Page 114 of Wait for Him

Like blood is the issue.

His name is on my birth certificate. He raised me. His money built my childhood. I spent years thinking I owed him something for choosing me, then spent three more years married to a woman I hated to keep him out of prison while Rose was carrying what he did to her all by herself.

And somehow I'm supposed to walk into her apartment tonight and explain that the monster whose grave she's been waiting to spit on is the man I've been protecting.

There's no version of that sentence that doesn't sound like betrayal.

Even though I didn't know.

Even though I couldn't have known.

Even though every rational part of me understands that his crimes are not mine, some uglier part keeps whispering that I still stood between him and consequences. I still bought him three years he never deserved.

I lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes.

There's no clean way through this.

I've run the conversation a hundred different ways already, and I'll probably run it a hundred more before I get to her. In some versions she understands immediately. In others she goes quiet, which is worse. In the ones I can't stop seeing, she looks at me and sees him somewhere in my face even though we don't share a drop of blood.

That one makes me sick.

Because two days ago she finally stopped running from me.

Two days ago she told me she loved me.

And now I have to put Wesley Finnegan between us and hope to God he doesn't take one more thing from her. I know how this is going to go down. I keep hoping I'm wrong. But every version in my head ends in the same place.

This revelation is going to sign our death warrant.

***

By the time I reach the Sullivan building, I've wrapped my hand in gauze from the car's first-aid kit and put down two shots of whiskey, and neither has done a damn thing for me.

Dave's been unusually quiet the whole ride, which means he clocked the knuckles and the bar cart and decided I needed silence more than commentary. Normally the man gives me shit about everything from my tie to my coffee order, one of the perks of seven years with the same driver. Today he just drives, and I add it to the list of things I owe him.

I bypass everyone in the lobby without a greeting, which raises eyebrows before I even make it to the elevators. I'm the nice guy. The talkative one. The how was your weekend? CFO. Not today. Today I'm on a mission, and pleasantries didn't make the list.

I walk into Frank's office and find one of his intern protégés parked at the side table.

"Out. Now," I grit out.

The kid takes one look at me, gathers his laptop and gets the hell out without asking a single question, damn near pissing himself at being snarled at by the friendly CFO.

Good instincts. He'll go far.

"The fuck is your problem, Marc?"

"While I was in New York, I had my attorney draw up divorce papers and the documents relinquishing my position as Elyse's conservator. Everything will be delivered to her by end of business. I need them signed, and I need her out of my house."

"What are you on about?" Frank leans back, unbothered, reaching for the same gun he's held to my head for three years. "I'll have your father sent to prison like that."

He snaps his fingers.

I smirk.

I've been waiting three fucking years to hear him say it one more time.

"I'll be escorting him there myself."