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He pulled her back against his chest and rocked her. He wouldn’t push her. If that was as far as this story went, as much as she was willing to share, he’d let it go. But Jesus, he wanted to help her. Holding her might have to be enough.
She sucked in a shuddering breath.
“You don’t have to say anything else if you don’t want to,” he said, close to her ear. He suspected she didn’t confide easily, and the fact she’d trusted him with this much of her story made his heart expand.
She straightened out of his embrace but stayed on his lap. “I need to tell you. She deserves to have someone else know what happened.”
Her words hit like a fist to the gut.Someone else. Who else knew? He’d bet it was someone she didn’t trust or who didn’t comfort her. Anger tapped against his temples but he forced it away. He wouldn’t react until she’d told him everything.
Her eyes met his. Her tears had mostly dried but anguish still strained her green orbs. “My ex,” she began, her voice a little breathless. “Jace. We were together five years. Looking back, I honestly don’t know how I stayed with him that long. He was so... unpredictable. Anyway.” She cleared her throat. “I met him when I was twenty. My dad had just hired me to help him acquire businesses, and he wanted to form an alliance with Lionsgate’s drug division.”
Blinding-white rage rimmed Toth’s vision. What kind of vile motherfucker sent his only daughter into a drug ring? Danny Carrington, of course. The ruthless, cutthroat bastard.
I’ll fucking kill him.
“Jace and I started dating, and I kind of felt I was stuck with him.” She shrugged. “I loved him, I think, but more than anything it made sense to be together. My dad liked him and it made business easier.”
Revulsion hit the back of Toth’s throat. He forced back the comments that wouldn’t make her feel better and intertwined their fingers. She glanced down at their joined hands and a smile touched her lips. She met his eyes, her gaze now charged with more confidence.
“I suspected for a while that Jace was using some of the product.” Her eyes grew cold. “I realize I’m not the most upstanding citizen, but after I found out I was pregnant I just couldn’t stand the idea of bringing a baby into a household with drugs.” She swallowed, her eyes small. “Jace and I started to fight more than we ever had. I’m sure I became a nag, but his temper grew worse and worse. Probably due to the cocaine use.”
Toth breathed in and out through his nose. The effort it took to keep his demeaner passive made it almost hard to listen.
“Finally, he agreed to stop using and dealing. Things got better, or maybe he got better at hiding it. I was twenty-six weeks along and we’d just got done painting her nursery the night before.” Her voice caught, but she cleared it. “I was cleaning the bathroom and I wiped my hand along the surface of the counter”—she made the motion—“just to see if it was dusty. I felt a gritty, powdery texture. It just seemed weird to me, so I smelled it. It was cocaine.” Her eyes darkened. “To be clear, I’ve never touched the stuff. But being around it as much as I was, I knew what I was looking at.”
He nodded so she’d continue.
“I confronted him. God, I was so angry.” She shook her head, and fresh tears blurred her eyes. “That’s another thing that upsets me. One of the last things the baby felt was my anger. She would have heard me and her father fighting.”
Toth’s insides twisted violently. “Go on,” he said softly, needing her to finish more than he needed his next breath.
“Jace was already in a bad mood. We yelled at each other in the hallway upstairs. He tried to deny it, but... I told him I was leaving him. That I didn’t want him around the baby until he was clean. He grabbed me at the top of the stairs and... I’ve never seen him so mad.”
Anger made Toth’s vision waver, the need to find the cocksucker and kill him so great it nearly had him on his feet. His breath hissed through his teeth. “What’d he do?”
Her gaze flicked to his. “He had me by the shoulders and was shaking me. Calling me all kinds of names. Then he let go, pushing me.” Her voice grew tight. “In his defense, I don’t think he realized how close I was to the stairs. I stumbled backward. I saw him reach for me, but it was too late. I fell.”
She covered her mouth with her hand and a sob leaked out. “It felt like... like a nightmare. The fall just seemed to last forever. After that it was a blur. There was so much blood.” Tears flowed freely down her cheeks.
“Jace called an ambulance and they rushed me into surgery. But it was too late.” Her face tightened with grief, and the red tip of her nose matched the red around her eyes. “There was nothing they could do,” she whispered.
He pulled her to his chest. Her body shook in his arms, so damn small. Jesus. He wished he could go back in time and know her then, somehow save her from the heartache. He pressed small kisses to her temple and held her. Time slipped by. It could have been ten minutes or it could have been an hour. Didn’t matter.
She shifted in his embrace and wiped her eyes. “I guess you know everything now,” she said, on a soft, awkward laugh. Her eyes studied his face as if searching for signs of judgment.
“Not everything,” he said, combing her hair behind her ear.
She straightened but stayed rooted to his lap. “What do you want to know?”
He wasn’t going to mince words. “I want the motherfucker who hurt you. Where is he?”
***
Toth’s question hungin the air as a lead ball formed in Savannah’s stomach. As much as she hated Jace for what he’d become and what he’d done, he’d still been someone she’d once cared about. She screwed her lips to the side and then moved them back. “He’s dead. My dad killed Jace shortly after the accident.”
She gave Toth a sympathetic smile and stretched out her legs so her feet hung off his lap and closer to the hearth. Only small flames licked around red embers—not enough to generate much heat, but Toth’s body did more than keep her warm. “So you see, our history with Lionsgate died that day. They’re not involved in this.”
Part of her hated that her past had ruined the night. But she felt as if a set of barbells had been lifted from her chest. She never talked about what had happened that day with Jace. She’d told her dad when he visited her in the hospital, and her explanation had been brief. A couple of her closest friends knew as well, but she never talked about it. Kept everything to herself. Tried to bury it deep. But the grief had always eaten her from the inside out.
