He studies me and I expect him to blow me off, but he doesn’t. What he does, is blow my mind.
“My sister is dead,” he begins, and my mouth drops open. “She was dating a man, didn’t know him well—all I know is he was beating her. She was all I had, Grace. There was nothing else. She called me one night, told me he was scaring her, that he had been hitting her. I got in my car and went to her. By the time I got to her, she was dead. Stabbed. He was standing there, staring down at her, knife in his hand. I lost my shit, I beat the living shit out of him. I was going to kill him, don’t doubt it, but the cops got there as I was leaning over him, knife in hand. You can guess who they blamed.”
Oh God. My heart burns for him. Emotion explodes in my chest, making my knees buckle. I knew Raide didn’t do it, but hearing him say it, hearing him admit it to me makes my heart swell with sadness for him. I can’t imagine how hard it’s been. Tears burn under my eyelids and I fight to keep them back. Everything inside my body hurts for this man, it hurts because he’s suffering, he’s in pain, and that fucking kills me.
“Why are you telling me this?” I rasp.
“I’m telling you because you want to know me. You don’t want to know my favorite color or my favorite food or where I like to vacation—you want to know the worst part of me, and that right there, lady, is it.”
I blink back my tears. “Why didn’t you say what happened?”
He looks past me at the wall. “Because he told them I came in, tried to get his sister away, and that when she didn’t come, I lost it. He was beaten, she was beaten and stabbed. I had the knife. I had the bruised knuckles. That fucker was clever—he had no marks on his hands, must have hit her with his palms. I have a previous record for breaking and entering, and assault when I was younger. Who do you think they believed?”
Poor Raide.
Oh God. Poor Raide.
“And the trial?” I can’t help myself, I have to ask. Any normal person would ask that question. They’d want to know what’s happening. They’d want to know why he’s not in prison.
“I got bail,” he says. “And now I’m lookin’ for him.”
I flinch. “You’re looking for him?”
He’s only confirming what I already guessed.
“He deserves to pay, Gracie. He took her life, he took her from me—” His voice cracks and my heart breaks, it tears right open. “—so I’m going to make him pay before I go down.”
I close my eyes, and my body trembles. Revenge. He’s going to get his revenge. I want to be angry with him for that, but how can I be? He’s broken, he’s hurting, and he’s going down for something he didn’t do. That man, he took away everything Raide had left. Pain rips through my chest and I want to reach out and just hold him. I want to make it better, yet deep down in my heart, I know I’m only going to make it worse.
I’m going to be the one to stop him.
“I’m sorry, Raide.” It’s all I can say.
“So that’s it—that’s me and that’s the worst of me.”
“I…,” I whisper.
“You can handle that?”
Tears burst from my eyes again and run down my cheeks. I want to tell him it’s okay. I want to tell him I understand. I want to tell him he’s a good person and it’s going to be okay. I want to wrap my arms around him and take it all away, but I can’t. If I let Raide go through with his plan of seeking revenge, then he’ll go away for a long time. He thinks right now revenge is going to fix everything, but it won’t.
Realization hits me like a sledgehammer. I have to take him in. It’s the only way to save him. If he kills his sister’s killer, he’ll spend the rest of his life behind bars. It won’t make him happy, it won’t fix what’s broken, and God dammit, it won’t allow him to be the man I know he is. Raide told me he wanted to be free. There’s only one way that can happen. I have to take him in, and then I have to help him.
So I say the only thing I can. I know it’s for the best right in this moment, even though it rips my heart out to say it. “No.”
He flinches and then jerks his head. “Right.” Then he dresses himself, gets his things, and walks toward the door. “You know the way out.”
When he’s gone, I fall to my knees and cry.
What the hell did I get myself into?
Chapter Fourteen
I’m numb as I walk toward the office.
My heart has shut down. My head is switched off. I can’t think. I just have to do this. For Raide, for me, for everything I’ve worked for. I step through the giant double doors and walk straight into Don’s office. He’s back and working on something, head buried in his laptop. When he hears his door, he lifts his head and studies me. “Grace, is everything okay?”
I toss a piece of paper on his desk. “His address. I can’t bring him in on my own; he’s a big man. You’ll find him there.”
He studies me, really studies me. “You look like you’ve had your heart ripped out. Are you sure everything is okay?”