Page 112 of Marcus

Glen, however, would die today.

And then came the bang. The bomb finally blowing. The pressure hit the back of the car a couple of seconds later. Chris pursed his lips and nodded.

“Yeah, man, he fell for it.”

“Good,” Marcus murmured, going back to stare at his phone, “now we can get back to normal.”

Well, they could.

He was still alone.

Failure had never been an option before when it came to Marcus, and yet this felt more like that than anything ever had.

“Knock, knock.”

Cella quickly hit the pause button on the remote for the television inside her office. The news that had been playing silenced instantly. The second her sister, Lucia’s, gaze turned on the television, Cella had already hit the power button.

“What are you doing?” Lucia asked.

“Taking a break before I get back down to finishing these designs for the final rooms of the Toronto job.”

“Ah.” Her sister rocked on her heels a bit, eyeing the black screen of the television on the far wall before she took a couple of steps further into the room. “Just thought I would run over and see if you wanted to maybe have lunch with someone instead of alone in your office again.”

Sure.

Cella heard what Lucia didn’t want to say. Her family had been so worried about her that for the last week and a half, they rotated traveling to Rochester to help her with Tiffany, and give her company. She pretended like that wasn’t what they were doing because they worried she might send them away, but really …

She needed them, too.

“Lunch sounds good,” Cella said, standing from the desk. She tossed the remote for the television to the far edge and gathered her purse hanging on the back of her chair. “What are you feeling like? The little Mexican place, or—”

“Well, what I really want to do is ask you how you’re doing since that seems to be the thing we’re all avoiding right now, but I could go for some Mexican food.”

On another day, Cella might have laughed at Lucia’s attempt at being forward. Well, she supposed it wasn’t so much an attempt seeing as how she succeeded. In fact, it caught her off guard, and the first thing that slipped out of her mouth was not what she expected.

“I wish I didn’t leave like that, but I still don’t know how I could have done it differently. I couldn’t very well stay when I was having a nervous breakdown. And here we are a week and a half later, but he’s not called me. Maybe he’s waiting for me to call him. I’m not really sure, but every time I think of picking up the phone again, I get another flashback. I shouldn’t have to do that again, Lucia. I don’t want to lose what’s left of this heart of mine. I’m not sure I can take that a second time.”

Actually, she felt as though she’d said more than she wanted to. From the moment that she crawled out of her bed after her father safely tucked her in when they arrived home, she kept shoving all of this down.

Her regrets.

Everything she did wrong.

How she probably hurt Marcus.

Even the parts that were harmful to her, she ignored to the best of her ability. She refused to speak her dead husband’s name lest she be thrust into another round of memories she couldn’t handle and panic attacks that put her on her knees. She slept with the lights on because that was the only time she didn’t dream, and she was sick and tired of the nightmares.

Of Marcus dead.

Her daughter, gone.

Her life over.

This wasn’t just about what happened in Toronto for her. Nothing could be that simple because her life wasn’t that easy. The events in Toronto had simply been a catalyst to the reopening of her trauma from William’s death. Only now, it felt worse because she couldn’t only consider herself here when she had a child old enough to understand what was happening around her.

“Grief is funny, you know?” Cella asked, rounding her desk as she shifted the strap of the purse onto her shoulder. “It has a way of warping and changing. It’s ever-changing. Just when you think you might have a handle on it, well then it comes back around to remind you that really, you were never in control. It’s always going to be there feeding off you until you have nothing left to give.”

“He’s not Will—”