“It’s not fair to ask me that.” Her hands covered mine over her stomach.
“I have one child.”
She stiffened, holding her breath.
“A boy.”
Nothing. Not one breath, not one sound.
“His name is Jericho. He’s ten, but he lives with his mom.”
It took her all of two seconds to turn around and fist my shirt. “You’re such an asshole.” She narrowed her eyes.
“I am.” I grabbed her face and kissed off every ounce of lipstick, leaving her breathless and red from my whiskers. “I’m going back to Austin today. Talk to your dad.”
She pulled back. “What does that mean?”
“It means … talk to your dad.” I kissed her forehead and stepped back, making my way to the door. “I’ll take Jericho out. You’re going to be late if you don’t get going.”
When I opened the door and whistled to Jericho, her high heels clicked furiously along the hard floor toward me. She threw her arms around my neck. “You’re not coming back, are you? This is goodbye, isn’t it?” she whispered, voice thick with emotion.
It. Fucking. Killed. Me.
I hugged her waist, lifting her off the ground and burying my face into her neck. “Talk to your dad.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Livy
I couldn’t go back to San Francisco, not with my workload. So I asked my dad to come to Sacramento that weekend.
Wylder? He left. No contact information. Nothing more than a sad smile, a kiss goodbye, and a final “talk to your dad.”
When I opened the door, mid-morning Saturday, Dad smiled and held out his arms. I returned a frown, pivoted, and shuffled back to my kitchen to finish washing my dirty dishes from the previous days.
“That’s not the greeting I expected when you texted me to visit you.” He shut the door.
I resumed scrubbing the dishes in the sink with my back to him. “Slade’s alive.”
“What?”
“No!” I whipped back around, hands fisted at my sides, dripping soapy water onto the floor. “Not what, like you didn’t hear me. Not what like you can’t believe what I just said. The correct answer is: When did you find out, Livy? I’m incredibly sorry for lying to you for five years. It broke my heart to watch you grieve him for so long. But I did it because …” I lifted both hands, palms up, eyes wide and expectant. “Fill in the fucking blank, Dad!”
My dad was militant in his control. Nothing phased him, at least that he showed to me. I couldn’t bully him, and I knew it. That didn’t stop my anger. That didn’t soothe the pain.
He twisted his lips and canted his head. “Because he lived. He could live in prison or live a new life. But he couldn’t live with you. His uncle didn’t work alone. Slade wasn’t his only soldier. The police wanted him in prison for the death of his uncle. The other people who worked with him wanted him dead. And they weren’t going to give up until he was in fact dead. So what did you want me to do? Let him die? Let him come for you so you died too? Let him go to prison? Let me go to prison?”
“The truth! I wanted the truth.”
Dad nodded slowly. “I see. And what were you going to do with the truth? Be with him?”
“Yes!” I pressed my hands against the side of my head, furious at his ability to stay so calm while I crumbled like an avalanche, violent and reckless.
“Do you know what would have had to happen for you to be with him?”
“Yes. You would have had to tell me he was alive. That you relocated him to Texas.”
Dad chuckled. His aloofness fed my anger. “No, Livy. You would have had to die too. Faked your death. Funeral. Gravestone. Everything.”
“So …” I shrugged as frustration bled through my voice.
“Slade’s mom thinks he’s dead. For his safety and hers, she will always have to believe he is dead. She will never see him again. When you die, fake or real, you never see your family again.”
“You and Jess did.”
“We were rare exceptions.”
“Why?”
“Because I killed Slade’s dad.”
I swallowed hard.
“Let him go. He’s alive. That should mean something. That should be enough.”
I shook my head. “It’s not enough. If you found out that mom was alive, but you couldn’t be with her … would that be enough?”
He flinched a bit. “Livy …”
“There’s no way you would let that happen.”
“Liv—”
“No. You don’t know what it’s like to feel like you have to say goodbye forever to the same person twice! And you definitely don’t know what it’s like to have the person you love come back from the dead and be married.” Tears filled my eyes and my voice cracked. “H-he’s m-married.”
He took a step toward me and I stepped backward, shaking my head. “I don’t need you to comfort me. I don’t need to sit on your lap while you coddle me and tell me everything is going to be okay. I just need to know why he told me to talk to you. What does that mean? What isn’t he telling me? What aren’t you telling me?”
“We’re not having this conversation.”
“YES!” I smacked my palm on the counter. “We are having this conversation.”
“No …” he said with an uncharacteristic loss of control to his tone. “We are not talking about this. I am not letting you die. I am not letting you go.”
It dawned on me, even then … five years later … I needed to die, to take on a new identity to be with Slade. I would not get to see my dad or the rest of my family ever again.
“His wife …”
Dad scratched the back of his neck and sighed but said nothing.
“He wouldn’t say anything about her, except he wore gray on his wedding day and it rained. And it fit his mood. He wants you to tell me about his wife. Why was he not happy on his wedding day?”
Nothing.
I hugged my arms to my stomach. “Does he love her?”
Dad shrugged. “They’ve been married for almost five years. He might love her.”
“Five? Almost five years? The incident at the cabin happened just over five years ago. He didn’t fall in love and get married that quickly. Who the hell is she and why is she married to the man that I love?”
Another flinch from my father. He never could swallow the truth—and the truth was, despite everything, I loved Wylder to my soul.
“She needed a new life too. Single people relocating as a couple are less likely to be noticed, to be found.”
“Did he know her?”
Dad shook his head.
“He married a stranger? Like an arranged marriage?”
“Yes.”
Five years.
He’d been with her for five years. As friends?
“What’s she like?”
“Livy—”
“Jesus, Dad! Just tell me what she’s like!”
He deflated. “She’d just turned eighteen when they married.”
My stomach clenched.
“She’s smart. A lot like you, actually. She likes to surf and drive fast cars. She’s a vegetarian and an environmentalist. You’d like her.”