Final y, when he didn’t start again, I asked, “Mace, can I come to you now?”
He answered immediately, “No. I’m not done.” What else can there be? My brain asked.
Quiet! I snapped back.
“After that, I gave up everything, went to ground, disappeared. I joined an organization, I can’t tel you who and I never wil . They trained me. It was specialized training and I needed that training. I did what I had to do to get the job I had to get done, done. Then, for years, I did what I did for them at the same time I did what I had to do for Caitlin. I found out my father was involved and how. I can’t tel you about any of this shit. If you know, far worse people than Sidney Carter would want you dead and they’d be able to do it. Al you gotta know is that by the time I left, I did what I had to do for Caitlin. The person who gave the order to take her isn’t breathing anymore, Stel a, and I’m the reason he’s not. He died like she did, exactly like she did, I made sure of that.”
I swal owed, it was hard, considering I had a huge organ in my throat but I pushed the saliva down.
He kept right on talking and I thought that it was strange and alarming that his voice didn’t change. It was strong and sharp and completely devoid of emotion.
“I did shit I’m not proud of and lived in a world you wouldn’t be able to imagine and I don’t give a f**k. I did what I had to do for Caitlin and I got no problem with that. I can live with it.” He paused, his arms crossed on his chest then he asked, “The question is, can you?” Oh hel .
I didn’t know what to say. I needed some processing time and not the kind that involved sex.
When I hesitated, Mace kept at me and he was relentless.
“You told my father he had enough black marks on his soul to send him straight to hel . You gotta know, the heart you want into has its own strikes against it. No way to wash off the shit I did, it’s marked deep. That the kind of man you want sleepin’ in your bed?”
“Wel , you haven’t given me much choice up to now,” I replied.
“Now you got that choice.”
“You’ve never asked me these kinds of questions before,” I told him.
“I never expected you to learn this shit before.” I blinked. “You were going to keep it from me?”
“Until the day I f**kin’ died.”
I couldn’t believe that, didn’t even want to and my mouth dropped open before I snapped it shut and asked, “Why?”
“Because I never wanted you to look at me the way you’re lookin’ at me right now.”
Shitsofuckit.
I didn’t know how I was looking at him and tried to rearrange my face and shift us into safer waters. “How did you get involved with Lee?”
“Luke knew me, we worked together. He found out I was out, he told Lee to recruit me and now I’m here.”
“Luke? He –?”
“Yeah.”
“Does Ava know?” I asked.
“As much as she can know,” he answered. “Which I figure is about as much as you know.”
We stared at each other a few beats then I dropped my head and shifted the sheet tighter around me, thoughts tumbling around in my brain.
I wasn’t real y sure but al my thoughts seemed to be about the same thing.
Mainly that I knew, without a doubt, that my luck had changed.
After having a life of no love for so long, finding a guy who could love so deep that he’d sacrifice everything to avenge someone he cared about felt effing great.
That might make me a freak but I didn’t care.
I wasn’t going to say it out loud (not again) but, for as long as she had him, Caitlin Mason was one lucky girl.