Lacey

I went numb.

Icy numb.

I wanted to pull my hand away from his, but something stopped me.

The numbness. I couldn’t move.

Time seemed to be suspended. Had he said those words a second ago or an hour ago? He was rigid next to me on the sofa.

“Are you going to say something?”

The words sounded off, as if he were speaking underwater.

“Baby?”

Baaaaabbbbbeeeee?

Then he stood, jolting me out of my dreamscape. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t have told you. I’m out of here.”

I gasped, my head finally above the imaginary water. “Wait! Don’t leave!”

“Why the fuck not? You’re going to dump me now, and I don’t blame you.”

Dump him? I loved him. More than anything, even though shards of fear knifed through me. Part of me was afraid of part of him. How could I say all this? I opened my mouth, but all that came out was, “Dump you?”

“Yeah. I’m a fucking wreck, Lace. I’m a… I mean, I’m not a… Shit.”

“Just tell me. Tell me everything, Rock. Please.”

Beatings. Emotional abuse. A broken bone once. Protecting Roy and Reid. And…Riley. Poor Riley.

“I only just found out about the ‘princess trips’ my father took her on after I left,” he was saying. “Roy and Reid were terribly jealous, but I know what he did to her on those trips.” He wrung his hands together.

“Your brothers really don’t know?”

“They don’t seem to.”

“And they don’t know why you were sent away?”

“No. Not the real reason. No one on earth does. Except my mother.”

My skin was still tight and numb around me.

My mother.

I had so many questions—so many that they melded together in my mind into a sea of incoherence. I needed every scintilla of information Rock had, needed to know what he was capable of, whether he’d ever even slightly thought of doing something like…

I couldn’t even finish the thought in my mind.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Rock said, “Lace, you’ve got to say something. Please.”

“I don’t know what to say.” True words.

The gun. His prints were on the murder weapon. And his gun had been stolen.

But Rock was innocent. He was in Montana.

Wasn’t he?

Was I truly beginning to have doubts?

“…since then. Never.”

“What?” I said.

“You’re not hearing me, Lace.”

“I’m sorry. What?”

“I was arrested once for getting into a fight at a bar. That’s it. I’ve never tried… Never even wanted to…” He rubbed his forehead. “Fuck.”