We All Sleep Alone (Finley Creek #11) - Calle J. Brookes Page 0,67
Her son had once been strong, fit, muscled. Healthy. He was a pale shadow of himself, hooked up to machines. Half as many as the week before, but…he hadn’t deserved this.
Someone knocked on the doorjamb softly. She turned.
Kyle stood there. Kyle—he was all she had left besides her son. He’d been her assistant for the last ten years.
Her lover since the night he’d turned twenty-one—eleven years ago.
Not all the time. Just on occasion. He’d been there for her now. He’d found him. He’d found Reggie and gotten him the help he needed.
She’d always love him for that.
“It’s time, Jen.”
She stood. “I’m…ready.”
There was yet another meeting with the attorney today. For Wallace. She hadn’t wanted to go, but Kyle had convinced her it was the right thing to do.
Technically, she was still married to Wallace, after all.
He was Reggie’s father. She owed it to Reggie to be there for Wallace when Reggie couldn’t. Especially now.
What had happened to Reggie had been a massive blow to Wallace. A blow Jennifer would never have meant to cause. But she had.
Wallace loved Reggie so much.
Jennifer had to know what had happened. She had to.
Reggie had nearly died. Dennis Lee, that selfish bastard, had died. And Carl…she bit back a sob.
Of all the men she had ever loved, Carl Buchanan had loved her the most. Even more than Wallace.
She hadn’t appreciated that until he was taken from her.
Jennifer had taken advantage of him so many times. She’d known Carl had loved her, had been waiting for her to leave Wallace for him. She’d abused his love and devotion.
Carl hadn’t been exciting. He’d been steady, stable, reliable. She had always been able to count on him. Now, she was losing him.
She prayed so hard for Carl every night.
Jennifer had stopped by his hospital room first. She made a point of going to sit with him every second or third time she visited Reggie.
She couldn’t let her relationship with Carl get out there in the public eye. An affair with a married woman would destroy Carl. If he ever woke up from what Dennis Lee had done to him.
She had known they were brothers. Just how much hatred there was in Dennis Lee’s heart—she had missed it.
She didn’t know what she would have done if she hadn’t, though.
Her entire relationship with Dennis Lee had been one of avarice. Self-serving.
Karma was on her footsteps now. Karma wearing Jake MacNamara’s face.
Jake MacNamara’s goons were getting deeper into her business. Her life.
It was only a matter of time until he found those idiots who’d failed to get rid of his niece like Jennifer had ordered them to. She’d thought…Dennis Lee had used them for just about everything. Those TSP officers had come in handy for both her and Dennis Lee so many times before. She’d trusted them.
They’d failed. Because some other man had stopped them.
She’d give her right arm to know who that other man was. To know what was in it for him.
Nerves had her pacing around Reggie’s room. She needed to get out of there for a while. Find a way to calm herself.
She’d go check on Carl. To sit with him, talk with him.
Let him know that, regardless of what happened, she loved him. As much as she loved Wallace. They hadn’t built a life together, she and Carl. They could have. She’d considered doing that so many times before.
Maybe she should have. Left Wallace and married Carl instead. Maybe then none of this would have happened to the men she loved.
A part of her felt like she was somehow trading Carl’s life for Reggie’s. Like she only deserved one of them surviving, if either. Because of how she had lived her life this far.
It would have to be Reggie. She…her son was young. He deserved to have his life ahead of him.
Guilt was a horrible bedmate. If she hadn’t fucked around with Dennis Lee, none of this would have happened.
She had to accept that. She should have left Wallace and married Carl. They could have lived in that beautiful home of his and raised Jason together. It would have been a beautiful life they would have made together, with the bonus of another child for her to love.
How had she missed what she could have had?
But she…she had been as weak as Wallace. Needing more than her husband could give her.
She was just as horrible as Wallace.
Maybe she had deserved all of this. Deserved to lose them all.