Page 37 of Free to Judge (Amaryllis Heritage #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

One night, when we’re cuddling, I push Declan to tell me more about Tanya. He stiffens. “Why?”

“She was important to you—important enough to put your whole life on hold.” I lay my head against his shoulder. “Have you talked to anyone about her and what she meant to you?”

He shakes his head.

“Not even my father? My uncle?”

He hesitates. “Jon and Liam…a bit. Your father and uncle were more interested in the logistics of what we found out about the Byrnes, your grandfather, and the Tiberi connection.” He releases a harsh breath.

“To be honest, what I said to you that day was probably the most I’ve said about her since I walked out of my former director’s office to go undercover. ”

I twist so I can lay my head against his shoulder. “I’ll listen.”

The late spring night shimmers through the patio doors lit up by the string of lights Grace had insisted on installing around our pool. The surrounding property is quiet—at least as quiet as it can be with the insects happily frolicking about.

In other words, it’s just the two of us and the kind of night where emotions have the space to fill it without regret.

He just stares out at the night, lost in memories he hasn’t let go of but has no place to rest them. “Pain’s a heavy weight to bear alone.”

He turns his head and places his lips on my forehead.

For a long while, that’s all he does. I’m not certain if he’s gathering strength to speak or just absorbing mine until finally he says, “Tanya was by my side for years. She was the one person who relied on me.” He pauses and takes a long sip from the water I placed by his side earlier.

I didn’t dare speak. I wouldn’t interrupt now that he was opening up. I just let him relieve himself of some of this pain.

“I told you about her kids,” he continues, his voice lower now.

“Little boys. They were four and six when she died. Great kids—Bryan and Emmitt. They used to call me Uncle Dec. I remember every one of their birthday parties. I held them both the day they were born. Tanya’s husband, Ben, is a doctor.

He is a good guy. Incredible father. Better husband.

“For a while, they considered me family. Tanya insisted if we weren’t working, I was to come for Sunday dinner.

She had no problem picking up the phone and telling me to come get one of her boys because she needed to run an errand.

It was the kind of friendship where I’d crash on their couch after a Sox game and drank a few too many beers.

“Then they assigned her to a case here. Demanded I was her handler. That way I could not only look out for her but for ‘her guys’ too. It was supposed to be just a few weeks. Then those few weeks extended to a few months.”

“What did her husband think about that?”

“It was hell, but not just for him. Her kids were so young they didn’t understand why Mommy wasn’t coming home, but Uncle Dec was there.

Every night, same kind of hell—‘Mommy home?’ Emmitt would ask.

When I’d say no, he’d shove his thumb back in his mouth.

Every time, Bryan would get more angry. And Ben? He was just lost without her.”

I am barely breathing. I just study the way his eyes glass over as the memories come rushing back.

For long moments, silence permeates the air between us. Then he shocks me when he tells me about the investigation and how people tried to tie him to it. How Ben pushed him away. “He wouldn’t let me go to the funeral,” he manages.

“That’s cruel.”

“Was it? If I hadn’t done my job by the book…”

“She still might not be alive. We both know it.” I hope that all these years later, he can see that, but it might be asking too much.

I’m somewhat relieved when he gives the smallest nod.

“What made you go undercover to take down the Byrnes and Tiberis?” My grandfather.

The idea my biological grandfather is a part of this is still something impossible to wrap my head around.

Then again, it also supports the theory behind the debate between nature and nurture.

Hell, my whole family is a case study for it.

“I couldn’t not do anything. I had to avenge her.”

“You loved her.”

“I did. I do,” he says honestly. “But never in a romantic sense. From the day we met, Tanya was my sister in every sense of the word. Somehow, I have to make up for letting her down.”

“She’d say you never did.”

He looked at me. “I’ve been trying not to drown in the guilt.”

“She’d be proud of you.”

“That’s what Holder used to try to convince me of.”

“Who is that?”

“My former director.”

We sit in silence again, the kind that didn’t need to be filled.

“She didn’t get to see them grow up,” he said finally. “But I still keep tabs. Quietly. I know what school they go to. I know Emmitt’s a great little artist and Bry’s got his mom’s determination. I just wish—”

“You were still a part of their lives,” I conclude.

He nodded. “Every damn day.”

I lean in and kiss his temple and hope he doesn’t disappear into the darkness so deeply he can’t find his way back to being the man Tanya’s boys loved.

Back to a place he once called home.