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“Does the name Brody McAlister mean anything to you?”
I flinch at the sound of my ex-foster father’s name. My gaze snaps back to Gray’s face, my eyes narrowing. “If you’re asking me that, then you know it does.”
“Yeah.” He sighs, and I notice for the first time how pale his face is, and how shadows seem to gather under his eyes. Has he looked like that this whole semester? And I’ve just been too pissed at him to notice? “His wife was named Melissa, but I’m sure you know that too.”
“I do.” I freeze, my brows pulling together. Gray and I are still pressed up against the wall, but I’ve stopped trying to shove him away. “Wait, was? What are you…?”
“She died. A few months ago.”
I blink, stunned to find out that my foster mother is gone. I was never close with her, so I guess I’m not surprised I didn’t hear about it. I liked her better than Brody, but I also hated that she married a lech and turned a blind eye to the way he treated me.
“So what?” I ask. I’m sure my words sound callous, but I don’t fucking understand how we jumped from talking about Cliff to the topic of my foster parents and Melissa’s death. What do those two things have to do with each other?
Gray hesitates for a moment, and I have a sudden awful feeling that he’s going to stop talking entirely. That even after all this, he’s going to refuse to tell me the truth.
Then he lets out a long breath, closing his eyes before opening them and refocusing on my face. “Her death was ruled accidental, but apparently there was some question about that. Cliff says he can frame you for her murder.”
“What?”
My jaw drops open, my entire body jerking in shock.
“I thought he was full of shit when he first made the threat, but he’s not kidding, Sparrow,” Gray says, his mouth twisting into a grimace. “Brody was apparently pretty obsessed with you, and Melissa knew about it. They had fights about it, arguments over email and text.”
“And he thinks he could use that to prove I killed her?” I’m shaking my head even as I speak. This makes no sense.
“I don’t know if he could, but he’s approached Brody and gotten him to agree to testify that you were in love with him. That he told you nothing could ever happen, and that’s why you went after his wife.”
My mouth opens and closes, but this time, no words come out. When they finally do, my voice is hoarse and strained. “Why would Brody… say that?”
“Money,” Gray says simply. “He knows it’s a lie just as much as Cliff does, but Cliff obviously offered him something he couldn’t refuse. If he doesn’t claim he had a sexual relationship with you, he can’t be charged with anything, but he can paint you in a light that might convince a jury you had probable cause. Brody’s got…” His jaw clenches. “He’s got pictures of you that he can claim you sent him.”
I don’t have to guess what kinds of pictures. My stomach turns. “I never sent him a single thing.”
“I fucking know that.” Gray’s voice is harsh with frustration. “I know this is all a lie. A setup. But Cliff’s smart, and the right people owe his family huge favors. I couldn’t take the chance that he would take this any further. I couldn’t let him do that to you.”
“Yeah?” My jaw clenches. I’m reeling from everything I just learned, torn between shock and anger. “If this is all true, then why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you fucking tell me all of this from the beginning?”
Gray’s gaze snaps to mine, his hand dropping away from my face.
“Why didn’t I tell you?” he repeats, something almost like a laugh following the words. “Because you’re a fighter, Sparrow. I’ve never seen you back down from a fight, ever. I knew you wouldn’t just go along with it if I said I worked out a deal to get you out of Cliff’s crosshairs, and I couldn’t let him hurt you. I couldn’t let you stay.”
“Why didn’t you tell Declan or Elias?” I demand, ignoring the almost desperate edge to his voice.
His lips press together, pain burning in his green eyes. “Maybe I should have. Maybe if I had, they wouldn’t hate me just as much as you do now. But I didn’t want them to have to lie to you too. I didn’t want you to hate all of us.”
My eyes sting with the threat of tears, and I blink hard. “So you shut us all out. You went behind all of our backs to make a deal with the devil.”
Gray nods. His body is still caging mine against the wall, and I can feel the tension in every muscle, the way he almost seems to vibrate with it. “Yes. I knew you’d never forgive me. I can barely fucking forgive myself. But sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil to protect an angel.”
I should laugh at the notion that Gray considers me an angel. I should laugh at all of this, because it has to be a fucking joke. But no laughter comes. I can’t seem to make a fucking sound.
“I did what I did as a last ditch effort to keep you safe,” he says quietly. “That’s the truth, whether you want to believe it or not. I didn’t want to let you go, but I had to. To protect you.”
The raw edge to his voice is like a knife, cutting through the layers of protection I’ve wrapped around my heart.
Gray is as broken as I am. I’ve always seen that in him, and I think it’s what drew us together in the first place, that night at The Silent Hour when we both decided to bury our pain in a moment of ecstasy. So no matter what he’s done to me, it hurts to see pain in his eyes now. There’s a part of me that wants to try to ease his hurt—but I don’t owe him that.
