I nod, a reflex in a bid to get him to give me some space, but when he steps away, I’m left feeling anything but safe.
Physically, I know no harm will come to me, but my head is a mess.
I dress, quickly changing out of my robe because I feel like I need an extra layer of protection, but it does nothing to warm the ice that’s settling inside of me.
My mind filters through every memory I have of my mother, and I don’t know what’s true and what I created in my head to try and hold on to a woman that should’ve been in my life.
There’s a flashing of her smile and the way her hair looked blowing in the breeze, but all of that could’ve been fabricated by the mind of a little girl who felt love but also knew she was missing something. I was so young when she left.
My chin trembles as I shove down hope. Will never said that she was dead, but the chances that she’s still alive are impossible. Deep down I know that.
My mother was abducted and killed. My grandfather was right. She cherished that necklace, but she cherished me more. If she had a chance to come back to me, she would have.
My mother has always been gone.
She never gave up on me.
We failed her.
Ifailed her.
Chapter 32
Spade
I take the quickest shower known to man, and I hate that Sylvie is left alone for any length of time.
I rushed in here in a bid to get back to her so quickly, I didn’t even grab clothes to change into, leaving me reentering her bedroom with a towel wrapped around my hips and water still on my skin.
She’s no longer in her robe, rather she’s sitting on the end of her bed, staring off into the distance fully dressed.
There’s an eerie sense of calm to the way she’s sitting with her hands clasped in her lap. Tears that marked her cheeks when I left her just minutes ago are nowhere to be found.
Her face is still red and puffy from the trauma she experienced tonight, but the wetness is gone.
I walk closer, approaching her the same way I would a terrified animal. Her reaction is normal. It’s the calmness before everything sinks in, and I hate all of this for her.
The lasting effect of tonight is going to have nothing to do with a man she knows holding her at knifepoint.
If it weren’t for the necklace that Will showed her, I’d try and convince her that he was lying, but I figured out what he was talking about quickly enough.
Her mother didn’t walk away from her when she was young. She was abducted, probably went through more pain and suffering than most normal people can imagine before she was deemed useless and murdered.
“Sylvie?” I hedge, needing to figure out where her head is so I know how to proceed.
Maybe telling Slick I could handle this was overestimating my abilities. I know enough about trauma response to know I’m not even close to being qualified to handle this situation.
I just didn’t want anyone else around her. I wanted to be the one to hold her when she was upset. I wanted to be the shoulder she cried on, the man she clung to for comfort.
I follow the point of her finger to my duffel sitting on her bedroom floor.
“Make sure you grab your things from the bathroom as well,” she says, her voice a firm whisper.
I inch closer, confused, because my brain just won’t accept what she’s telling me.
“Will is no longer a threat,” she says, but her voice wavers.
We both know the man hit the mark like he intended. His words will cause more lasting pain than that knife he was wielding ever could.