Page 66 of His

“I can’t,” she sputters, trying to cover her face again, but this time, I grab her hands.

“Say it!”

“Leo! Leo, okay? It was Leo. He and I had sex when he’d visit. It just happened, and then . . . kept happening.”

I let her go, falling back on my ass.

For a long moment we say nothing.

“I’m not mad that you cheated on me, Valerie. I’m mad that you deceived me about Chloe. I have one more question for you and if you lie to me, God help me.” I inhale. “Does Leo know that the baby is his?”

Please say no, please say no, please say?—

“Yes.”

My fists curl and it takes everything I have not to blow a hole through the wall. Valerie deceived me, and now one of my most trusted associates has deceived me as well. Despite the fatigue from the fist fight, my adrenaline begins to pump again, the rage beginning to simmer in my veins.

“He flipped out when I told him—absolutely lost it.”

“What do you mean he flipped out?”

“He lost his mind over it. It wasn't planned, obviously, it was a mistake, and he was terrified you'd find out and have him killed. So we agreed to make you believe it was yours.”

My heart starts to race.

“But . . . but he—he couldn't take it. He was so worried you’d find out. He looks at you like a father, Astor. He loves you.”

My head starts spinning.

No.

“He stopped eating, sleeping; he was going crazy with worry. He started talking about all these crazy things.”

No.

“The day Chloe died, Leo—he didn’t show up for work, and he stopped talking to me after that.”

No.

She reaches out her trembling hands, grabs mine. “You’ve asked why I keep having nightmares about Chloe, and why I’m asking why. Well . . . Astor . . . I—I think Leo might have killed Chloe so that you would never find out. I think he did it to save his own life.”

I don’t remember the next few seconds.

When I wake up, I’m on the ground again, being restrained by Cillian while Leo’s name rips out of my throat like a pig being gutted.

Forty-Three

Sabine

The following hours are the most intense of my life—and that’s coming from someone who’s been shot and left for dead. The tension in the house is almost unbearable.

Astor isn’t himself. He hasn’t slept since our short time in Palm Springs, and between the recent news and physical altercation, his mind and body are spent. He’s not thinking straight. He’s disoriented, manic.

As suspected, his left eye has swollen shut and looks like a big purple balloon. His entire face is puffy and speckled with the beginning of a dozen bruises. I can’t imagine what his ribs feel like. He doesn’t seem to care, however, and I wonder if he can even feel it.

Cillian, on the other hand, looks markedly less roughed up. He is the more experienced street fighter of the two, no doubt about it. He realigned his nose in the bathroom (not joking), popped a pain pill and acted like he was never hit at all.

Cillian won’t leave Astor’s side to ensure he doesn’t do anything that would lock him up for ten years to life. Even though they almost killed each other, Cillian is a calming force for Astor. I knew the two were close, but seeing them interact in such a dark time has proven just how unbreakable their bond is. Astor trusts Cillian unconditionally, the way a child would a father. And Cillian cares for and protects Astor as a father would a child. They are family, maybe not by blood, but by heart.

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