“He’s trying to declare her an unfit mother and using it as a lure to force her back to him.” Could barely cut free the explanation.
Jace pursed his lips. “From what I’ve seen, the guy’s a prick.”
That feeling knotted up in my throat, and the words were raw when I forced them out. “He’s a sick bastard. I . . . I found him trying to force himself on her yesterday afternoon. I’d filed for an emergency injunction granting her full temporary custody until we could go to trial. An hour later, he was tipped off by the judge. He showed at her house.”
He pointed at the blood splattered on my shirt. “And I take it that was the result.”
“Yup,” I said, taking a swill.
“God, you weren’t lying when you said you got yourself in deep.”
“Gets worse.” I looked at my older brother, shaking my head, anger and fear strangling my heart. “I went over to his place tonight, just to stake it out. Make sure the prick wasn’t contemplating a repeat.”
Alarm tightened everything, guts screaming. “Bennet was there.”
The bottom of his glass thumped on the wood when he dropped it away from his mouth. “Ian.”
Fear climbed into his voice. The same kind of fear I was feeling. An affirmation that I wasn’t being crazy and linking things together that didn’t fit. That I wasn’t off on some crazy tangent and making assumptions.
Scum found scum.
Just like I’d always said.
Just the way Bennet had found me, no doubt he’d found Reed.
“Reed could just as easily be involved in Bennet’s legitimate business as he could the shady. Doesn’t prove anything.” Jace was trying to sound resolute. Clearly trying to come up with a solution that didn’t put my neck on the chopping block.
“You and I both know legitimate doesn’t go down at two o’clock in the morning.”
“How the hell would those two be tied?”
“Not sure, but I will find out. No question in my mind that whatever it is, it will be the key to setting Grace and her kids free from that bastard. Don’t care what it takes to figure it out. I’m going to do it.”
Jace just stared at me. Shock written all over him.
“You love her.”
“No.” It shot from my mouth with the velocity of a bullet.
He laughed out a disbelieving sound. “You think I’m an idiot, Ian? You think I don’t know there’s something more going on between you two? It’s so thick, the rest of us are choking on it.”
I blinked out what I hoped looked like denial.
“You going to sit there and tell me you haven’t slept with her?”
My tongue locked up, so fat and thick it got stuck to the roof of my mouth.
A rough chuckle escaped him. “You’re sleeping with your client . . . that’s the one thing you’d never do . . . put your career on the line for a piece of ass.”
“She’s not a piece of ass.” The rebuttal whipped out harder than I intended, teeth gritting as I leaned his direction.
He nodded. “Exactly my point.”
He huffed out a frustrated sigh, and he lowered his voice. “There’s no shame in loving someone, Ian, and there’s nothing wrong with letting someone love you in return. You deserve it. You are the most loyal man I know. You’ve lived alone for too long. You think I don’t see it? The way you’ve been filling your life with meaningless things? You think I don’t know that you’re covering up for everything that we went through as kids?”
His head shook. “But pretending that it didn’t happen doesn’t take it away. Those scars are always going to be there until you face them. You deserve to live again.”
In another life.
In another life.
Pain lashed through my insides, and my face pinched in disgust.
All of it was aimed directly at myself. “You don’t know me, Jace. You don’t know the things I’ve done. I don’t deserve anything but to rot.”
He scoffed. “I know you better than anyone, and I know you care about that girl upstairs. And I know you care about her kids.”
“I can’t,” I choked, fear constricting. Tightening and suffocating. I wheezed in a breath. “I won’t be the one to ruin them.”
Jace downed the rest of his drink. Setting his empty on the bar, he pointed at me. “Think the only thing you’ve ruined is yourself.”
If he only fucking knew.
He planted his hands back onto the wood, angling his head. “Maybe it’s time you stop and figure out what it is you really want. Because believe me . . . once you love, there’s no going back. And when you realize you let that go because you were too stupid and stubborn to hold on to it? When you missed out on the only thing that really mattered? Believe me, brother, that’s when you’ll discover what it’s like to really hate yourself.”