All of the Lights (56 page)

His face twists mournfully and he shoves his hands in his pockets when he finally lets himself look at Rae again. "I thought when some time passed, she'd be able to leave him. After the dust settled and Moretti knew we were really over, she'd be able to take you and get out of there. I'd help her—whatever she needed me to do, I could still do that for her, for you. I thought I was buying her time to come up with a plan. So when it came time to meet with her, I just...I just couldn't do it. I couldn't look her in the eye and tell her it was really over because admitting it out loud would make it real. I couldn't tell her I'd chosen Maura instead because I wasn't sure if I really did. I couldn't go through with it. Couldn't see her cry. Couldn't see her beg and plead because I knew if I did, I might not be able to let her go again. There were so many truths and lies all muddled together and I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it. So I just didn't go. I let her show up, thinking we were going to find a way to make it work and I ruined her instead."

I could almost see her now, Rae's mother, so beautiful, so fragile—so different from her daughter in that way—sitting on a bench near the water where I'd taken Rae just a few days ago, waiting, hoping, wishing, planning. I hope that tragic image haunts Roark Callahan for the rest of his life. I have a feeling it will.

"When I found out she was dead, I..." he breaks for just a moment. His head falls into his hands and finally, his shoulders shake with silent sobs. When he unearths his face from his hands, tears streak his cheeks and I just don't care. "I tore through City Hall looking for Moretti. Found him in his high and mighty councilman's office and wrapped my hands around his neck. I needed to know why he'd killed her anyway when he didn't have to. I was ending it, I told him. It was over. Moretti swore up and down he didn't have anything to do with it. That his housekeeper found her in bed with blood running down her nose. I couldn't believe it. Wouldn't believe it. Then just a few days later, I got this in the mail."

He digs deep into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. After shuffling through it for a few moments, he holds out a worn and yellowed piece of paper that looks like it's been folded and refolded hundreds of times. It takes me a moment to realize he isn't holding it out to me, but to Rae.

"You should have it," he tells her quietly. "I'd planned on giving it to Jack tonight, but it's only right that you take it now. It's the only thing I have to give you."

Her arm lifts robotically until she slips the aged letter from his fingertips. Still, she doesn't speak.

"There's no one else who could've written it," he murmurs. "It's in her handwriting. She must've put it in the mail right before she..."

He can't bring himself to finish that sentence and it's just as well. Rae doesn't need to hear him say it.

"After I read her last letter, I thought you were better off without me. All I do is just destroy everything I touch. I thought...with Moretti's money, with his influence, you'd have more opportunities than I could ever give you anyway. I never thought...I never thought about anything else. If I'm being completely honest, I didn't think I could bring you into my home and raise you even if Maura would've let me, because I'd have to look you in the eye every day for the rest of my life and know I'm the reason your mother is dead."

Cowardice to a tee. Too much of a pussy to own up to it. Too much of an asshole to put someone else first besides himself and his pride.

Everything about what he's told us tonight flies right in the face of all the lessons he's ever taught me: family first, protect your own, fight for your neighborhood, honor above all else, always do what's right...he was teaching us all the things he couldn't do himself. Parenting with a
do as I say, not as I do
mentality. Go figure.

"I was such a fool," he whispers into the silent air.
If we're supposed to feel sorry for him, if we're supposed to feel sympathy for him because he's had to live with the guilt of causing—albeit indirectly—the deaths of his mistress, his best friend, and now his firstborn son...yeah, I got nothing.

Instead, my attention lies on the person I need to actually comfort and my hand traces small circles on Rae's lower back to remind her she's not facing this by herself. She shifts a little closer to me and I close the small space between us until my hip brushes hers. My dad hasn't missed that interaction and his eyebrows knit together, eyes locked on where our bodies touch.

His adopted son and his abandoned daughter. Bet he never saw that coming.

"The last time I ever spoke to Moretti," he continues, his eyes a little more narrowed now than before, "was the night Sean got brought in for your attack. If I'd just said it, if I'd just finally admitted it, would we all even be standing here now? I don't know what would've happened with Sean, but maybe he wouldn't have let it go that far just to spite me if I'd given him what he wanted from the beginning. Maybe you..." he gestures toward me and my heart stutters because I know what he's about to say next, "maybe you wouldn't have taken that fight tonight if I'd just answered you honestly a few days ago. There are so many things I wish I could go back and do differently, but I can't."

I hope he's said everything he came here to say. There's only so much a person can take in one day and Rae and I have surpassed that quota today in spades. Rae leans into me a little more, all but resting her cheek on my shoulder and now I just want him to leave so we can rest and so we can make our plans.

Anything else he has to say just dead air.

"Your mother wants to have the funeral in a few days," my dad tells me soberly. "I don't know what Shannon wants—she hasn't come out of their bedroom since we found out. But when I—"

"We won't be there, Pop."

His face twists with confusion and shock. "What do you mean? How can you not—"
"We have to leave the city tomorrow," I exhale and cast a quick glance at Rae to make sure it's okay for me to keep going. She's pale and those emerald eyes I love so much are swollen and bloodshot from crying for our dead brother, but she doesn't shy away from this. She doesn't back down.

When she nods tightly and squeezes my hand, I launch into the rest of it as my dad listens gravely, detailing everything we found on Moretti and his double-identity as William Rossi and finally ending with the threats that have us getting ready to make a run for it. Even now, saying it all out loud, I just can't believe it's come to this.

All that time we spent tailing him, breaking into his office, thinking we really had something on him, none of it mattered because he was one step ahead of us the whole time.
 

"You have to take those threats seriously," my dad tells us softly. "Take what you can and get out of here as soon as you can. As long as you give him what he wants, he'll keep his distance. If you can give me a few hours, I can get some—"

"We don't need anything from you," I cut in abruptly. "We're not taking your money."

He sighs heavily and runs a hand over his face. What did he really expect after all this? That we would welcome his help with open arms? That we'd take anything he has to say with more than a grain of salt?

"Alright," he blows out a deep breath and rubs his temples. "That's your choice. But you can't mess around. You know what he's capable of and you know what he can do. Don't give him the opportunity to act on those threats."

I guess if there's one thing we agree on, it's that.

Sensing his time with us has run its course, he nods once more. "Good luck. I know I haven't done anything to earn the right to be there for you now, but if you ever need anything, you know you can call me. I'll help you however I can."

And with that, my dad is officially out of my life for good.

I don't know how to feel about it. Ambivalence is about as much as I can muster right now, in light of everything he's just told us and everything we've suffered tonight. I just want to curl up with Rae on my bed and forget anything else exists. I want to forget the aching hole seeping from my chest and spilling down to the floor. I want to forget that I held my brother's body in my arms tonight and felt the life literally drain out of him. Everything has to be better tomorrow because I don't see how things could possibly get any worse.

Rae is silent when I pull her into my bedroom. She's silent as we undress and pull back the covers. She's silent even when I tug her into my arms and hold her as tight as I can. Everything I'd managed to keep at bay since we got back to my apartment now threatens to break through the surface. Excruciating grief. Blinding rage. Crippling terror. They're all there, just begging to break loose and Rae's silence isn't helping matters. Now, panic leaps to the forefront, nipping right at the heels of fear and sorrow.

"Jack?" she whispers against my chest in the darkness.

I almost can't let myself respond. If I answer, I'm giving her permission, aren't I?

"Yeah?"

"We can't leave tomorrow."
She says that so simply, so easily, like we're talking about where we're going to go for breakfast tomorrow instead of gambling with fate—and probably death, too. I should've expected this. Should've known it wouldn't be this easy. Something was always bound to get in the way. I know that now.

"Rae, I—"

"Just listen, okay?" she waits long enough to make sure I'm willing to give her the floor here. I'm not, but I don't see what choice I have. She's always been the brains of this operation and I've always, for the most part, followed her lead. Unfortunately, I have a feeling this time isn't going to be any different.

"What are we doing?" she shakes her head and all I can do is just hold her closer. "We're really just going to drop everything and run because he says so?"

"Rae, I don't see any other options. I don't care what he said he'd do to me. I'm not putting you at risk and I'm not giving him the opportunity to hurt you. He did it once, Rae, and he'll do it again. He basically told you he'll
kill
you if you don't leave the city tomorrow. There's no arguing with that."

"Maybe," she sighs and I feel it too. I feel what's about to happen and I can't do anything to stop it. "But we're just supposed to run and let him get away with murdering Brennan right in front of us? And what happens to Sean? We disappear and he rots in prison? We can't leave him, Jack. We've already lost one brother tonight...we can't let him win. He
murdered
Brennan. He planned it and ordered it like he was some kind of animal. He doesn't get to just go about his life like it never happened. He has to pay."

Part of me wants to just get out of bed so I don't have to listen to this. The other part of me knows that fierce, stubborn look in her eye, the same look I've seen time and time again that tells me she's not backing down, she's not giving up. It's why I fell in love with her, among other things, and even though I'm scared shitless right now, I can't help but admire her for it too. In the face of everything—Brennan, my dad, Moretti—she still won't go down without a fight.

Heaven help me, but I'm going with her.

"He thinks he won," she soldiers on, her voice stronger, harder, and more confident than before, "so we still have one more card left to play. Even if it—"

"Don't say it," I shudder against her.

As if her not saying the words out loud will change anything.

"He won't see it coming," she pushes past all the ugly, all the risk, and chooses instead to focus on this one last Hail Mary.

Suddenly, she tugs herself out of my arms and tosses my T-shirt at me as she yanks a pair of yoga pants back on.

"What are we doin', Rae?"

She barely pauses long enough to reply: "We're going to talk to my sister."

Rae

The early morning light peeks in through the blinds and my eyes shoot wide open. Awareness crackles through my body as each limb goes on alert, ready and willing for the day that's yet to come. Still, I lean into the warm body I'm pressed up against and close my eyes, giving myself one more moment of peace before all hell breaks loose.

Jack is already awake. I can feel his stuttered breathing like he's struggling to stay calm, struggling with what we have planned. I bet he didn't sleep at all last night.

When we got back from my sister's apartment—actually going there seemed like the lesser of the two evils since all our phones are probably tapped by now—and laid down the foundation our plans, Jack held me the rest of the night and didn't let go. He knows, just as well as I do, that my plan could easily blow up in all our faces.

It's genius, but it's also unbelievably stupid.

He's having a hard time reconciling why I would take this kind of suicidal risk when the mayor's given us an out and I get that. If I were him, I'd want to grab me and run, too. Running just isn't an option. It never really was. The moment I saw my brother crumble to the ground in a pool of his own blood, I think I knew deep down that I wasn't going anywhere. And hearing Roark Callahan describe all the ways the mayor has ruined the lives of those around him, the threats he's made, the people he's hurt, the people he's
murdered
...it gave me a crazy, careless, and completely foolhardy idea.

After years of studying him, searching for an opportunity to get his attention, to earn his love, it's all boiled down to this moment. Maybe we were always headed this way; I just never knew it until now and I know that only one of us will come out of that room in tact.