The Best Goodbye

Addy’s heart and soul weren’t wounded and broken the way mine had been when I thought I’d lost her. Trusting that she would forgive me and accept this was asking a lot. Losing her wasn’t possible, either. Telling her the truth was my first step. I’d deal with the next step once I knew what that had to be.

“Do you like them?” she asked, breaking into my internal battle.

“Yeah, I do. He’s a good man, and Reese is special. You’d love her if you got to know her. There’s just so much they don’t know about me that clouds their view of me. Things I want to explain to you. Things that scare the shit out of me to tell you, because I can’t lose you.”

Addy sat down in the chair she’d slept in and kept her nervous gaze locked on me. “This doesn’t sound good,” she said softly.

It wasn’t good. It was dark and twisted and so completely fucked-up. But it was who I was and why I was here today. If I’d known for a moment that she was alive, I would have spent those years tracking her down. Searching for her. Saving her . . . and myself.

That wasn’t how it had played out, though, and the past was something I couldn’t change.

“I ran. I couldn’t deal with the fact that you were gone. I hated everyone. Especially my dad, who never took the time to get my mom help. He left us there with her, and I thought she took your life. I was so angry and fucking empty.” That was the easy part to tell.

Her hand came up and covered mine. That small touch helped some, but I wasn’t sure she’d still touch me like that once she knew the whole truth.

“I lived on the streets for more than a year. I became good at it, or as good as you can be at living on your own at sixteen. One night, I decided to rip off a wealthy man. I normally spotted their wallets and got them without a hitch. I was fast. I didn’t keep credit cards. I even destroyed them so no one could use them. I had some moral compass. But I did take the cash, just to keep myself fed. Made friends in the alleys so I could keep myself clothed.” Stopping, I waited to see if she would comment. Stealing was the least of my sins. If she didn’t accept that, then what I had to tell her was going to destroy me.

“Go on,” she urged with a soft whisper.

“That night, I successfully took the wallet of Chicago’s biggest crime lord. And he could have killed me. He had several men surrounding him, but I never even saw them until I took off running with his wallet, which he had no idea I’d swiped. But one of his guys did, and they stopped me. He couldn’t believe I had his wallet, because he had felt nothing, but his guy pulled it from my coat pocket and tossed it to him. The man studied me for several moments. I knew by looking into his eyes that I was in trouble. There was power there that would terrify a normal person. But I had nothing to live for.”

Her hand squeezed mine tightly, and I knew she didn’t like hearing that. I picked her hand up and brought the back of it to my lips before continuing.

“He asked me my name and how old I was. Then he asked me how I felt about living on a boat. I didn’t know what to say, so I was just honest and said it would be better than living in a box. So he took me home that night and gave me a place to live on his boat. Over the next year, he groomed me. Trained me. By the time I was eighteen years old, I was one of his. I observed his world, knowing that I wasn’t OK with all of it. As soulless as I felt, I still had a heart. I couldn’t condone it all, but I did see that he was operating in the areas where our judicial system failed.”

I paused and prepared myself for what I still had to say. Addy was watching me closely. I didn’t want to let her down. Telling her the truth was all I could do.

“I had one rule. A rule I never backed down from. I would only take the jobs when the mark was a man who had abused a child. That was all. No one else. Benedetto had become like the father I never had. He had given me shelter and a home when I needed it. I owed him. I also had demons clawing into my dreams and slowly eating me alive. I knew that what he was offering would be an outlet. A place to lose myself while finding a way to live again.”

I stopped and watched her face. There was a slight frown on her lips as she sat quietly, still holding my hand. She didn’t understand, but then, I hadn’t been very detailed, either. The idea of actually saying I killed men seemed fucking impossible.

“What do you mean when you say a job and a mark?” she asked.

Addy wanted the details, and I had to give them to her.

“A job was someone Benedetto himself wanted gone or someone he’d been hired to off. A mark was the person who was to be . . . killed.” Before I could freeze up, I continued. “I killed men, Addy. Many men. Each one of them had done terrible things to a child. I researched them. If I found them guilty, I ended their lives. That’s how I know Reese. She was molested by her stepfather for years. He convinced her that she was stupid and dumb, when, in fact, she just had dyslexia and didn’t know it. Her real father was the man who saved me. He wanted revenge, and I gave it to him. But he was only one of many. He was the last man I killed. After him, I ended it. I left Benedetto and started a new life. Here.”

Addy’s hand slipped from mine, and I let her move away. She needed space, and as much as it pained me, I had to respect that. I was prepared for this.

“You . . . killed people with a gun?” she asked in disbelief.

I nodded. “I killed monsters who repeatedly abused children.”

She held her hands together in front of her and stared down at the ground. “How many?” she asked quietly.