasn’t really a part of our world,” he begins. “Her husband kept her sheltered. He was protective, though that was challenging. He was gone a lot, and like most members here, he had the type of job that meant there was no guarantee he’d return. She was loved but neglected. He brought her here—a place he believed was safe, no matter how convoluted his work became. And she was enamored. She felt seen. The otherwives understood her struggles. And Hayden began to take an interest.”
He pauses there, and I give him the space, more tears streaming down my cheeks because, of course, I already know the tragic ending. And yet I was never afforded answers or even permitted to ask questions.
“They became involved—a few whirlwind weekends when her husband was working and he’d gift her a sitter and a getaway. But eventually, Hayden started to lose interest, and she felt guilty and desperate to hold on. She warned Hayden that she was going to tell her husband that she’d strayed, that she wanted a divorce—something along those lines. She and Hayden argued, and he killed her.”
I can’t find it in me to be livid that my mother cheated on my father when the punishment she received far exceeded the crime, even though she was his everything.
Love is the bullet you never see coming.
“Beat her and strangled her?” I ask, needing to know whether my memory is correct.
He nestles his lips against my temple—not quite a kiss, just a resting place for his ragged breath—his torment palpable. “Yes.” Another laborious inhale, exhale. “When she didn’t come home, her husband searched for her, piecing things together and accusing Hayden. So, Hayden did what he’d always done. He boasted about the kill and his power, citing all the leverage he had over him if it ever came out, which was enough to get the guy’s kids taken away and him either locked up or on numerous hit lists.”
That’s probably why my father packed our home in a frenzy, throwing us into our truck and disappearing into the night. But that was several months after my mother died.
“How did the husband retaliate against Hayden?”
“He didn’t.”
Frustration rips through me. “Then why did he disappear months later? Why destroy everything his children knew?”
Axel curls himself around me, his chest deflating against my back, as if this account could get even worse. “Because Hayden Noire warned him, like he did with all his enemies, that if he died, all the dirt he had on him would be sent to multiple sources. And Hayden died within the year.”
I lose the ability to depersonalize and spit out my assumption. “So, my father was a fugitive or—”
“No.” He shakes his head, his face nuzzling my hair again. “I knew where all of the incriminating documents were kept, and I confiscated them the day Hayden died, but his enemies didn’t know that.”
I can’t help turning within his embrace, needing to see the authenticity in his sapphires when I dig for the detail that I’m guessing links our stories. “Before or after?”
A pall of shame shrouds him. This man, who never wavers from his royal bravado and menacing authority, suddenly appears broken. An urgent need to comfort him floods me, so I reach for him, brushing my fingers over his neatly trimmed dark scruff.
“Before,” he admits, agony lining his features as he melts into my touch.
So, he either knew someone was going to kill his father or he did it himself.
His mother was in their house fire though, so I don’t venture into that territory now. He’s spoken so fondly of her. There’s no way he did anything to harm her—not purposefully anyway.
“I am the star of my own nightmares.”That’s what he told me the day in the city when he begged me not to become the face that haunted his family.
That’s enough reason to keep the focus on my parents. “Do you still have the leverage onthe husband?”
