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This was best for her, though; that’s what I kept telling myself. I could only hurt her if I reentered her life.
So why the hell was she out there, bawling after I’d attempted to do the right goddamn thing? She needed to stop. She needed to stop weeping, or I was going to lose it.
I pressed my back against the wall, rested my elbows on my bent knees and cradled my head in my hands as I gritted my teeth and listened to the worst sound in the world.
And then she did stop. I’m not sure how long she’d gone on—it felt like fucking decades and I was half delirious by that point—but the hiccups gradually subsided, then she picked herself up off the floor, and she left.
I remained, sitting just outside the stairwell, my hands shaking, my heart pounding and my vision graying at the edges.
I had no idea she’d tried to visit me in prison...and on her birthday, no less. I remembered her birthday clearly. I’d been lying on my stomach in the medical ward, trying not to cry out from the pain as they stitched the tear in my rectum back together. Turning my head away from their tray full of supplies so I didn’t have to look at all the needles and shit they were going to use on me, I’d ended up facing a bare wall with nothing but a calendar hanging on it. When I’d realized it was her eighteenth birthday, I’d closed my eyes and sung happy birthday to her in my head to distract myself from what was happening.
Recalling that day didn’t calm me any, though. Rage, the same sick need to destroy that I’d had the night before in Pick’s office, rallied inside me. I had a bad feeling as soon as I stood up, I’d take out the entire hall, rip every door off its hinge, dent in all the walls, heave the fire extinguisher out the window. So I sat there clenching and unclenching my hands and concentrating on breathing.
I was focusing so hard on keeping myself together, I didn’t hear the footsteps on the stairs until Eva rounded the corner with a baby on her hip and her free arm loaded with bags.
“Oh! Knox. Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” She had to dance around my feet to avoid tripping over them.
As I pulled my legs in closer to my body and gaped up at her in horror, she grinned back, having no clue how close to detonating I was.
“Thank God you decided to come back. I got you some clothes this morning. I guessed on sizes, so fingers crossed that something actually fits.”
I stood because it seemed wrong to sit in front of her while she was standing there, loaded down with so much weight.
“I can carry something.”
I reached for the bags, but she handed me the kid. I froze, scared out of my mind, as soon as the little girl landed in my arms.
Why the hell was she handing me her child while I was like this? I could lose my control at any second. But neither mother nor daughter seemed to care. As Eva strode ahead of me toward their apartment door, Skylar grinned at me, clutched a handful of my shirt and babbled out a greeting.
My stomach clenched as I stared back. She could’ve been Bentley if her hair had been red. She could’ve been my sweet, innocent niece who’d died a tragic death, but she was a real live girl, here in my arms and gazing at me with absolute trust.
A cold sweat dripped down my back. I hurried after Eva and halted just inside the doorway, hesitating when Pick and Julian entered the living room from the kitchen, the scent of coffee following him. He paused when he saw me, and I remembered what he’d said the night before. He trusted me with his children.
Except all the responsibility his trust bore on me only made me panic more. What if I accidentally hurt one of his babies?
“What do you think?” Eva asked, pulling something from the first shopping bag. “I went with dark colors because they seem to suit you.” She turned to me and held up a navy-colored shirt as she came forward to measure it against my shoulders and see how well it would do. “I got a couple hoodies too. All sized extra-large. But we can take them back if they don’t fit.”
When she held one of those up next, I blinked in confusion. “You really bought me clothes?” I wasn’t even sure how to respond to that. “You didn’t have to do that.”
She shrugged and turned away. “We wanted to.”
I glanced at Pick. He shrugged too.
Well, shit. I owed these people more than they could ever know, and how had I repaid them? By wrecking Pick’s office. By pushing him against a wall. By giving one of his favorite employees a black eye.
Bile rose in my throat.
“It was nearly impossible to find long pants,” Eva went on, tugging a pair of blue jeans from her shopping bag. “But I’m not a shopping queen for nothing. I just hope these will be comfortable enough.”
She tried to come at me with them next, but Pick intercepted her. “Tink, maybe we could do this later. I need Knox to help me at the office with something for a while. Okay?”
She squinted at him as if she knew he was lying. But she shrugged and smiled. “All right. You guys have fun. See you later, love.”
After smacking him on the lips with a kiss, she took both kids from us and herded them toward the kitchen. “Let’s see what Daddy was making for breakfast, shall we?”
As soon as they were out of sight, Pick sent me a hard glance. “Let’s go.”
I followed him out the door, without a word. I had no idea what he had planned, but if he brought up Felicity, I wouldn’t be able to take it.
