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“That’s where she thought you were living,” I tell Jace. “And she said that if anything went wrong, I was supposed to take the baby and get there and you’d know what to do.”
He sighs and rubs his head like he can’t take any more of this. For a second, I think he’s going to hand me the baby and run outside and shift. That’s what he is, I know. He’s a shifter. He’s a bear. Alexis told me that part. She said that her son deserved to know his father and that if everything went wrong, Jace was the only person who could help.
“Tell me what happened,” he says. “Knowing Alexis, it’s not what I thought.”
“She loved her secrets.”
“Loved them,” he agrees. Then he scoffs, almost angrily, but stops. “Okay, hit me with it. I’m not getting any younger, and waiting isn’t going to make this hurt any less.”
“Alexis and I were childhood friends,” I tell him honestly, and strangely, the truth feels easier to share than I thought it would be. “We did everything together.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It was nice. She was nice.”
He smiles sadly, and I know he’s thinking about all of their happy memories. I know he’s thinking about all of the time they shared together. He doesn’t know what I know, though, and there’s no easy way to tell him the truth: the reality. There’s no easy way to drop the honest information on this guy without making it hurt.
“Did she ever talk about her dad?”
“Nope.”
“Never?”
“Not once,” he says. “I assumed he died.”
“To her, he did. He was an asshole.”
He chuckles.
“Doesn’t surprise me. She was a tough girl. It makes sense that she was raised in a place where she had to be.”
“Yeah, well, he was a little more than that. He was kind of...”
“What?” He looks up at me. “A mobster? A serial killer? An abuser? Lay it on me, Polly. Can’t get any worse than this. Can’t get any worse than not knowing.”
“He was a dirty cop,” I tell him. “And he controlled every aspect of her life. When she left, she left for good, and she didn’t tell anyone where she was going.”
“Why would she leave?”
“Why do you think?”
“Um, hmm, let me think,” he says. “Did Daddy want her to marry his second-in-command who was also a huge prick?”
“Yep.”
“No.”
“Yep.”
“That sounds like something from a bad movie.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Well, the truth kind of sucks. No offense.”
“She left home when she found out what they were planning. She didn’t bother wasting time talking to her dad about it. She just ran.”
“Where?”
