Page 94 of Reclaiming Adelaide

My throat tightened as her shoulders shook.

We were one and the same now. I understood her pain more than anyone, aside from Becca. The pain of losing a parent was something I didn’t wish on my enemy—a loving parent, that was.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sniffling in the hollow space between her knees and chest.

“Why are you apologizing? This is normal.”

She shoved me away with her arm and moved off the bed. “Nothing about this is ‘normal.’”

“You’re right. That was the wrong thing to say.”

Shouldn’t I be well versed in this? I’ve comforted Becca hundreds of times in the last fourteen years since our parents’ death but failed at the first chance I got with Adelaide.

I slid off the bed towards her and pulled her crossed arms from her chest. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing to me.” Her anger hid the broken, sorrowful woman under the surface.

Anger was normal.

“What do you want me to say?” I got down on my knees before her and wrapped my arms around her naked waist, placing my head on her belly wheremychild grew.

My scent from between her legs filled my senses, making me swell in my pants.

“Nothing.”

Her hand swept through my hair, the weight of her arm growing against my back.

“Everything will work out in the end. I promise.”

She groaned. “Pleasedon’t say that.”

I’d made promises before. I’d broken them too. But this was a promise I was willing to keep and do anything in my power to make it happen.

We created our futures.

Sure, obstacles would be thrown our way, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t get to where we were going in the end. It’d just take some time to get there.

I stood and ran my hand down my beard. She needed time in this phase to work out her anger and come to terms. I understood that. I’d been there before. “I need to make a few phone calls, and then I’m sending you home.”

“What?” she cried. “You’re… you’re leaving me?”

“I’m not leaving you. I’m sending you to our home, where you’re safer.”

Our home?

“And what will you do?”

I gripped her hand in mine. “I’m going to make them pay.”

“You can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “They’ll kill you.”

“I have more people on my side. They won’t get away.” I brushed her hair away. “When I’m done, I’ll come back for you.”

Her chin quivered as she hung her head, shaking my hand off her face. She spun on her heel and marched into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

“That didn’t go over as planned,” Luca said from the door.

“If it was planned, I’d say it was a failure.”

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