I swallowed around the lump that tasted like grief and shards of glass. “Yeah…you can let him in.”
“Okay.” She edged forward and placed a kiss on my forehead. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I always, always worry about you, Alexis. But this time…” Grief clogged her words. “This time I was terrified I was going to lose you. I don’t know where that would leave me.”
Fighting the moisture in my eyes, I blinked up at her. “It’s okay…it’s over now.”
With trembling lips, she nodded before she straightened and headed for the door. It swung open and started to close behind her when a hand caught it.
And that energy. It swelled and rippled and taunted. Zee stood at the door with so much torment on his face. Grief. Stricken. Broken.
And somehow whole.
My savior.
“Hey.” It rumbled across the room.
“Hi,” I whispered.
My eyes wandered, taking him in, the memories of that dark dungeon sending a shiver of fear through me. “Are you hurt?”
He shook his head, voice so hard. “No.”
Tears stung my eyes and burned with guilt. “I’m so glad.”
He roughed a hand down his face. The shooting star trembled and shook. “Fuck…Alexis. You were worried about me? He took you. I can’t—” He turned around, setting his hands on his hips.
I blinked through the moisture in my eyes. “It was my fault. I’m always so reckless. The doorbell rang, and I…I didn’t even hesitate to open the door because I thought it was you.”
I guessed maybe that revealed to him exactly how I felt about him. That I would always run toward him and never from him, even though I felt wounded that he’d keep something so significant from me.
A child.
Questions swirled, but I kept them tamed as I watched the distressed grimace pinch his face.
“Your fault?” he murmured with pain, finally turning back to me. “You’ve been doing what you’ve thought was right all along, Alexis. Fighting for your sister. While I’ve been nothing but a fool, trying to keep something hidden, thinking it would protect a little boy who I’d gladly die for. They had been playing me the whole time.”
I wanted to ask him a million questions about the boy. For an explanation. For a reason. For anything that would make that secrecy okay.
Instead, a stutter of words poured out with my confusion. “That woman? Veronica. She knew Craig…and…and my sister? I don’t…I don’t understand.”
I sucked in a quivering breath. “When Craig came, Veronica…she was in the car. They had my sister.”
Zee sank into a chair and furiously scrubbed at his face. As if he were trying to break through the veil. One made up of silence and secrets.
“I had no clue they were connected, Alexis. I promise you. There was something about that asshole that night when I first found you…something that felt familiar. But I’d chalked it up to the adrenaline. Thought it was just an amplification of the aggression I felt, thinking I recognized the scumbag from before.”
“And you did know him?” I urged through my bewilderment.
His head barely shook, as if he wanted to ward off the memories. “There was this birthday party for my brother. Veronica…”
This time when he said her name, he cringed and then swallowed, seemingly having to force himself to continue with the explanation. “My brother and Veronica…they were together for a while.”
Part of me wanted to weep with relief, because if it was Mark who’d been with Veronica, then my hurt over his secrecy had been nothing but presumption and speculation. But there was something about Zee’s demeanor that held the solace at bay.
Hurt radiated from him, and his voice drew quiet and strained. “That night was the last time I saw him.”
He blinked, as if he were trying to see into a distant memory. “Craig was there talking to Veronica. They were hidden deep in the backyard where it was hard to see them. Veronica had never exactly come across as chaste, so I think Mark and I both had figured they’d had some kind of past or were right in the middle of one. Guess all along I should have realized it went much deeper than that.”
“They were together…Veronica and Mark…when he died?”
Zee flinched at the question. “Not sure I would call it that.”
A disorder of facts spun through my mind, the past and the present. They were chaos, a jumble of details that twisted and turned before they’d all somehow intersected yesterday in what could have been my greatest tragedy.
I could have lost Avril. I could have lost Zee.
Grief constricted my already bruised chest as I tried to fumble through the details. “What happened…after? I heard the gunshot right before I hit my head and everything went black.”
Hesitating, he glanced to the wall, caution in his gaze when he finally looked back at me. Those bronze eyes flamed with hatred.
“He had that gun at your head.” Every muscle in his body tightened when he said it, the words growing hard. “Maybe I should’ve waited. Let it play out. But I couldn’t take that chance, Alexis. I fucking couldn’t risk him hurting you. So, I lunged for him. I wanted to die when I heard the gun pop off, not knowing if you were in its path, desperate to get to you but knowing I had to put a stop to it all if you and Avril were ever really gonna be safe.”
His massive throat bobbed when he swallowed. “We were rolling around on the ground. Throwing blows. Grappling for the gun.”
His head shook. “Then Veronica—” The word broke off and he roughed a hand through his hair.
“Fuck,” he cursed, ramming the heel of his hand in his eye, choking around grief.
It trembled through me, and he was talking toward the floor as he spat the words. “She dove at us. I don’t fucking know which of us she was trying to protect…me or that asshole.”
He looked up, moisture in his eyes. “She took the bullet that was meant for me.” Horror billowed from him. “She’s gone.”
And I didn’t understand this feeling. This constricting, strangling feeling. I wanted to weep.
For her.
For him.
For that little boy.
I didn’t know.
All I knew was it hurt and gutted and made me question my sanity.
“Zee…I’m…so sorry.” The words clogged and hung onto my throat, as if they didn’t know if they really wanted to be released.
How could I feel sympathy for the woman who had done this to me? To Avril? But I did.
He choked around a sob. “I just…I don’t fucking know how I’m going to tell him.”
“The little boy?” Even though they were barely a breath, the words knocked through both of us with the force of a sledgehammer. Brutal. “Is that what you were hiding from me? That you have a family? Tell me who she really was and what she meant to you. I just…I don’t understand.”
I could feel the tremble of my chin. “And I want to.”
He gripped the back of his neck in both hands, before he suddenly hauled his chair up close to the side of my bed, the legs screeching on the floor and his intensity invading the space.