His to Love (Fireside #1)(40)

Then I pulled my feet up onto the bench, dropped my head to my knees, and sobbed.





Chapter 19


“Where is she?” I shouted as soon as I ran into my family’s house, still shoeless. Desperation clawed at my throat, making me feel wild and feral.

My vision blurred as Clarissa shuffled out of the kitchen and headed straight toward me with her arms open. “Bella,” she whispered, tears already falling down her cheeks.

“No.” I shook my head and took several steps away from her. “She’s not—” The word “gone” clogged in my throat, unable to escape.

I knew it had been coming. I knew it was here.

I still didn’t want to accept it. I continued walking away from Clarissa. Her hands fell to her sides as I backed into the wall. It jarred my spine and I sank to my knees.

My head fell into my hands as more sobs escaped my throat, making my shoulders shake. “She can’t be.”

“I’m so sorry,” Clarissa whispered. Her gentle voice felt like needle pricks along my arm, and I flinched away from her touch. “She went in her sleep.”

As if that was any consolation.

Tears soaked into my dress as I curled into myself. I couldn’t stop the tears from falling even as I heard the door open and Clarissa moved away from me.

Malik crouched next to me and pulled me into his arms. “I’m sorry, Gabriella,” he said. “This is not what I wanted for you tonight.”

For the first time since he threw the file folder at me in the car, he didn’t sound angry. I sank into his arms, unaware I was doing it until his hand slid down my back. Then he was moving, up and on his feet, carrying me along with him.

“I need to see her,” I mumbled into his chest. I didn’t want to. God, I didn’t want to see her now.

“The car is on its way for her.”

My hands curled into Malik’s suit coat as he headed up the stairs. I held on tighter as he turned the corner at the top of the stairs and walked directly into my parents’ bedroom.

“Thank you for bringing her home,” my father said. His voice sounded thick with emotion, perhaps the first time I’d heard it that way.

“She’s not handling this well,” Malik replied, guiding me to a lush chair in the corner of their room. “We also had a run-in with Agent Blackwell.” I flinched in his arms and heard my father curse. Then Malik set me in the chair and crouched down, moving his hands to my own, which were still gripping his coat. He peeled away my fingers and set them in my lap. With gentleness I hadn’t expected from him, his thumb pressed against my chin and he tilted my head up to look him in the eyes.

“I am sorry for your loss,” he whispered. “You have had a lot thrown at you in a short time. Will you be okay?”

I stared at him blankly, unable to answer.

“We can call a doctor,” he continued, “get you something to help you sleep.”

I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to rewind the last hour, changing it. I just lost Tyson and my mom in a matter of moments. I didn’t reply. I turned from Malik, jerked out of his light touch and closed my eyes.

The back of his knuckles brushed across my temple. “I’ll let you say your goodbyes.”

In my peripheral vision, I saw him stand up and move toward the doorway. As he reached it, he clasped my father’s hand and leaned in. After exchanging murmured words I couldn’t hear, both men embraced in that handshake-back-clap way men did. Then Malik pulled away and glanced at me. “I apologize for my part in this tonight, Gabriella, but you needed to know.”

I nodded numbly. Everyone thought I needed to know things, and yet no one told me when it would matter. Tyson’s last warning about his case that was ending soon flashed through my mind but I pushed it down. Now wasn’t the time to worry about it. I looked away from Malik as he left the room, and I turned to see my mother’s body lying prone on her bed.

Just where I had held her days ago.

More pain pierced my chest as I saw her, really saw her.

So still.

So pale.

I scrambled to my feet and climbed onto the bed.

“Mom,” I sobbed through a raw voice as soon as I was next to her. My hand slid down her shoulder and I shifted so I was lying on my side. Her eyes were closed and her skin was already cool to the touch, making me cry even harder.

Not caring and not even thinking about my father, and what he thought of me in that moment, I wrapped my arm around her cool stomach and pressed my cheek to her shoulder. There, I closed my eyes and held my mom for what I now knew, would be the very last time.

And I sobbed against her throat, my entire body shaking and trembling with tears and sadness and a pain that had lanced itself so deep I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to dig it out.

I stayed like that until my father’s warm hands curved around my shoulder, turned me away from my mom, and he whispered, “It’s time to let her go.”

—

It was well after midnight when I sat in the formal living room at my parents’ house. Clarissa had been busy, waiting on everyone in the house who still remained.

My mother was long gone, carried out of the house on a stretcher with a sheet fully covering her. I lost it again, sinking to my knees and was once again picked up by Malik and carried to where I was now.

I had no idea if he was still in the house, and I didn’t care.

“More coffee?” Clarissa asked, holding a stainless steel carafe in front of me. I held out my cup and allowed her to fill it.

I didn’t remember even drinking the first cup she gave me.

“You must eat,” she whispered, and my eyes flickered to hers. When I met her gaze, I could only see unadulterated pain so I looked away.

I’d been staring at an empty fireplace for who knows how long with absolutely no thought in my head. The entire mood in the house was just as somber, just as mournful.

Clarissa sighed and walked away.

She returned quickly with my clutch in my bag and held it out for me. “Malik brought this in for you before he left,” she said. “Your phone has been buzzing for the past twenty minutes.”

I glanced at my clutch and nodded. When I made no move to take it from her hand, she set it in my lap.

This time as she walked away, I turned to her. “Clarissa?” I asked, and she looked back at me over her shoulder. “I didn’t think it would hurt this much.”

“We never do, bella.” Her lips tilted down at the edges and I saw her chin quiver with emotion. “I made your bed in your old room for you if you want to stay the night.”

I didn’t. I wanted to flee from this house and forget all the misery it had brought me. I also didn’t want to be alone.

And now, the one person who could have helped was also part of my pain.

My phone buzzed again, vibrating against my thigh. I took it out and saw Blackbird on the screen. I stared at his picture, one I’d taken of us when we had gone for a walk around his neighborhood. His cheek was pressed to my temple, and we were both grinning as I snapped the selfie. My phone stopped ringing and the photo disappeared. Then my thumb slid to the button on the top. I powered down my phone and threw it back into my purse.

—

“Are we done yet? I’m exhausted and I’ve told you everything I know.”

My father and Malik had been questioning me for the last two hours. They wanted to know what Tyson and I discussed during every conversation, what we did when we saw each other. My father’s cheeks turned dark purple when I looked at him with wide eyes and asked him if he really wanted details of his daughter’s sex life.

As if his blatant disappointment and fury weren’t apparent enough before.

Malik quickly stepped in, wanting to know where we went, who else we spoke to. I had no information to give them, insisting that we didn’t talk about them—other than the night when I agreed to attend the benefit with Malik. I repeated what I had told Tyson about Malik taking over my father’s business, but I couldn’t recall anything else I’d said.

Although that admission alone seemed to be damaging enough. Both of them sucked in a harsh breath and then cursed up a storm.

I answered everything they asked me, not feeling any of it. Then I tried not to think of what would happen if they got their hands on Tyson.

I woke up this morning electing not to give a thought to Tyson Blackwell beyond anything that was absolutely necessary, like this conversation.

My father slowly perused me, and I could practically feel his distaste for me from across the room. He sneered and sat down at the chair at his desk. “Go. And try to not bring any further humiliation to your family in the next hour.”

“I didn’t mean to,” I mumbled. My hands balled into fists and I jumped at a loud noise.

My head snapped up and I saw my father’s fist on top of his desk. “Ten years ago I sent you away due to your sick fascination with a family who wanted nothing else than to bring this family—your family—down. How you can be so naïve and stupid to think that Blackwell wouldn’t join his father’s crusade is beyond me.”

“He told me he was a lawyer!” I all but shouted the words, though they were useless. We’d been over this ad nauseam.

“And this is why we look into people.”

“Fine.” I waved my hand in his direction and turned around. I caught Malik’s gaze before he looked away from me. Even to him, I was now worthless. “I get it. I’ll meet you in the entryway later so we can go to the funeral home.”