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Ashton snorted.
“I agree with this prick here, that you shouldn’t go. Stay here and remain safe.”
“I’m not going to react to that because you are that important to me.” Ashton sent her a short glare.
She rolled her eyes.
I still had work to do with them.
Ashton turned back to me, and since I was holding the coffee, he touched my hips, pulling me closer to him. Leaning down, he rested his forehead to mine and whispered, “I can’t let you go.”
“But—”
“If something happened to you? Don’t you get it? If something happened to you?”
He was leaving the question hanging for me, and damn. That was a good tactic. Warmth swirled up in my chest, easing some of the bad gut sensation, and I was getting it. Me. I was important to him.
“Run and I’ll burn the world down for you.” I remembered his words. A tingle went through me.
“Three uncles. My grandfather. Not you.” He moved his head, his lips pressing the softest kiss to my forehead. “Not you.”
My throat closed up. A different memory was coming to me. I lifted my head to look him in the eyes. His mother. My mother. We never talked about why he wanted the truth out, and I’d forgotten until now. How could I have forgotten about that? Maybe my own mother issues? I didn’t know. I didn’t like thinking about her, but that was another layer between us, and I felt it pulsating.
I sighed. “Okay. Fine, but if I’m not going today, then you need to have it out.”
Ashton straightened, frowning. “What are you talking about?”
I nodded at him and Jess. “You two. Both of you. Neither of you will tell me what happened, but I know something happened. What was it?”
“Now’s not the time—” Jess started to say.
“So when is?” I clipped out.
“Molly.”
I held a hand up, stepping back from Ashton.
Trace wasn’t saying a word.
“There’s a group dynamic here. Between all of you. I’m late to the group, but I’m here. I know my role. I know all your roles. Do you?” I gestured to Ashton. “He already knows. I’ve rambled about it to him, but I’m serious.”
“Molly.” Jess was already shaking her head.
“I mean it, Jess. You are going to marry that man by you. He is in the middle of a war with the man next to me. There’s strained history between you two, and it needs to be resolved. Today. Now. Before you leave because I do have a bad feeling.”
She didn’t say anything.
Ashton wasn’t either.
Trace was watching Jess with a pensive look.
“What happened? What was so horrible—”
“I tortured her.”
My head whipped to Ashton, to his sudden declaration, and he was watching me back, waiting. Waiting for what? I frowned. “Torture?” I whispered. “You tortured her?”
“It was that night when I came to get her at Easter Lanes.” His darkness. I felt it again, but my own was pushing up. The darkness that I liked to pretend wasn’t there but was, and I knew it, he knew it, and he accepted it.
He accepted me.
“Run and I’ll burn the world down for you.”
He fell silent after that, but I was still waiting for more information. More of an explanation. He wasn’t giving it to me. “You’re going to drop that bomb and not say anything else?”
“We had a mole. I needed to make sure it wasn’t her.” His jaw clenched. His eyes were blazing before he banked them. A wall slid back into place. I felt the draft by how cold he’d become. He was reverting to his default setting.
My own jaw clenched.
Trace was still watching Jess. I could only shake my head. “You don’t have anything to add? He’s your best friend.”
Trace shifted his attention to me, barely blinking. “He and I have resolved things.”
“He put me in the hospital.”
Trace echoed. “I put him in the hospital.”
Jess wasn’t looking at anyone. Her head was down, and her hands were opening and closing into fists. “And you?”
She lifted her head now, her eyes pained. Haunted. “There’s nothing that can be said after what he did to me.”
I moved toward her. “You’re just cool letting him hang out to dry? Between him and his boy?”
I was focused on Jess, but I sensed Trace’s head jerking to mine.
Jess’s eyes widened, just a fraction. Some blood drained from her face, and she said through gritted teeth, “Not really the best time to go down that memory lane, Molly. Especially considering where I’m going and what news I might be getting about my mom’s health. Also, especially considering your ‘bad’ feeling. Why are you pushing this?”
“What do you need from him?”
She flinched, warily. “What do you mean?”
“What do you need from him to make it better?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. She shrugged. “He’s already doing it.”
“I am?”
She didn’t look his way but lowered her head. “You’re looking for Kelly’s killer. Words can’t undo what you did.” She lifted her head, now seeing him. She barely flinched this time. “I know why you did what you did, but you did it to me. And you did it behind Trace’s back, and even that I get, but no words can take away that damage. You’ve already laid the groundwork. You apologized. You meant it, and now, doing is the best way to heal anything. I’d let you torture me infinity times over if it meant you found Kelly’s killer just once. I loved her. She was my family. Mine, and someone took her from me. Justin was a good man too. They took both of their futures. They took her.” Her words grew thick. A sob came out. “Her kids would’ve been my nieces, nephews. I might’ve not seen them, but I would’ve known about them. I would’ve known she was happy and had finally, God, finally, got her happily ever after. They took that from her, so you and me, I don’t care anymore. I just want to find who killed her. Find them, and we’re solid.”
