Sphinx nods solemnly. “And your dad murdered her for it.”
My stomach lurches and my head spins.
No.
No, no, no.
I jump from the bed and run to the bathroom, pain lancing through my battered feet, but I ignore it as I throw up the contents of my stomach into the toilet. There’s not much, as I haven’t eaten anything for at least a day now, but I dry heave when there’s nothing left.
Sphinx rubs soothing circles on my back and holds my hair out of the way. Grief and confusion consume me, and I sit there, on the cold tiled floor, questioning everything about my father.
No wonder he can’t stand the sight of me. I look too much like her. Do I remind him of what she did? Why did Mum have the affair in the first place? Did she never love Dad?
So many questions float around my mind, but I can’t seem to focus on a single one.
“Do you think…” Fuck. I can’t even say the words. I take a deep breath and try again. “Do you think he had her killed?”
“Yes,” he replies without doubt, and I believe him. There is no way that he hasn’t analysed that data for every possible outcome before showing it to me.
“Why did you show me this?” I ask with a sob. “Why?”
Surely he could have kept it to himself and left me in a state of ignorance. In a world where my family had been a happy one. Well, maybe not completely happy, but at least content. Now…
Now my father murdered my mother, and somebody covered it up. Somebody who told Bennie Fucking Walker.
Realisation sinks in my stomach. Now, I know why my father was so keen to get his hands on the phone first. Did he know that Bennie knew this particular secret? Fucking hell, was Bennie blackmailing him?
“I thought you would want to know,” Sphinx answers, a solitary shoulder lifting in a careless shrug. “I would.”
I go to answer, but I seem to be struggling to put any kind of order to my thoughts.
Sphinx rolls up his sleeve and shows me the scripture on the inside of his forearm. “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of grief. It took me years to understand that this too was a gift.”
His voice is low and raw as he recites the poem, and I choke up at the emotion I can hear. He’s usually so closed off, hidden behind all his walls that I never get this realness from him, and it makes me even sadder because now I know that behind those walls is pain and grief.
I thread my fingers through his and rest my head on his shoulder. “I know it’s silly, but it feels like I’ve lost her all over again. And, I dunno, it just hurts a little bit more because I never really knew her. How can you grieve someone you never knew?”
“Just because you didn’t know her as well as you thought, it doesn’t diminish your feelings or your loss.”
I can tell he’s speaking from experience, and I wonder what it was that put the sadness in his eyes. “Who did you lose?”
“Everyone, Echo.” He squeezes my hand tightly. “I lost everyone.”
What a shit fucking day. I close my eyes and let the tears fall silently. And together we sat there, on the the cold tiles, our souls connecting through grief as we watched the sun come up on a new day.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Maxim
I’m lost in a pair of green eyes and a crown of red, tumbling waves. Echo haunts me and dogs my every step. Her touch lingers like a brand on my skin, and I want to claw it off. I smell her everywhere, and it’s like her essence has weaved its way into every part of me on a cellular level.
It’s been two days since they stole her back, and she’s all I can think about. How can someone leave such an impression in such a short space of time?
Add to that the problem with the Quinns encroaching on my territory, and I’m about to pull someone’s head from their shoulders.
“We need to fight back,” Lev says, voice thick and booming. The guy’s a brute at nearly seven foot tall, with broad shoulders and a buzz cut. There’s nothing refined about him. He’s a powerhouse of muscle and force and skilled in extracting information with his knuckles.
“And we will,” I say while rubbing my temples. A headache is coming on, and I can feel my pulse pounding around my brain, thumping against my skull like a hammer. “We are fighting back. We just need to put everything in place first.”
