FUCK.

Scarlett sat up abruptly, throwing her dress back on sans panties that lay torn on the floor, and muttered quickly, “I should probably get this stuff cleaned up and I’ll need to reapply your cream and wrap it.”

Fuck it! Fucking hell! I could see she’d closed herself off again. She wouldn’t make eye contact and was clearly in a hurry to get me to leave her alone. I had to do damage control; I wasn’t ashamed of Belle’s name on my skin, her permanent mark over my heart, but I was quickly realizing Scarlett meant something more to me than I’d originally thought. Thoughts crowded my head, memories and snippets of My Belle. Anger started to take root deep in my stomach; Scarlett wanted to jump to conclusions, didn’t care to know who Belle was or what she was to me. Belle would forever be in my life, in my heart. It might not be an easy situation to understand, but it was a part of me. Reining in the overwhelming feelings, I sat still, staring down at Scarlett working on my side. I didn’t care if she wanted to know or not, she was going to.

“Scar—”

Shaking her head, she cut me off. “It’s not my business, Mace. It was fun, but I told you, I don’t share. So, great, let’s just move on, yeah?”

What the fuck?

She not only jumped to conclusions, but she’d decided I was a cheater. I didn’t fucking think so. That tightly reined-in anger flared back to life. My jaw was ticking as I ground my teeth together, stopping myself from saying something shitty I wouldn’t be able to take back. Instead, I ripped my wallet from my back pocket and pulled out a worn photo; its edges were frayed and the image was slightly faded from being pulled out and looked at so often. I put the photo down on the table in front of Scarlett who was packing things away. Her eyes lifted from the ink pots. She dropped the roll of paper towels she’d been holding, and picked up the photo looking back and forward between the image in her hand and me.

“Is she—?” The softly spoken question was left unfinished as she looked back up to me.

I nodded. “She’s mine. That’s Belle.” Now came the hard part. I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. “She died, almost three years ago. She was only two years old.”

Scarlett’s eyes dropped to my tattoo then to the photo of Belle still in her hand. “She’s beautiful, Mace. She looks just like you.”

I was immediately thankful she didn’t offer her apologies. Sorry is such a shitty word, used too often for the wrong reasons. I didn’t deserve or want her sympathy. Belle’s death was all on me.

Taking the photo from Scarlett’s outstretched hand, I noticed it was trembling slightly. I looked up to her face, a single tear falling down her pretty cheek. “Don’t cry, baby; it hurts when you cry, especially for me” I reached up and wiped her tear away with my thumb.

“I hate that you’ve lost like that. I hate that it happened to you, to her.” Right there I could see the pain in her eyes. Scarlett didn’t pity me; she felt some of my heartache. Just like that, I fell a little more, for all that was Scar.

I could see the questions running through her mind. Scarlett might play the tough, “nothing can take me down” chick, but everything she felt played across her face. I’d opened the can of worms and it was time to tell her all of it. The truth. I had dreaded the moment she would see me for what I really was, the reason my daughter was no longer alive. I reached forward, took her beautiful tear streaked face in my hands and gave her what I was sure was one last kiss. My hands framing her head, fingers splayed through the back of her soft hair, my lips touched hers whisper-soft. Pulling back slightly and leaning my forehead to hers, my decision was made. “Come and sit, there’s a few things you need to know.”

Chapter Twelve

Mace sat before me on the leather sofa of the break room wearing a look that could be described as nothing but loss. My heart hurt for him, for the little girl who was all him, just petite; her tiny little hands wrapped around his neck, faces pressed together smiling at the camera, so happy.

I hadn’t wanted to ask what happened to Belle; it didn’t seem right. Mace would tell me in his own time. That time had just come a lot sooner than I thought, and I wasn’t sure I could handle any more of the pain that laced his voice.

“I met Belle’s mother, Janelle when I was twenty one. We’d been introduced through some mutual friends and ended up dating for a while. She was sweet and thoughtful; she was the kind of girl I wanted to take home to meet Ma. We’d been dating for about eight months when she moved in with me; I thought maybe it was my imagination at first, but she seemed to change almost overnight; she started bitching. She would be rude to Ma and the girls when they stopped by the apartment. Snarky all the time and demanding. A few months of this, I’d had enough and I told her we were done. She’d had plenty of warning, but when I bit the bullet and decided I couldn’t take any more and I was leaving, she announced she was pregnant.

“I stayed. At first, I wasn’t sure if the baby was mine; we’d been really careful. I never slept with her without a condom. Even though we were in a fairly steady relationship, I never felt comfortable enough. I was young I didn’t want to risk it. Janelle had shown me she was the kind of person to do anything, even play dirty to get what she wanted.”

He paused and took a deep breath. I could see how hard reliving this was for him. His body was locked up tight.

“What do you mean ‘play dirty’?” I prompted quietly. I already disliked this woman, to take advantage of such a kind loving family and treat them like crap.

“She had gone off her birth control, and I later found out was poking holes in the condoms in an effort to get pregnant, she knew I was ready to end things. Told me later it was her way of making me stay.”

Mace’s hands were holding his coffee mug so hard I thought it might shatter, his jaw ticking with anger. My own level of pissed off was very quickly heightening. How somebody could do that I would never understand—trick someone into staying—to have a child out of selfishness rather than love. “You stayed then?” I asked quietly.

Mace looked up at me searching my face for what I wasn’t sure. “I did, for a while. Belle was about one when I left. I had visitation, and I couldn’t have her fulltime because I was away for work weeks at a time, training exercises and shit. If I had stayed home, stayed with her-”

Mace’s eyes where shining with unshed tears, my heart broke for him.

“While Janelle had her, she’d been drinking, more and more. I didn’t know the extent of it. A few times when I would pick Belle up, I smelled booze on her breath; I mentioned it a few times, but it never ended well and I didn’t want Belle to hear us fighting. I spoke with her when Belle was with my mother. She played it off, made me believe it was just a drink or a sip. I should have known better. I should have taken Belle from her then.”

The pain is his voice was destroying me. I’d sworn not to fall for the man, for any man ever again. I realized I felt more for him than I should. That meant I was in big trouble.

“I was on my way home from a local mission. I raced straight over to Janelle’s place to pick up Belle; it was my weekend to have her. I pulled up to Janelle’s place and walked through the front door. Belle wasn’t there so I went out back thinking she was playing in the sandpit. She wasn’t.” Mace took a deep breath and seemed to lose himself in the memory telling me his story like his own personal nightmare was playing out right in front of him. A broken look froze his face and his eyes glazed over.

“I looked around the yard, everywhere. When my eyes skimmed past the swimming pool, I spotted her. She was floating in the pool, face down, her hair spread out all around her. She wasn’t moving. I rushed over to the pool and dragged her out, laying her down on the grass. She wasn’t breathing. I needed to make her breathe.

My hands were pressing down over and over again on her tiny chest, trying so hard to make her take a breath. The feeling of her limp lifeless body under my hands, I kept going and going.

The fear of her not moving, not responding, it was tearing my heart apart.

The sounds she made every time I blew air into her mouth, it's a sound you'll never forget—it haunts you. Even as I willed her to take a breath, I knew...somewhere in my head I knew she was gone.

The ambulance arrived and took over for me... all I could do was stand there and watch as they tried to bring my little girl back

I was useless; there was nothing I could do to make her wake up.

The paramedics were everywhere. They injected her with God only knows what, shocked her. They tried so damn hard to bring her back, and all I could do was watch as she slipped away.

Her skin looked normal, her face like she was asleep

I just wanted to shake her. I kept repeating, “Please, baby, just wake up...I'm here, Daddy's here, baby”.

They picked her up and moved her to a gurney in the back of the ambulance while I followed behind.

The entire ride to the hospital, I could see in the back window of the ambulance them trying—pushing on her chest, over and over.

When we finally made it there, they took her to a room. I was held back by the police who escorted me into a room.

I couldn't get to her.

She was all alone with strangers. All I could think about was, what if she woke up and didn't know where she was?

With nobody she knew.

She’d be scared.

Just as I jumped up to go to her, the door opened and the doctor came into the room.

The moment he stepped in, I fell to my knees. His face told me everything I already knew.

“I'm sorry. There was nothing more we could do,” the doctor said, shaking his head slowly. “It's been two hours now. We're still performing CPR; however, there is no chance…” He took a breath and asked me the worst question I’d heard in my life.

“We—we need you to tell us if you'd like us to keep going?”

Doubts rushed through my head, did I tell them to give up on her?

Did I give up on her, or did I let them keep hurting her tiny body and let her go?

I took a deep breath looking the doctor in the eyes, pushing the final knife into my already destroyed chest. “Stop.” I said. “Let her go. Just—just let her go.”

The moment the words left my mouth, my world came crashing down on top of me.

I let my baby go.

I was escorted into the room where they’d worked on Belle. My hands shaking, feeling like I might vomit, there she was.

I looked across the room. She lay on a sheeted bed, her tiny face the only thing visible under the stark white sheet. Her pretty blond hair, now dry, fanned out around her angelic face. She looked like she was sleeping.

This had to be a bad dream; there she was...just sleeping. Even as I thought this, my feet refused to move. Ten long minutes of standing across the room, I managed to go to her.

I picked up her tiny little hand. The moment I made contact with her skin, the tears I'd been holding at bay fell down my face. She was cold. She needed another blanket. I looked around the room and spotted a thick blanket folded neatly in the corner and pulled it up over her body. I leaned down and kissed her forehead.