He looked up at me in a challenge. “Do you know anything else?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. How to be everything she needs me to be.”
His gaze drifted back to her sleeping form. “This beautiful girl should never be a test.”
Guilt constricted my chest. When he found out what I had done, what would he think? How far would the hatred go? Could there ever be forgiveness?
Didn’t expect forgiveness.
Didn’t deserve it.
But I’d fight for it anyway.
Give this man back a little of what I’d taken.
The confession left me. No reservations. “I love her. I always have, and I’m not ever going to stop.”
He blanched when I claimed it, and his lips pursed in confusion. “Then why would you leave?”
“Need you to know, I never wanted to. I wasn’t left with another choice. That choice was taken from me the day I was forced into a battle I’d never signed up to fight. I left because it was the only way to keep her out of it. The last thing I wanted was for her to be a casualty.”
His chin lifted, his mouth warbling at the side. “I see secrets in your eyes.”
I gave him a tight nod of affirmation.
No sense in denying it. It would only make it worse in the end.
He looked at his daughter before he looked back at me. “Are you responsible for this?”
Knew he wasn’t asking if I’d physically hurt her.
Think he already knew the answer to that.
Never.
I gulped down the agony, the fire that burned my throat and blazed through every cell in my body. “Not gonna lie. I’ve got enemies. And if one of them came to her through me? They will wish they never knew my name.”
His throat bobbed. Got the sense he felt the ferocity of what I was saying.
He’d have every right to kick me to the curb.
That’s where I belonged.
“There is so much pain in our lives right now. We cannot shoulder another burden. Please…take care of her. Protect her. Protect them.”
“I will. I promise you that.”
Violet and that little girl? They were mine.
My duty.
I slumped down farther in the chair, watching her sleep. Could do it forever.
Didn’t know if I’d started to drift, but I jumped when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I dug it out and swiped into the screen.
Royce: What the fuck, man?
I glanced over at Mr. Marin who had nodded off, his head rocked back against the wall, the rage I’d felt earlier still right there. Bated. Waiting on direction.
Me: Know, man. I know. No chance this isn’t related.
Royce: She get a look?
Me: Don’t think so. But she got something. Could tell from her expression. I will find out.
I sent another text right behind it.
Me: Daisy?
Royce and Emily had taken Daisy back to our parents’ house to sleep. Where we knew she would be safe.
Royce: Currently snuggled up next to Emily in her bed, asleep. Fucking cute.
I almost smiled. Could feel Royce’s affection through the miles. Guy wearing this shield of menace that hid the biggest, bleeding heart.
Me: And you got relegated to the chair. Poor bastard.
Royce: Not like I’m sleeping anyway.
I blew out a sigh of relief. Knowing Royce had this. That he would have our backs just as much as I’d always have his.
Me: Thanks, man. I owe you.
Royce: Nah. Family. It’s what we do. But you know this is messy? Don’t pretend like this complication isn’t going to come back to bite you in the ass.
I looked at Violet’s sleeping form.
My chest tightened.
Need.
Hope.
Desperation.
Light.
She was no complication. She was the incentive. The purpose. My heart’s single goal.
* * *
It was close to morning by the time they discharged Violet after she’d given her statement to the police.
My tongue burned with the urge to give mine. To lay it out. But it wasn’t time. Couldn’t do it until I saw this through to its completion.
With my arm curled around Violet’s waist to support her, the three of us stepped out of the sliding doors and into the witching hour. Night so still and deep you could imagine you were slipping into another realm. A time and a place where ghosts and spirits roamed.
Violet didn’t even fight me on it. She just leaned into my hold, limping out into the parking lot, making my heart roll and boom and thunder.
Emily had driven Mr. Marin’s car home since he had a car seat, so I clicked the locks to my truck, and I helped Violet climb into the front passenger seat.
Her spirit was all around.
Subdued.
Dampened in its uncertainty.
Wary and waiting for what was to come.
We both knew it.
Felt it.
The storm that gathered on the horizon like the sun gathering for the day. Building in energy. In intensity.
Eyes on the girl, hers on me, I reclined her seat a bit and leaned over her so I could buckle her in.
“I’ve got you,” I murmured as I adjusted the belt and then clicked it into the lock, my face an inch from hers when I angled back, voice gruff, “I’ve got you.”
“Richard,” she whispered. Needy and low.
I cupped one side of her precious face, my thumb tracing the angle, my soul shouting for its reclaim. “Rest.”
Her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip, and she gave a tiny nod. I stepped back and shut the door.
Mr. Marin got into the back seat.
Almost immediately, Violet fell back asleep as I headed in the direction of their house.
Her sweet spirit filled the cab.
Intoxicating.
Fascinating.
Entrancing me in a dream that this girl could be mine.
Really mine.
That I wouldn’t have to let her go.
That there was a chance she might not hate me when it was revealed.
Stupid, blind hope.
But that’s what it was.
This blinding, obliterating hope burning in me that one day—one day she would look at me and actually see the man I’d wanted to be for her. The husband I’d wanted to be. This girl the treasure.
The goddess.
And I’d be the one worshipping at her feet.
I kept glancing over at
