Chapter Twenty-One
Kent
‘What’s going on?’ Jack demanded. ‘What the hell was Braydon talking about? What does he know that I don’t?’
Nicole sat stunned, and Kent knew she’d sewn together the pieces for herself. When she stood and made for the door, he blocked it. ‘Don’t leave.’
‘I think we both know I need to.’
‘No,’ he said adamantly. ‘This is coming out, once and for all, and you both need to be here. It’s been kept quiet for long enough.’
Her pleading eyes almost saw him relent, but he had to go through with this now.
‘Jack, please sit down. Both of you. I want you to promise you’ll stay here in this room until I’ve finished everything I have to say.’
He didn’t wait for confirmation but popped his head around the door and checked that Braydon had left. He’d deal with those ramifications later. Right now he cared about his family first and foremost. He told Penny under no circumstances were they to be disturbed.
‘I’m trying to put two and two together, Dad,’ said Jack, pacing the floor, ‘but I keep coming up with nothing.’
Kent sat in the chair nearest the door, almost as though he didn’t trust either of them not to run off.
‘When your mother died, I wanted to protect you, Jack. It’s what a father does. I never wanted you hurt. You’d been through so much.’ He clasped his hands together, the skin white around his knuckles with the tension. ‘I lied to you about how your mother died.’ He looked at Jack, then away again. ‘Your mother was stabbed, killed on the street, outside the first shop we set up together.’
Jack’s whole body stiffened.
‘You’d been through a lot. I wanted to protect you.’
‘But she was dead. How was it protecting me to not know how she died?’ His voice was laced with bewilderment. ‘I don’t understand any of this.’
Kent looked at Nicole who refused to meet his gaze. He still wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t bolt.
‘Do you remember the night she died?’ Kent asked Jack. Although he had hoped this moment would never come, over the years he had thought about the words he’d choose if he ever had to tell his son the truth.
‘Of course I do. We’d been at the game, and what was one of the best nights of my life turned into the worst.’
Kent nodded. ‘That’s right.’ And he watched Jack’s face as realisation suddenly dawned.
‘Oh God,youalways closed the shop, always. We never let Mom do it because you said it wasn’t safe, but I’d begged you and begged you to take me to that game.’
Kent had always known this would be impossible for Jack to comprehend.
Jack paled. ‘She insisted she could close up herself late at night. That’s when it happened, isn’t it?’
Kent nodded. ‘A couple of homeless guys leapt on her as soon as she left the shop. They wanted her jewellery—her wedding ring, engagement ring, the watch I’d had made for her birthday. She’d given them everything. She wasn’t stupid, your mother. She knew everything could be replaced, everything except her life.’
‘So why did they hurt her if she gave them everything?’
‘They panicked. Maybe they thought she’d chase them, identify them to the police. All it took was one stab wound, and it was fatal. She bled to death outside the shop that night and Braydon took the call from the police. He’s known ever since then.’
Jack sat back in his chair, scraped his fingers through his hair. ‘If we hadn’t gone to the game, if I hadn’t been so spoiled and gotten my own way, if I’d—’
‘No,’ Kent told him, his voice firm as pain bore down on his son. ‘You will not blame yourself. This was not your fault, none of it. I don’t ever want to hear you imply that it was.’
‘Yeah, so whose fault was it then?’
A small voice from across the room cut through the silence. ‘Mine,’ said Nicole.
Jack shifted his focus from his father to Nicole. ‘What? We didn’t even know you back then. How can any of this possibly be your fault?’
Kent and Nicole exchanged glances, and Jack looked from one to the other.
‘Because,’ said Nicole, ‘I gave birth to the boy who killed your mother. So if anyone is to blame, it’s me.’
