His father wasn’t rich, but he knew from the many unwanted updates from his sister that his dad was doing okay and could afford a new kitchen table.
“Your mother had always eyed it up it in the window of the furniture store in town, but we couldn’t afford it when we were first married. I worked a lot of overtime and a second job and surprised her with it on our first wedding anniversary. It’s priceless to me.”
Sinjin hadn’t known that. He sipped his coffee and glanced at the chair next to him. The one with his name carved into it.
“Your sister used to sit there and tell you she could because she didn’t see your name on it.” His father chuckled. “You took care of that.”
Smiling to himself, he shrugged. “It worked. She never sat on it after that.”
“Only when you weren’t around,” his dad grunted into his mug.
Sinjin snorted, staring at the table. It felt strange to sit there as if decades hadn’t gone by. But they had, and so had many unspoken words.
“Go on, son.” His father set his mug down and sat back in his chair. “Say what you came here to say. What you need to say. You’ve been holding it in, letting it fester for too long. It isn’t healthy.”
This wasn’t going to work. He wanted to try for Isla’s sake, but the old hurts, the blind fury, and disappointment gripped Sinjin’s neck in a stranglehold he couldn’t shake.
“Say it,” his father urged again. “Out with it.”
Fine.
“Did you even care that the man who murdered Mom and those other women was out there and going to do it again? You were a cop. You were supposed to protect and serve.”
All the anger and disgust he’d suppressed for decades erupted to the surface. Feeling like a caged animal, he pushed to his feet and began to pace.
His father, however, remained calm and collected and just sat there.
“How could you just let other cops go after the bastard? She was your wife. It was your duty to send her murderer to his maker. And don’t give me the excuse about personal conflict and shit. I know there are ways around it. And it wasn’t even a cop who took the guy down.”
The local papers had said it was a Good Samaritan who’d been passing by and heard the screams of the woman he was attacking in the alley.
“Ever stop to think maybe he hadn’t been just passing by?”
Sinjin stilled, except for the heart rocking hard in his chest. “Wait a minute.” He blinked, trying to get his stuttering brain to focus. No fuckin’ way.Couldn’t be…“Are you saying thatSamaritanwas you?”
His father sipped his coffee before answering. “Took me several weeks, but I tracked him down. I was off duty at the time, so my buddy at the paper kept my name out of it.”
Fuck.Fuck.
“Holy shit! Dad? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Sinjin brought his fist down hard on the nearby counter. “Why would you let me think you were a coward and didn’t care? All these years, Dad.”
Christ…all these years…he’d had it wrong.
“I had every intention of strangling the life out of thatbastard,” his father said, staring unseeingly at the table. “But I swear, I could hear my sweet Evie’s voice begging me not to. Begging me to think of our children. That’s when I released him. Used the woman’s phone to dial 911. I stayed with her, keeping pressure on her stab wound until the police and ambulance arrived. Then I slipped away into the shadows.”
“So did I.” Remembering the desolation, he inhaled and dropped back down into his chair. “Why did you let me?”
His father’s gaze flicked to him. “Because I was still struggling with my choice, Sinjin. I was struggling with not avenging my Evie. Struggling with the fact the maniac was alive and behind bars, although, I’ll admit, I did sleep better after he died on death row.”
Sinjin remembered that day well. He’d just gotten back from a mission with his Delta unit when he’d seen it broadcast on the evening news. Mac, Hunter, and Holden had shown up at his place with several six packs, and he got shitfaced.
“But Evie was right, though,” his father continued. “Sure, I could’ve crushed the bastard’s windpipe, but then I would’ve been behind bars like him. I would’ve lost my children. It wasn’t worth the price, Sinjin. Your mother wouldn’t want me toavengeher, she’d want me tohonorher. Family first.”
Family first.
That was his mother’s mantra.
His throat heated and his vision blurred. How could he have forgotten that? He’d burned it into a piece of wood for her birthday the year before she died, for Christ’s sake. Sinjin glanced above the sink to find the plaque was still there.
