Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart, #3)(106)

He wouldn’t clip her wings any longer.





*



Rage had taken him over. An ugliness that darkened his spirit and clouded his thoughts.

Loss unending. Vacancy throbbing through his being.

The taillights of the officers’ cruiser that had shown at his porch blinked through the evening. But he found no solace in their words.

“We’re sorry for what you’ve been through. For what it’s worth, he’ll be gone for a very long time.”

The man had tipped him his hat, backed away, and climbed into his cruiser.

Mack was a free man.

He hadn’t been implicated.

But he knew he would always be in chains.

He stumbled over to the shed and threw open the sliding metal door to the emptiness that echoed back. All the cars were gone, the parts that had littered the space taken as evidence. His mama’s things were still piled in the corner near the door, sifted through but left when they were found not important to the case.

He felt a presence roll over him from behind. Though this was different. Sticky and ugly.

Just like him.

“I stopped my daddy from going after you,” Clarissa murmured from behind.

He heard the click of her high heels on the cement floor two seconds before she ran her hand up his back. “Of course, when he heard the sirens coming up toward the house next door, he cleaned up his tracks good.”

Chills skated his skin, and not the pleasant kind.

“You didn’t tell them about us? About my daddy’s involvement?” She purred it, winding around him, her fingertip running the line of his jaw.

“You might be the only reason they’re still breathing,” he told her, teeth clenched.

She smiled in her coy way. “I’m not evil, Mack. I just know my place. Just like you should.”

He did. Understood it fully.

Don’t mix light with darkness.

Beauty with ugliness.

Selflessness with greed.

“My daddy’s gonna get back down to business once things settle down. You have your place with us.”

He gripped her by the wrist. “Don’t want any part of it.”

She just wound her other arm around his neck and pressed herself to his body. Her voice turned low with the seduction she wore like her own personal brand. He finally got that was her way of existing. How she persevered in this sordid world.

They’d both done what they had to do to survive.

“Of course, you do, Mack. It runs in your blood. Stop pretending you’re someone you’re not.” She hiked up on her toes and whispered in his ear, “You are just as guilty as your daddy. How many cars have I personally watched you take across state lines? I know you, just like you know me.”

His hold loosened on her wrist, and she grinned wickedly when it was freed, and she wound that one around his neck, too. “I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine? We fit, Mack. Belong together. Don’t you agree?” She pouted like she thought it was appealing, like he was supposed to ignore the threats weaved through her words.

Stitching through him like a rusted needle.

She held the truth over his head.

It didn’t matter. And he didn’t give a fuck if she turned him in.

He knew his place.

She hiked herself up and pressed her mouth against his.

He felt nothing but hatred.

Hatred in the kiss that he returned.

Hard and full of spite.

It felt like a branding.

Chains of condemnation that wrapped around his soul.

Because this was who he’d always been. Pretending he’d been anything better was nothing but a cruel, sick joke.





Thirty-Three





Mack





I climbed down our tree. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I got sucked into a spiral of rage and turmoil. A battering to my heart and mind.

Anger seethed in overpowering waves.

Dragging me under.

Fuck.

I should have been upfront with her. Just . . . laid it out instead of being a pussy.

A coward.

I should have warned Izzy about Clarissa. Come clean. But that’s what shame did to you—it made you want to hide it. Sweep it under a rug. Pretend that you weren’t guilty.

But the bitter truth remained that I was.

Fucking guilty.

Guilty all along.

My heart screamed to hit the porch, knock on the door the way I did every morning, and have the smiling, excited faces of those boys jerking open the door to wish me a good morning.

But I couldn’t do that.

Not until I fixed this.

Found a way to ensure they were safe.

I trudged across the rambling lawn and away from the house as the sun climbed for the sky.

Needing to get away and knowing I couldn’t go far.

So goddamn unsure of my place and what I was supposed to do that I couldn’t see straight.

Couldn’t make sense of the war raging inside of me.

Torment unending.

Grief stunning.

All the while, devotion blew through me with the force of a hurricane.

I started to twist through the hedge of trees that rose up like a wall surrounding Izzy’s property. Got the sense that maybe they stood like soldiers to protect this place.