Page 39 of Blackout: Book Two

“You don’t agree with the decision,” I accuse.

His eyes find mine, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Jack, talk to me,” I demand, leaning my elbows on the table. “Is Lacey—”

“She’s fine, Blackie,” he interjects. “I’m just worried about her. I feel like we’re pushing our luck every month that goes by. That quack of a doctor says it’s all in my head, though, so don’t you worry.”

“That quack of a doctor? Dr. Spiegel?”

“Ignore him, Blackie,” Reina interrupts. “She’s a quack whenever she disagrees with him,” she explains before poking her husband in the shoulder. “She wasn’t a quack when she prescribed you those new meds last month, though, was she?”

“What new meds?”

“There is a new drug on the market and Dr. Spiegel thought Jack would be a good candidate for it. As it turns out, she was right and so far, so good. Isn’t that right, Jack?”

He grimaces as he runs a hand over his face.

“We’re not here to talk about me losing my marbles.”

“Why not?” I ask, pointing a finger between us. “This shit has never been one-sided before, don’t make it that way now. If you’re doing well, I want to know.”

“You’re wrong,” he says. “It’s always been one-sided between us.”

My eyebrows pinch together in confusion as I watch him turn to his wife.

“Sunshine, can you give me a minute alone with Blackie? There are some things I need to say to him. Things that are long overdue.”

Touching a hand to his cheek, she gives him a small smile and nods her head.

“Sure, I’ll go see about getting us some coffee.” Her chair scrapes against the wood and she stands, turning to Sunny who offers to show her to the cafeteria. Alone, I look back at Jack.

“Is this the part where you hand me my ass and curse me for breaking your daughter’s heart?”

Contemplating my words, he cocks his head to the side. A minute passes before he finally shakes his head.

“No, this is the part where I apologize to you.”

Jack doesn’t owe me shit, least of all an apology but I don’t get a chance to tell him that.

“For as long as we know each other it’s never been about you and your needs. Always me and mine. People think I took you under my wing, but that’s so far from the truth. You took me under yours. You made me and my family your number one priority. Every bullet you took and all the times you sacrificed yourself for the sake of me and mine…it may have gone unnoticed at the time, but I realize it now, Black,” he chokes, pausing to gather himself. “I see your sacrifices and I see your pain, brother. I feel it in my bones.”

“I can live to be a hundred and I’ll never be able to fucking repay you for all you’ve done. All you’ve given. I’m sorry for that but mostly for not being the brother you needed. Fuck that, I’m sorry for not being the father figure you needed. It don’t matter that you’re closer to my age than my daughters. I’m your father-in-law. I should’ve seen you hurting,” he grinds out, roughly running his fingers through his hair as his wet eyes peer back at me. Dark as night and full of sorrow.

“I should’ve acknowledged your pain before I ever gave you her hand, instead I ignored it. I ushered all the responsibilities I couldn’t handle onto your shoulders. All my grief and every enemy. I dirtied your fucking hands and painted them with blood. You never stood a chance with me as your acting messiah and for that, for that, I’m so fucking sorry.”

I don’t know what to say to him. I never thought I needed to hear those words but now that he said them, I think I may have. In fact, I think I’ve been waiting a long time for them.

“Before the shit hit the fan, and I was going to turn myself in, you told me you were relying on me to teach you how to be a husband and a father. You remember that?”

Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I give him a nod.

I still feel that way.

“What you don’t realize is you’ve had a hand in me becoming the husband and father that I am. If I didn’t have you at my right, I would’ve lost my mind and my family a long time ago. You don’t need me to teach you shit, Black. You got it, man, and you got it in spades.”

He pauses for a beat and pulls out a tin of toothpicks, replacing the mangled one he’s been chewing on with a new one.

“Schwartz and Bianci told me what happened while Reina was in the coma. They told me you were ready to turn yourself in to keep me on the streets. You believed in me when no one else did. You listened to my crazy notions and as far fetched as they may have seemed to you, you were ready to sacrifice yourself on the sword to keep me with my wife. You were going to give it all up so I could avenge her accident.”

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