Even if he had missed the story that the media played on a loop, her face matched a face he had seen before. It was an older replica of the little girl that he had stripped from the earth. He stared at the woman walking into his establishment and knew the universe was playing a cruel trick on him. If he had thought he had found respite from his guilt, this face, this woman, was there to destroy all possibility of that. Even if he hadn’t been the hidden figure behind the trigger, he would have noticed her. He had learned to ignore the sound of the bell above the door, but she captivated his attention. She was just one of those people, hard to miss, as was the pain in her blood-shot eyes. Sorrow filled him because he was, unknowingly, disrespecting her space. She was standing mere feet away from the murderer of her child, of her brother, and guilt riddled him like bullets. He was surprised the emotional shots he took didn’t cause him to bleed out right there in the body shop. He hurt with her…for her, as if she was his beloved to mourn beside. Ethic had never been so silently remorseful. He was used to righting his wrongs, to remedying things he had broken. A real man knew when to apologize and acknowledged his wrong. He felt like a little-ass boy standing there, allowing her to remain in the dark about his actions. There was no way to repair this. There was nothing he could do or say that would lessen her agony. He couldn’t speak an apology because to do so would incriminate him. As he blinked, the momentary darkness reminded him of Bella, of Eazy, and of Morgan. Each of their faces flashed behind his lids, with every blink. They depended on him. To confess his sins would force him to leave his children behind. He just couldn’t do it and he felt like the lowest of the low…a coward…a murderer. No admission of guilt would come from his mouth, which meant no apology between them could exist.

The air thickened around him and Ethic wiped his hands on the towel beside him and bypassed her, as he walked into the back office. It was time for him to break out. With her there, the distraction he sought was no more. There wasn’t one big enough, anyway, to stop him from seeing blood on his hands. He went to the sink and washed his hands, but as the black grime rinsed down the drain, all he could see was red.

“Yo, boss, we got a problem out here.”

Ethic looked up, as Redneck Larry peeked his head into the office.

“You can’t handle it?” Ethic asked.

“She asked for the owner,” Larry said.