Page 83 of Hold Him Like Gravity

Which only made me cry harder.

It seemed like it was never going to end.

Slowly but surely, I ran out of tears to cry. Leaving me just sniffling pathetically.

Rico bent forward, grabbing a handful of take-away napkins and handing them to me.

I blew my nose then slowly untangled from him, embarrassment mingling with everything else.

“Okay. Now that that’s out,” he said, and his casual tone almost made me want to laugh. “You ready to talk about it?”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“Gotta pick somewhere.”

“I killed my ex,” I blurted out, turning to watch his reaction. I expected shock, disbelief, even terror.

I got none of that.

Instead, he just gave me a little nod.

“Yeah? Bet he had it coming.”

My brows knitted at his reaction, but I had to keep going. I owed him the truth.

“He was abusive,” I admitted. “I kept trying to leave. But he just… it never worked. Then, it did. For a while. Until he found me at work. Cornered me in the alley when I was taking out the trash. And I just… lost it,” I told him.

“Good. Hope it hurt,” Rico said.

“That was why I fled Brooklyn. I thought the cops might be coming for me. But then… they never did. I didn’t realize until a few weeks ago that they didn’t because I didn’t kill him.”

“He tracked you down?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“That’s the complicated part, I guess.”

“I got time.”

“The night of the robbery…”

“Yeah?”

“When the one guy… had me in your office, another guy came in to pull him away, telling him that I’d hit some silent alarm and the cops were coming.”

“Okay…”

“That second guy? He had a tattoo on his arm that I recognized.”

“Your ex?”

“My brother,” I clarified. “I went looking for him. But he was missing. Had been for a while, it seemed like. And then one night, I came home to find that guy from the office in my apartment. And then my ex walked out of the hallway. And… and they had Jake.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah.”

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