Addy closed her eyes, shutting me out, and the pressure in my chest grew.
The motherfucker had taken his hands to her.
And no one intervened. Which meant she’d hid it. A week ago, I would’ve said Addy couldn't pull anything over on Jasper, most especially something like this. Yet, there it was.
I shoved it down into a dark place, so dark I can’t feel it.
“Okay, baby.”
I felt her body relax and I knew I made the right decision not to push. Without opening her eyes, she dropped her forehead to my shoulder and scooted closer, and I gave her the only thing I could give her—silence.
It took a while, but her breath evened out and she melted into me. Only then did I exhale.
That night, Adalynn Walker found sleep. I, however, did not.
23
“Really? I can?” I excitedly asked and flipped Trey’s omelet.
When I was done with that, I craned my neck to look at him sitting at the bar with a cup of coffee in front of him. Incidentally, Trey made great coffee. Or I should say, Trey bought expensive, Jamaican coffee beans he ground fresh every morning.
“Yeah. I called Bass yesterday, asked him if I dropped you off if he’d bring you back to the compound after you were done.”
Unease choked out the happiness I’d felt moments before when Trey told me I could go to my kickboxing class. It had been a week. A great week of living and getting to know Trey. He’d made it so great I’d forgotten I was there because I was on lockdown.
“You called Bass?”
“Babe, the eggs.”
I turned back to the stove, slid the omelet on the plate that already had three rashers of crispy-nearly-burnt bacon on it. Something I learned about Trey while living with him, he liked his bacon nearly burnt, his eggs still runny—if you could believe that, gross—and his toast lightly browned.
We’d fallen into an awesome routine. I cooked breakfast—but he made the coffee—we ate lunch at work, and he cooked dinner. After dinner, we’d lounge. Sometimes we watched TV in the living room on his big comfy couches and I’d been right, they were warm and inviting and when you sat on them you wanted to snuggle under a blanket and not move. But the best part about those couches, they came with Trey. And once we sat down and he arranged me where he wanted me, which was as close as he could get me, I never, ever wanted to leave.
Some nights after dinner and clean up, we’d relax in his Jacuzzi and he told me more about his family. None of it good. He hadn’t shared a single good memory and I couldn’t fathom growing up the way he had. I had a good, loving, tightknit family. That drove me around the bend with their in-your-face nosiness, but it was always done out of love. Even my brother being a monumental jerk was shrouded in adoration, even if I had to dig deep to find it.
But I could’ve dug to China and not found a shred of evidence to suggest Carl, CJ, or Paige loved Trey. Carl and CJ were obvious. They were jerks. But Paige was a puzzle I couldn’t figure out. I’d spent one evening with the woman, and while she was nice…ish…it was clear she didn’t attempt to protect Trey from her husband’s venom. Nor had she corrected or reprimanded her other son for being downright cruel to Trey. She was no help whatsoever. I couldn’t wrap my head around how a mother could stand by and meekly watch one of her children get verbally attacked.
Emily Walker would rain hellfire and scorch the earth before someone would abuse one of her children.
Shame coiled in my stomach and I rushed to put Trey’s plate in front of him.
“Bass?” I asked, needing desperately to clear my mind of the past.
“What about him? He said he had time after class to bring you back.”
“You called him,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, baby, just told you I did.”
“Why’d you call him?” I snapped and Trey slowly sat up straight.
Then suddenly everything about him gentled.
What in the world?
“We’ve made some headway, but not enough. Your dad talked to a few of his old contacts as well as Belview’s commanding officer. He’s still in town, but we haven’t been able to track him down. There wasn’t much for Dylan to find—his service record is mostly bogus, so we know he was telling the truth about being