“You thought that you could make it up to me by infiltrating my life and saddling me with your ill-gotten gains and when I didn’t hang around long enough to say yes to this super generous offer, you forged my name on the documents anyway so you could be certain to continue infiltrating my life at the same time f**king it up when the best thing you could do, bar building a time machine so that you could go back and make sure you never met me, would be to leave me… the f**k… alone?”

He pressed his lips together and said not a word.

I turned to his father.

It killed me to see this was killing him.

But I could not help that. I couldn’t. I had enough on my plate.

So I wasn’t even going to try.

“I love you,” I said softly. “I always will. I think of you often, so often…” I sucked in breath and decided to leave that because I couldn’t go there. “Your son took a lot from me, all of it hurt, so much you wouldn’t believe me even if I described the pain. And losing you was part of that pain.”

Tears filled his eyes; I watched them as I felt the same happen in mine.

“Honey,” he whispered, taking his hand from the wall and turning away from his son to face me.

“I love you and miss you but I’m not coming back, never, no matter what happens to Damian. I can’t have anything that reminds me of him in my life. It’s toxic. I just released it and I can’t take it back. I can’t have it poisoning me anymore. Not anymore. He took eighteen years of my life. He can’t have any more.”

I watched him swallow.

“This man holding me is the man of my dreams, Don,” I told him quietly. “Tonight, someone shot at him. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to follow that trail to Damian. He has family. He has children. And he has me. Talk to your son. Make him stay out of my life and leave me and everyone I love alone. Please. Please do that for me.”

He sniffed, his eyes still wet and getting wetter then he nodded.

I looked back at Damian and stated in a firm voice that still shook, “I never want to see you again. If you can, for once, listen to what I say rather than what you want to hear then hear this. I never, never want to see you again. Never. No matter what. I don’t want your money. I don’t want your guilt. You cannot make up to me what you tore from me or the years I lost because your poison infected me. Do not call me. Do not come to my house. Do not f**k with my life. Do not f**k with people I care about. Go away and stay away.”

“Tess,” Damian whispered and it was there, right in his eyes, pain and regret.

Pain and f**king regret.

The motherfucking ass**le.

“Go away and stay away,” I whispered back.

Then without looking at Don again, I moved my body toward the door. Brock felt my movement and let me go. But he grabbed my hand, led me out, through the yard and to the passenger side of his truck that was parked behind my car.

He bleeped the locks and opened the passenger door before I noticed what he was about.

I locked my body and looked up at him, saying softly, “I’m okay to drive.”

He shook his head, gently pushing me toward the seat, saying, “Get in, baby.”

“I don’t want to leave my car here,” I told him.

“Get in, don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with it.”

“Brock –”

He closed in on me and I had to tip my head way back, he was that close.

“Up into the truck, Tess,” he said softly.

I bit my lip, nodded, he moved back and I climbed up.

He rounded the hood, swung up beside me, his truck rumbled to life and off we went.

And when we hit Yale it would come to me that of the many awesome powers my man held, clairvoyance was one of them for as the adrenalin surge fled and the emotions rushed in on its tail, I lost it again, this time melting into deep, body-rocking, uncontrollable sobs.

I was so far gone, I didn’t notice us getting home. I didn’t know how I got in. I didn’t even know how I got myself curled on the bed. I was just suddenly there and I just kept crying.

I vaguely heard snatches of Brock saying, “She’s bad, Martha, I need to deal with the police and she needs you so I need you over here soon as you can come.” And also what might have been just minutes later or longer, I was too far gone to tell, “My woman lost it after it went down, I can’t come to the Station. The boys are outside investigating the area, you need to come here.”

But that was all I noticed until I felt Martha crawl into bed with me, curve her body into the back of mine, her arm wrapping around and holding me tight.

I heard the voices in the living room then.

“Who’s here?” I asked through a sniffle.

“Cops, honey,” she whispered. “Brock has some business he needs to tend to after what went down tonight.”

Of course.

I shut my eyes tight and pressed out more tears. Finding her hand with mine at my belly, I pulled it up to my chest, held it tight with my fingers as I pressed it deep into my chest.

I opened my eyes and whispered, “He got shot at tonight.”

“I know,” she whispered back.

My hand clutched hers and new tears stung my eyes and nose. “I can’t lose him.”

“I know, honey.”

“His boys can’t lose him.”

“I know.”

“His family –”

“Shh, Tess.”

I sucked in a broken breath.

Then I stated a trembling, “I hate Damian.”

Her arm gave me a squeeze and her hand twisted to hold mine.

“I do too.”

I fell quiet. So did Martha.

Then I sucked in another broken breath and told her, “There’s a chicken in the oven.”

“I know, I sorted it,” she told me. “Are you hungry? Do you want me to get you something?”

“No, but Brock –”

“He’s a big boy, honey, he can take care of himself.”

“I know, but –”

“Tess, honey, trust me,” she said while squeezing my hand. “Right now, he’s not hungry.

Right now that man out there is concentrating on making a statement to his colleagues and trying not to rip your living room apart. He pulls his shit together; I don’t think the first thing on his mind is going to be dinner.”

I nodded then said, “I should go to him.”

“No,” she held me closer. “He wants you here and safe with me while he deals with that shit. Let him have that. You do what he needs you to do and get your shit together.”