Rock Chick 07 Regret (75 page)

Instead, I simply nodded.

His eyes stayed gentle on me. “I don’t know.”

I nodded again.

“Your Dad didn’t know she was informing on him,” Malcolm cut in and my gaze moved to him.

“He didn’t?”

Malcolm shook his head. “No.”

“A couple of months after it happened, word got to Seth that Luther ordered the hit and why.” Tom entered the conversation. “You remember Bernie Watson?”

I nodded yet again. Bernie had been my father’s right hand man for years. He’d been around for as long as I could remember. Old enough to be my father’s father, he retired to Florida five years ago. He’d always scared me a little but I still always kind of liked him. We sent each other Christmas cards and he always sent me a birthday card, every year, with a five dollar bill in it just like he gave me when I was a kid.

“I remember Bernie. He sends me birthday cards,” I told Tom.

“I talked to Bernie,” Vance said to me and I looked back to him. “Bernie had a lot to say. About your Dad, about your Mom. About how your Dad didn’t give a shit about your Mom informing on him but he did give a shit that she’d been taken out. Bernie told me when he found out, your Dad went cold. That was his word. Cold. He started takeover maneuvers against Diggs immediately. Took him down within ten months of finding out.”

I realized I’d started trembling only when Hector’s hand came out and took my coffee cup away. Then he leaned into me, his hands going down my arms, his fingers curling around my wrists then he wrapped both my and his arms around my body and rested his chin on my shoulder.

This should have helped. Somewhere deep I realized it felt nice. But it didn’t help.

“He took care of Mickey Balducci too, didn’t he?” I whispered. “The Balducci Boys aren’t insane and mean, they were after revenge, weren’t they?”

Vance didn’t say anything, he just nodded.

I twisted my head to look at Hector, his chin came away from my shoulder and his eyes caught mine.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” I said softly.

“Nothin’ to do with it, Sadie, except know he loved her, he avenged her and he didn’t kill her,” Hector told me.

“I don’t know what to do with that, either,” I said back.

“Seth didn’t come over with your Mom. He wasn’t social.” Malcolm started talking and my eyes moved from Hector to Malcolm. “But we knew him, sometimes he’d come out to dinner or pick Lizzie up from a barbeque and stay for a beer. He wasn’t a mellow guy, he wasn’t laidback, but he wasn’t the man he is now, not back then. Losin’ her did that to him. I thought it then, I’m sure of it now.”

I didn’t have time to process that before Vance spoke again.

“I found her stuff.”

I started blinking.

Yes, again.

“Her…
stuff?
” I asked Vance.

“Her stuff. Your Dad kept it. It’s in a storage unit in Aurora. The unit is filled with clothes, jewelry, shoes, photos, books. It isn’t just filled, it’s preserved. Every piece has been carefully packed away, the unit is temperature controlled, sealed against water damage and it’s fireproof. Units like that cost a fortune.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed, my trembling body starting to shiver.

My father hadn’t gotten rid of every memory of her. He’d kept it.

My father hadn’t killed her. He’d avenged her.

My body went straight, I pulled away from Hector a bit and I looked at Kitty Sue. “Tell me how I was again with my father.”

Kitty Sue looked at Malcolm and she swallowed before looking back to me. “Lizzie used to say she sometimes wondered if you knew she existed. She told me, when you were a baby, Seth used to get up and give you your bottles in the night because you’d cry if she went to you but you’d settle if she handed you to him so he just did it all the time. She said he didn’t mind. She thought he secretly loved it. Anytime you’d fall over, bang yourself on something, you’d always go running to him –”

I shook my head and Kitty Sue stopped talking.

That couldn’t be true.

It was my Mom. It was always my Mom.

“No,” I breathed.

I pulled fully away from Hector and took a few steps into the room.

“Sadie, come here,” Hector called softly.

I turned to him and it all came to me, stuff I hadn’t remembered in years.

I closed my eyes tight against the memories, the strongest of which was how he’d come in after Mom brushed my hair at night and kiss the top of my head, just like Hector.

He’d tuck the bedclothes tight around me and turn out the light.

“‘
Night, my beautiful, sweet Sadie,
” he’d whisper.

“‘
Night, Daddy,
” I’d whisper back.

Oh. My.
God.

How could I forget?

How?

“I informed on him,” I said to Hector.

Hector jumped down from the counter and came at me but I backed away, putting up a hand.

“When you were undercover and… and…
just a few days ago!
” I shouted.

“
Mi amor
, come here.”

I shook my head, still backing away.

“He wanted to be sure I was safe, taken care of, he asked Jerry –”

“He did make sure you were safe,” Hector told me. “If he hadn’t helped, we wouldn’t have flushed the Balduccis out yesterday. It would have taken days, maybe weeks before we got them.”

I stopped my retreat and stared at Hector, not sure I heard him correctly.

“What?” I asked.

Hector stopped too but he kept talking. “Vance and I went to see him yesterday.”

At this announcement, my mouth dropped open but Hector kept going.

“Jerry had aligned himself with Donny. I told Seth that and he gave us everything. They were hidin’ in one of his safe houses, he has three. Vance and I hit one. Lee and Luke another one. Mace and Monty hit the third, where they were stayin’, but they must have got word and they cleared out before Mace and Monty got there. Then they panicked. Ricky came after me. Thinkin’ that Marty gave them up, Donny shot him but he got away, came to us for protection. Donny followed but knowin’ they were fucked, he played out a last ditch effort at vengeance, guessin’, correctly, we had you.”

I was stuck on an earlier point.

“You went to see my father?” I asked.

Hector nodded. “Yeah.”

“He talked to you?”

“He gave me everything.”

I couldn’t believe this because, frankly, it was absolutely, positively,
unbelievable
.

“He helped you?”

Hector nodded again, watching me closely.

“You?” I repeated.

“Me,” Hector replied.

“For me,” I whispered.

“For you.”

I pulled in my lips and I felt the tears hit the back of my eyes, stinging there.

“I’m
not
going to cry!” I yelled then, damn and blast, blast,
blast
, I promptly burst into tears. “Fuck!” I shouted and found myself in Hector’s arms. “I’m crying,” I told Hector’s chest unnecessarily, my arms wrapping around his waist and my body pressing against his.

“Cry,
mi cielo
, who gives a fuck?” Hector said over my head.

“I do! I’m sick of crying! But he’s been… he’s been…” I choked then hiccupped. “He’s been trying to get hold of me and I haven’t even gone to see him!” Even though the last bout of tears hadn’t yet gone stale, I burst into fresh ones all the same.

Hector’s arms grew tighter.

“We’ll go next visiting day. I’ll take you.”

I was shocked at this offer, so much, my tears ceased immediately. I tilted my head back, looked at Hector through blurry eyes and asked, “You will?”

I was pretty certain he nodded.

“I can’t believe he helped you,” I whispered.

“He helped
you,
” Hector amended. “He didn’t help me and he didn’t like seein’ me either. It wasn’t like he invited me to Christmas dinner at the big house.”

I couldn’t help it, what he said was funny, so, through my waning tears, I burst out laughing.

“Christmas dinner at the big house?” I repeated, still giggling.

One of Hector’s hands came up and wiped at my tears. He grinned but he didn’t respond.

“Do you think he knows I informed on him with you?”

Hector’s gaze went from my cheeks to my eyes. “No.”

“Why wasn’t he angry that my Mom betrayed him?” I asked, as if Hector would know.

Apparently Hector did know because he answered.

“Because he loved her. You love someone, you forgive a lot of shit. She wasn’t exactly doin’ the wrong thing,
mamita
, he was.”

Hector was right.

I pulled in breath, looked at him a second then two then let the breath go and leaned into him, pressing my cheek against his chest and giving him a tight squeeze.

Then I moved, doing a circle so his arms were still around me but my back was to his front.

I looked at the room to see everyone was watching.

“I’m okay,” I announced to the room and surprisingly I was.

I looked at Vance and my voice went soft.

“Thank you,” I said and he gave me a chin lift which I took to mean “you’re welcome”.

My eyes skimmed across Malcolm, Kitty Sue and Tom and then rested on Blanca.

“Unless someone else wants to rock my world, I think we can have breakfast now,” I told her. “Can I help?”

Blanca gave me a close look. Then she must have approved of what she saw because she smiled and declared, “Today, I’ll teach you to scramble eggs.”

I knew how to scramble eggs but I decided not to tell Blanca that, it might spoil the fun.

And heaven knew, I needed some fun.

I felt Hector lean into me and he whispered in my ear so only I could hear, “Will of fuckin’ steel.”

The warm, snugly, comfy, lovely feeling was back
with
the happy glow and I knew part of it had to do with what I learned that morning.

And the fact that Hector had given me that too.

Now, in my bizarre world of bizarre events that happened every day, that was the bizarrest of all. My boyfriend, who happened bizarrely to be the ex-DEA agent that brought down my Drug Kingpin father, also, in a bizarre way, brought my father back to me.

Blooming heck.

How totally bizarre was
that?

I could be my own soap opera!

Instead of sharing any of this with Hector, I turned to look at him, leaned in and touched my mouth to his. Even though his arms flexed around me and his eyes flashed at my mouth touch, I gave him a small smile, pulled away and headed toward Blanca.

Kitty Sue grabbed a bag of bread and the toaster.

Tom moved to make another pot of coffee.

Then Blanca taught me something I already knew.

And after breakfast, I walked hand-in-hand with Hector, following Vance to the door, and I asked Vance if he had time that day to take me to my mother’s stuff.

Vance said he did.

That’s when I knew that day was
definitely
going to beat out yesterday and the day before as my second best day
eve
r.

Though, nothing was going to beat The Day of Hector and The S’mores.

Nothing.

Chapter Twenty-Seven