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Kane and I watched them go.
I had my head turned fully to look over my shoulder.
Staring and staring because I wasn’t sure I had the strength to look back at him.
Not when there wasn’t a buffer between us.
“She’s incredible.” Kane’s gravelly voice cut through the tension that pulsed in the bare space between us.
“She’s the most incredible person I’ve ever met,” I whispered, still turned away. “The only light I’ve been able to find in the middle of this darkness.”
I shored up all the power I possessed, fortifying my walls, before I finally shifted around to look at him.
It didn’t matter I’d prepared myself. It still knocked the breath from my lungs.
The awe that was written on his fierce, distinct features. A pain I didn’t quite understand because the man didn’t know her.
But there it was.
Inscribed in the lines of his face and flooding from his being.
“Thank you for giving me this.” It was raw.
My throat nearly closed off. “It’s why we came here. To find you.”
“And how did you know how to find me?” His brow curled, his voice this gruff, abrasive thing that unfortunately sounded far too nice.
I wavered, then pushed out a sigh. “My sister had left me a letter in the event of her passing. For years, I believed that she hadn’t known who Maci’s father was, but in the letter, she named you and said she wanted me to find you and tell you about Maci. Your address was listed.”
Those brows slashed down farther.
Surprised.
Confused.
Maybe…disturbed.
I attempted not to feel ruffled by it. Attempted to quell my hackles that rose. My defenses rising, sure he’d hurt my sister in some way.
My teeth ground in restraint.
Waiting.
He roughed his hand through the longer pieces of his hair. Antsy as he contemplated, gaze flitting away for a beat before it was pinned on me.
“What happened to her?”
The familiar sting of tears burned at the backs of my eyes, and my throat clogged with the horror of it.
“She fell off her roof.” I could barely force it out because there was that unsettled piece of me that believed it was a lie.
No way to accept it.
Especially after the things I’d found.
But the authorities had said it was cut and dry.
Obvious.