Page 83 of His to Love
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.
