Page 40 of Morally Gray Daddies

But I’d returned for a reason.

Mad love.

That’s what Hailey had called her love for Jack. I suddenly understood it a lot better now than I had before.

“Gio.” Jack appeared in the doorway that Gio had come through. He turned to look at his cousin. “Heard you were home. We’re ready to question Leonardo if you want to come.”

“I want to come,” Hailey said before Gio could answer, stepping around Serena, whose expression immediately pinched in disapproval.

“That’s for the men to handle,” Serena said, keeping her tone mild, despite her obvious feelings about it.

“I want to see him,” Hailey insisted, clenching her fists at her side. Her face had gone dead white, tears simmering in her eyes, and she stared at Jack, her husband, not her mother-in-law. It was for the men to handle; therefore, she was appealing to him. “I want to hear him say that he killed my parents. I want him to explain it to me, to my face.”

I moved closer to her, and Serena stepped back, allowing me to, when Jack didn’t answer immediately. He was clearly thinking.

“You’re probably not going to get the answers you want, you know,” I said softly, hefting Faithful with one hand so I could reach out and take hold of her other. Her fingers curled around mine. “He’s not going to feel remorse. He’s not going to apologize.”

“I know.” Her chin jerked upward, the tears in her eyes drying up as anger threaded through her voice. “But I want him to face me. I want him to see me and where I am versus where he is right now. I want him to know this isn’t just Jack, not just a man deciding his fate… I want him to know it was me.”

She said the last part fiercely, like a warrior.

I turned to look at Jack.

“Then I want to go with you.” Because she would need someone afterward. Someone to lean on. A friend. And Jack would likely be a little preoccupied. Behind me, I could hear Serena huff a sigh and Maria’s soft chuckle, presumably at Serena’s reaction.

Gio frowned, but he was not going to try to stop me, apparently.

Jack threw his hands up in the air.

“Fine.” He gave Hailey a stern look. “But you leave when I tell you to leave.”

“Fine.” She nodded, a short, sharp movement, before lifting her chin in the air again. She squeezed my hand before letting go.

“Here, dear, let me take him.” Maria came up beside me, reaching for Faithful, who mewed in protest at being taken from me but didn’t try to fight it. “Serena and I will get him settled. I’ll have Mrs. Valachi make him some dinner, and we can put together a little box and a bed for him.”

“Thank you.”

I was truly going to get to keep him. My heart was so happy, but I felt almost guilty because I knew Hailey was struggling right now, and I was happy. Happy that Gio had brought Faithful back. Happy that I was going to get to keep Faithful. Happy that I’d been rewarded for my decision to return.

I wanted to drag Gio back to our bedroom and thank him for bringing Faithful home.

But I hid all that because…

We had a murderer to face first.

Chapter Seventeen

Clara

Leonardo was not in good shape. We’d had to travel from the DiNardo house to a warehouse about thirty minutes away. Gio drove. Jack sat in the back with Hailey, holding her hand. Gio kept shooting me sidelong looks, as if he was trying to figure out what I was thinking, which made me smile smugly.

The smile was wiped when we walked into the room where Leonardo was being held. Tomas was there, along with several other DiNardo men. Leonardo was seated on a chair in the middle of the room, arms tied behind his back, ankles tied to the chair, head hanging down. He lifted it as we walked in, and I could see the black eye, the cut on his lip, the blood that had trickled out of his nose.

His dark eyes flashed, focusing on Hailey as she walked in the door, and his lip lifted in a sneer, causing the cut there to start bleeding sluggishly again. His tongue flicked out to catch the drop of liquid. If he realized he was licking up his own blood, it didn’t show—or maybe he didn’t care.

Not a nice guy.

Time on the streets and time at the precinct had given me a well-honed radar for trouble, and despite being tied up, Leonardo set off every one of them.

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