Page 162 of The Thief
"He was protecting me," I finish. "Right up until the end, he was standing between me and danger."
"That's who he was. That's what family does."
"And now he's gone. Just like Dad, just like everyone I've ever loved."
"I'm not gone."
"Not yet. But this life, this world—it takes people, Freddie. It takes them and it doesn't give them back."
He sits beside me on the bed and pulls me against his chest. "Sometimes. But not always. Not if we're smart, if we're careful, if we fight for what matters."
"Do you really believe that?"
"I have to. Because the alternative is giving up, and I'm not giving up on us."
I want to believe him. I want to think that love can conquer violence, that happiness is possible in a world built on blood and bullets. But Henry believed that too, and now he's dead.
"I killed him," I say suddenly.
"What?"
"Henry. I got him killed. If I hadn't been here, if he hadn't been protecting me, he'd still be alive."
"Stop." Freddie's voice is firm. "Don't do that to yourself. Trace killed Henry. Trace and his obsession with revenge for imagined wrongs."
"But if I'd stayed in Belfast?—"
"Then you'd probably be dead too. And Henry would have spent the rest of his life wondering about the granddaughter he never got to meet."
"Maybe that would have been better."
"For who? Henry got to know you, got to see what an amazing woman his son raised. He got to be your grandfather, even if it was only for a few months. That mattered to him."
"Did it?"
"More than you know. He told me once that meeting you was the best thing that had happened to him in years."
The words make my chest tight, make the tears I've been holding back finally spill over. "I'm going to miss him."
"So am I. So are we all. But we'll honor his memory by taking care of each other, by being the family he built."
"What happens now?"
"Now we deal with Trace. We find out what the fuck he's up to, then make sure he can never hurt anyone again."
"And after that?"
"After that, we rebuild. We mourn our dead, we strengthen our defenses, and we move forward. Together."
I curl up against him and let him hold me while the full weight of what's happened settles in. Henry's dead. The man who welcomed me home, who gave me a family, who stood between me and a madman—gone, because he loved me enough to die protecting me.
"I should have saved him," I whisper.
"You did save him. You made sure his sacrifice mattered. You stopped Trace from getting what he wanted."
"It doesn't feel like enough."
"It never does. But it's what we have."
