“I say she’s earned the right.” He turns in her direction, and she glances back at the two of us, her eyes darting nervously between us as Sean speaks up again.
“Think there will ever come a time when things aren’t so fucking weird between the three of us?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly.
“Or that you don’t feel ill at ease when I look at her?”
I stare at his profile as he crosses his arms and leans against the trunk, his gaze still on Cecelia.
“I’m in love with my wife, Tobias.” He turns to me, his expression genuine. “I’m convinced by my own experience that it’s possible to love more than once in a lifetime. And honestly, I never thought I would see her again after she left Triple.”
“Neither did I.”
“What made you go after her, finally?”
“Because maybe you are capable, but I’m not. There’s no one else for me but her. Never before, never after.”
“I get that.” Another bout of silence. “She’s more than ready.”
“She is, but I’m leaving the when up to her. I don’t know how long it’s going to be until then, and I really don’t give a fuck. It’s her call, indefinitely.”
He nods, and I glance over at her, still on edge from how close things got mere minutes ago. No matter how well it worked out, I’ll never truly be comfortable with her in harm’s way.
“Dom told you about Antoine,” I say, turning to face him.
“A long, long, fucking time ago. Still looking out for you, even from the grave.” He shakes his head. “Only Dom.”
The truth of that sets in.
“It’s the one good thing that came from our time in France.”
I don’t bother to hide my surprise.
“Yeah, man, of course we looked into him while we were there. We’ve had your back the whole time. Always. And would have had it well before that, had you not been so fucking tight-lipped about him. When you sent us away, we tracked him down from the information Dom gathered over the years. Together, we learned the entirety of his operation, in and fucking out, and it wasn’t hard to figure out you taught them everything you knew.”
“Almost everything.”
He nods. “Keep them confused, right? We worked out early on through a faint text trail you already had Palo in your pocket, but we wanted backup, so we sent a few of our unmarked guys into his ranks over time. We have a lot more birds in his army than you can imagine. Question is, why didn’t you do it?”
“I didn’t want men capable of doing Antoine’s dirty work, working for me. They’re a different breed. But I see now it was a mistake and a necessary evil. And I’ve made mistakes, Sean. Lots of them.”
“I wish you would have asked for help.”
“I didn’t want you to know. He’s—”
“He was only a worthy adversary because you made him one.”
“I regret it every day.”
“You don’t have to anymore. We own him,” he says, fishing a cigarette out of his jeans before striking his Zippo. He clicks it closed with the flick of his wrist before exhaling a steady stream of smoke. Another long silence ensues, and I turn his way to see him staring at me intently. “The worst day of our lives was the day we broke your heart.”
The words strike deep and take away my ability to speak as we face-off, eye to eye, for the first time since the night that tore us apart.
“If you thought we left willingly, that we would leave her willingly for the cause, you were fucking wrong. Of course, we cared, and we didn’t want to lose it, but we left,” he exhales another drag as my chest tightens unbearably, “we left willingly and gave her up temporarily because of the sacrifices you made for us, Tobias. For the years you spent doing everything for us, risking your life, for us, because that’s the type of man you taught us to be.” His voice shakes as he speaks, his eyes darting down at the gravel between us. “And we started missing your love and loyalty the minute we lost it.” He exhales a plume of smoke and lifts watery eyes back to mine. “The second worst day of our lives was the day you broke our hearts,” he clears his throat and cups the back of his neck as the burn in my own throat intensifies.