Page 39 of Sinful Deception

“Like us?” Cato suggests. “We get away with shit all the fuckin’ time.”

She means me. She might even mean Sophia.

She’s not even touching on the mafia’s involvement in what we could do. Or what has already been done.

“You wanted to be able to look your daughter in the eye and tell her you did everything you could to help her mom, Fletch.” She reaches out and touches his shoulder, forcing his eyes back to hers. “You did that. For the rest of your lives, you can tell her, with all of your heart and soul, you did the right thing. But it all comes tumbling down if your only relationship is through three-inch plexiglass during your fifteen-minute visitation allocation in prison.”

“No one is going to prison.” Archer’s breath bathes the top of my scalp. “No one is hurting anyone because Balladae and Elen are gonna scoop Booth up and put him where he belongs.”

“Exactly.” Grinning, Fletch pushes off the counter and straightens his back. Then he pats his hands, likejob well done. “I’ll never place myself in a situation that could end with plexiglass separating me from my baby girl.”

Aubree’s eyes fire with the kind of rage that indicates he’s lying. And she knows it. But hell, who am I to tell him he can’t take care of business?

I’ve done it.

He knows I’ve done it, and he’s never told the cops after the fact. Him wrapping his bare hands around Nathan Booth’s neck and wringing the life from his eyes until there’s nothing left is the absolute least he deserves.

So I smile and say nothing when he looks my way.

“I don’t mean to be a downer,” Archer mumbles. “But it’s probably time we consider funeral arrangements, right?” He pauses, waiting for Fletch’s eyes to come up. “I know it’s not a fun thing to think about, but at some point soon, Jada will need to be buried. It’s important we do this right for Mia. So she has a chance to say her final goodbyes.”

“Jada has parents, right?” I look from Fletch to Aubree, like she might know. “I remember someone mentioning them in the past.”

“Yeah.” Finally, Fletch brings a hand up and scrubs his fingers through his hair. “They’re around, but they wrote her off a long time ago. They never approved of her marrying me or taking time away from the stage to have Mia. They’d invested countless time and dollars into her dance career, and they’re quite wealthy, so when she married me,” he scoffs, shaking his head side to side, “the broke ass loser who would be nothingmore than a civil servant and a bum, they said she had to choose.”

“She chose you,” Aubree murmurs. “She chose love over money.”

“Ironic, considering we divorced anyway, and her downfall into the world that eventually killed her started with another civil servant bum.”

“You didn’t put those drugs in her hands, Fletch. And you kept a comfortable roof over your heads and a home filled with love and safety.”

“Until it ended,” he bites out. “And instead of running back to her trust fund and the cushy life behind a security gate, she sunk lower and completely fucked up.” He flexes his fists and groans with frustration. But then he comes around and meets my stare. “I called earlier to tell them the news. Instead of being sad about their daughter, they reiterated that I was the reason she ended up the way she did, and assured me they would not contribute financially toward her end-of-life services. They have no interest in getting to know Moo. So…” He drops his shoulders back and sighs. “That’s that. Their daughter is dead, and they don’t care about anything else.”

“Fuckin’ assholes.” Archer’s hand grows painfully tight against my hip. “We don’t want their trashy attitudes around Mia, anyway. And that behavior is exactly the reason Jada picked you. Money and glitter don’t mean shit when you’re trapped in a house and a life you hate. If they’d insisted on fighting for time with Mia now that Jada’s gone, I’d have gentlysuggestedthey stay the fuck away, anyway. They’re toxic, and there’s a reason their daughter chose substance abuse over the million other opportunities she could have had.”

“You’re not the reason she’s gone.” Carefully, Aubree wanders to Fletch’s right and wraps her arms around his until she can rest her cheek on the ball of his shoulder. “This goes somuch deeper than her making a bad choice with Detective Fox. Her childhood formed who she was first. Her parents created the neural pathways that led her to impulsivity. They created her, and then they project their guilt onto you. Her parents didn’t love her the way parents are supposed to love a child. They loved the opportunities she presented with her dancing and the glamor she attracted when she was on the stage. They wanted a doll to dress up and parade around, but you provided love and comfort unlike anything she’d known before. That’s why she chose you, Charlie. And for that, she was immeasurably lucky. She got the real love she deserved when she was with you, and doubled it when you created Mia together. The best years of her life were spent withyou.”

“For fuck’s sake.” He swipes a hand beneath his nose. “Can you stop with the sappy stuff? I’m trying to be a man about all this.”

“I’m just saying.” She snickers. “They’re defensive and cruel, and they’re wildly uncomfortable knowing their little doll wasn’t perfect. But instead of accepting responsibility for the role they played throughout her life, they’d rather toss that guilt at you and hope it sticks. It’s easier to tell their friends a bum cop seduced and ruined her than it is to say we’re toxic assholes who were never equipped to raise a child in the first place.”

“That’s why she cheated, huh?” Sniffling, he looks down and waits for her eyes. “If we break it down to a scientific level, leaving emotion at the door, she probably felt needy for love that day, right? Maybe I was busy with work, or with Mia, or whatever, but she was never truly taught that proper love is unconditional. Instead of talking to me about it, she sought the type of love her parents showed her—shallow and ego-driven—from someone else.”

“Beau Fox was the perfect candidate,” I insert. “Arrogant, confident, good-looking, and free with his flattery. He didn’trealize he was playing with a fuse so close to explosion, but she felt good in those moments. And so, she did things she shouldn’t have.”

“And when I left her, she went searching for more. She spiraled from my rejection.”

“We could have an entire therapy session about this,” Aubree adds. “A whole thesis could be written on why she did the things she did, and how those actions were a direct result of how she was raised. That doesn’t mean she got to skip accountability for what she did, but it certainly explains the science behind it and how she ended up where she did. Beneath the beautiful, grown woman was a little girl whose heart never healed. It’s not surprising that she spiraled after you left.” She swallows and offers him a small, sad smile. “That makes none of this your fault. But the day she chose Beau Fox was the day she lost the one and only person who ever truly loved her the way she needed.”

“It’s a tragedy,” Archer concludes. “The whole thing is a tragedy that will forever be with you. Because the potential for greatness was right there. But her shitty origin story doesn’t mean you were wrong for stepping away. You had to protect Mia and yourself, and no one but Jada forced those drugs and choices into her life.”

“If I stayed, we could have been happy.”

“No,” I argue firmly. “If you stayed,shewould have been happy. Not you. It is never your job to sacrifice your happiness for someone else’s. And weallknow she could have still had an amazing life raising Mia alongside you. She didn’t need to be your wife to benefit from your friendship. Everyone has some kind of trauma they’re healing from. Most of us had parents who landed us with emotional scars.”

“Yeah,” Cato quips. “Like how my dad kept trying to kill me and my brothers.”

I choke out a soft laugh and shake my head. “I mean… yeah. I guess. That’s more on the extreme end of the spectrum. But he proves my point. As adults, it’s up to us to make positive, healthy choices. We can be sad for the little girl whose beginnings sucked while also holding the woman she grew into accountable. We can also choose to give her the benefit of the doubt and remember the good, instead of the bad.”

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