Page 90 of Resurrection

My arms stay at my sides, the gun still grasped in one of my hands. I want to kill him for putting her in this position.

“I love you.” She lifts her head, but I keep my gaze focused above her. “Can I talk to you?”

“You won’t change my mind.”

“What would we tell Lucas? If I let you kill Eric, what would we tell him?”

“Nothing,” I say. “He doesn’t need to know. Dad’s dead is enough.”

“Is it? Was it enough for you with your mom?” Her voice is gentle, but her words cut like a knife.

“Not the same.”

“You’d be his dad. Someday he might find out the truth—you killed his biological father. We lied.”

“Fine. We’ll tell him his bio dad was a dog who deserved to be put down.” But she’s got me. She knows me well enough to understand if she keeps at me, I’ll concede her point. The situations may not be the same, but they’re too similar to ignore. If I kill Eric, someday, in Lucas’s eyes, I’ll be no better than my father was. Instead of being someone he looks up to, I’ll be the person who took someone from him. God knows if I end up loving this kid half as much as I love his mother, it’d kill me to know he thinks of me the way I think of my father.

“What has Eric done to deserve todie?”

With careful precision, I place my hands on her biceps and detach her from me. The anger still courses through me, and touching her is dangerous. At the dresser, I take the gun apart as though I’m going to clean it. I’m not. The routine offers me astrange comfort to be away from her and doing something with my hands.

She sighs. “The truth is, I don’t care all that much if you murder Eric. I don’t care about him at all. The reason I don’t want you to kill him is because of what it would do to us, to your relationship with Lucas, to my relationship with Lucas when he found out I not only went along with it but loved you more for doing it.”

“Loved me more? Is that possible?”

I stay focused on the gun, but she’s right. Killing Eric would be a short-term solution that would trap us into long-term problems. For years, I hated and feared my father. I don’t want that kind of relationship with Lucas. It seems impossible to parent any other way, but I’m sure as hell gonna try.

“I love you more all the time Like right now? I love you more for listening to me, for being willing to do anything to protect me.” She appears at my shoulder, but she doesn’t touch me.

Her closeness is enough to wear me down.

“I hate this,” I whisper.

I drop the gun and press my hands into the top of the dresser. Her hand rests on my back, tentative, light as a feather. Half of me wants to shrug her off, and the other half wants to gather her up, make her scream so loud with pleasure the whole fucking house knows she’s mine.

She’s saying the right things, but earlier she was slipping away, as though a crevice opened between us the moment Lucas became her child.

“I hatehowI’ve become a mother. This situation would never have been my choice. I—I made peace with the fact I wouldn’t have children. But now that he’s here and he’s mine? I can’t carry resentment into my relationship with him. I can’t. Eric and my father did this, not him.”

“I don’t hate the baby.” I turn to her.

She’s been my foundation since I lost everything else. Until now, I haven’t even missed my old life. Helplessness is the one emotion I can’t stand. There’s always an angle to be played, an avenue to take. There’s one here too. Murder. Simple. For once I have to think beyond the now, consider the future, a future with her and with Lucas. I won’t become my father.

I clear my throat and stare at the dresser again. “He’s so sure he’s going to win, and I can’t think of a way around what he’s done.” I push my hands harder into the polished wood. “He’s given you the one thing I can’t… I wasn’t even sure I wanted you to have, even though I knew how badly you wanted it.”

She’s quiet beside me.

“I’m sorry I never offered,” I say. “I didn’t suggest—”

“Don’t—please, don’t. I would have said no. You didn’t see me after the last miscarriage. There’s no way I could have gone through the whole thing again. The hope, the disappointment, the crushing grief.”

I circle my arm around her, tugging her into my side. Her expression would undo me, so I avoid meeting her gaze.

“Even if that wasn’t true, I wouldn’t have wanted you to become a father because I wanted you to. I still don’t. If this isn’t what you want—”

“I want you.” I scoop her into my arms, securing her tight. “I’m not letting you go because the situation is hard, or not exactly what I thought our relationship would be. Fuck that. Maybe a better man than me would back off and let you figure this out with him. I’m not that guy.”

“I don’t want you to back off. You’re what I want. We just have to make the circumstances work. In a few days, once things have calmed down, once he realizes I won’t change my mind, maybe he’ll be more reasonable.”

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