Lily shrugs, keeping her eyes focused on her empty plate.
“Maybe I do deserve it. I should’ve told the boys sooner. They deserved to know.”
Reaching out, I take Lily’s hand, her head turning in my direction as her pained eyes meet mine.
“They did, but that’s not all on you, Lil. Don’t beat yourself up about that.”
Her eyes pool with tears as she studies me. “I can’t help it. If my boys are hurting, then I’m hurting.”
When a tear spills over, I reach out and wipe it away with my thumb, her head leaning into my touch as more tears fall.
“Come here,” I whisper, reaching for her, and she comes easily, letting me pull her onto my lap, straddling me on the barstool.
Wrapping my arms around her, I squeeze her close as she cries silently, and fuck, I wish I could take away her pain. She’s the most loving mother I’ve ever met. I know it doesn’t really seem fair to compare her to my mum, but knowing Lily and how much she cares for her sons, and even me growing up, it gave me hope. It showed me that there are people out there who sacrifice for their children and their families. It showed me what love was really meant to be like.
Not transactional like my parents’.
Real love is unconditional, and Lily Bennett’s love for her family is absolutely unconditional. I know Jude and Ronan feel that way, too. They just need to move past their anger first.
When Lily’s silent tears start to dry up, she peels herself from my lap and leaves the room to clean up her face, her eyes still looking red and puffy when she returns ten minutes later.
I’m flicking channels on the TV when Lily sits in her armchair, putting space between us which annoys me, but she’s dealing with something bigger than my need to have her close every fucking second, so I force myself not to take it personally.
“Stop there,” Lily yells all of a sudden, and my finger hovers over the channel button on the remote in time to see the news headline.
Two unrelated brutal murders at the same location prompt police to step up patrols and the manhunt for the Crimson Angel.
I frown as I take in the images on the screen, recognising the street my mum lives on, and the house across the street from where I hid in the shadows last night.
On the concrete path is a tarp draped over the form of a body as detectives stand around the scene, talking, or takingphotos. Then the screen pans out to the house behind it as a body bag is being carried out.
“What the fuck?” I whisper, my panicked eyes darting to Lily before returning to the screen.
Lily clears her throat. “Isn’t that near your mum’s house?”
“Yeah,” I mutter.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Carlo died?
I must’ve beaten him worse than I thought.
Fuck!
I guess it’s possible, given the rage I felt. I hadn’t meant to do that, though. I wanted Carlo to deliver a message to Monty for me.
“Turn up the volume,” Lily insists, and I obey, my gaze staying locked on the screen as the news reporter’s voice fills the room.
“Detectives have released the note that was brutally attached to Gilbert Dorrington’s lifeless body. Please be warned. What you are about to witness may be distressing to some viewers.”
A crinkled, bloody note appears on the screen with a torn hole near the top that must have been where the note had been attached to the victim.
MY NAME IS GILBERT AND I’M A RAPIST.
I WORKED FOR JULIAN AND STUART MACKENZIE
WHO ARE ALSO RAPISTS.
