All of Me: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel

by Jackson, A. L.

  “That should be everything you need.” I handed the stack to Mack.

  He stuffed his gun into the back of his pants, almost grinning when I handed him the evidence that would put Lawrence and Reed away forever.

  But he wasn’t smiling so big when he realized every single one of those documents also implicated me.

  I was just as guilty.

  My signature was on a ton of forged documents, my hands soiled, the proof clear in all the evidence I’d handed him.

  “Shit, Ian,” he wheezed. “Fuck, what is this?”

  I could see the outright war play out on his face, his mind scrambling to come up with a different solution when there was none to be found.

  I lifted my chin before he could do something stupid like put himself on the line.

  “They’re worth it,” I said.

  There wasn’t even a tremor to my voice.

  No wavering.

  No question.

  They were worth it.

  “Are you sure?” Grief came out with his words.

  I nodded tight. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”

  Mack gulped hard when he moved to where I was standing by the desk, and I turned around and put my arms behind my back.

  His voice was choked, barely heard. “You have the right to remain silent . . . “

  He continued through the words as he wrapped the steel around my wrists.

  Cinched them tight.

  Tugged me upright.

  From behind, his voice was at my ear, “I’m so fucking sorry, man, I’m so fucking sorry.”

  “They’re worth it,” I whispered again.

  My mother’s face flashed through my mind.

  She was worth it.

  In all these years, I’d never known it, Jace had never known. Maybe she’d been fighting for us all along.

  Mack squeezed my shoulder. “I’m so damned proud of you.”

  But I had none.

  No pride.

  Every goal, every aspiration had been wiped out.

  Obliterated.

  Loving Grace Dearborne had cost me everything.

  And losing my freedom for hers was a small, small price to pay.

  Forty-Four

  Grace

  Emotion ripped through the cold air.

  Wild and frenzied and free.

  I ran.

  Straight out ran.

  I didn’t slow until I dropped to my knees. I didn’t even care that they had to be bloodied from hitting the sidewalk.

  Because Mallory was throwing herself in my arms. “Mommy.”

  Her little arms wrapped tightly around my neck.

  Sobs wracked from my soul.

  Flooding.

  Pouring out.

  This uncontainable love.

  I pressed my face into her hair.

  Warmth and light.

  Awe and joy.

  So much joy.

  I was weeping with it, unable to see when I stood, taking Mallory with me, clutching her while I ducked down to get Sophie out of her seat.

  Movements frantic as I undid the straps of the car seat, hands shaking and shaking.

  She was chanting, “Mommy home, Mommy home!” Clapping like it was just another day.

  Little did she know this was the first day of the beginning of our new lives.

  I couldn’t stop the tears as I gathered her close, my face in her hair, breathing her in, too.

  My little handful that I wanted to forever have in the palms of my hands.

  “It’s okay, Mommy. You don’t need to cry. Everything is okay. We’re home, and we get to stay forever and forever,” Mallory whispered, her voice hitching with her excitement, holding herself up high while I pulled Sophie out of the backseat of Mack’s car.

  “Mal Pal.” It was the only thing I could get out around the clot of emotion locking up my throat.

  Only thing I could get out around the outpouring of love.

  The river of hope.

  Everything. Everything.

  A torrent of tears clouded my vision, but I was still moving, trying to get around the other side of the car.

  Mack was already there, ushering Thomas in my direction.

  I just stood there for a beat, watching my brave little man, his eyes a little haunted but brimming with his own hope.

  For a few seconds, he just stood there, before he ran for me and threw his arms around my middle, burying his face in my stomach as he began to weep. “Mom. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I settled the girls onto the ground beside me so I could get back on my knees in front of my son. I took him by the outside of both of his arms, forcing him to look at me.

  To see me.

  To understand.

  “None of this was your fault, Thomas. None of it. Not for a second. You are so brave. So very brave, and I couldn’t be more proud of you. Do you understand?”

  Through his tears, he nodded, and I gathered him back up again, squeezing him so tightly, my chest so full.

  I fumbled to reach for the girls, pulling them into the same embrace.

  Holding my babies close to me.

  To the pound of my heart and the well of my devotion.

  My voice was a haggard promise. “Mommy is the one who is sorry you all had to go through this. But I promise you, you’re safe now. You don’t have to worry about anything. Not anymore.”

  “That’s because Ian-Zian the Great is our hero!” Mallory shouted, giggling, having no idea she was driving a knife into that wound that I wasn’t sure would ever heal.

  Right into that place Ian had taken. Carved out for himself.

  I forced a smile, glancing up at Mack who anxiously waited at the back of his car.

  Giving us a moment.

  Easing back from my children, I touched their faces, just needing the connection, before I gathered myself and angled my head toward the house. “Why don’t you go inside and give Gramma big hugs. She’s been missing you like crazy. What do you want to bet she’s making a big ol’ feast for us to celebrate tonight?”

  “A million dollars!” Mallory agreed.

  Thomas scoffed. “You can’t bet a million dollars if you don’t have a million dollars to bet, Mal.”

  “You’re just a party pooper, Tom Tom.”

  There they were. My bickering kids who I adored.

  Somehow, I knew right then, that we were really going to be okay.

  Pushing to my feet, I watched them as they raced for the house, Thomas taking Sophie’s hand and making sure she got inside okay, Mallory singing and jumping and dancing the whole way.

  “Be careful, Mal, you’re going to bust your face on the porch if you don’t watch where you’re going,” Thomas warned.

  My little protector.

  “If you fall, you get right back up again,” Mallory just sang louder.

  A smile pulled across my face.

  Both brittle and beautiful.

  Because in the middle of the most intense happiness I’d ever felt, there was sorrow, too.

  I could feel it, so thick, as thick as the weight of Mack’s presence. The wary heaviness that he wore like a shroud.

  I finally forced myself to turn to look at him. He was the one who’d called to let me know he had the order to return my children to me.

  The one who’d dropped me to my knees, my heart bleeding with relief.

  But his voice had been grim when he’d told me that we needed to talk.

  So, there I stood.

  Waiting.

  Winter whipping through the trees and me hugging my arms across my chest as I looked at the big man waver, a sadness I couldn’t quite understand pouring from him in sheets.

  He lifted his hand to gesture toward the house. “The best part of my job is when I get to see things like that happen. When wrongs are righted, and everything turns out the way it’s supposed to be.”

  I could barely nod. “Thank you so much for bringing them back to me. They’re my worl
d.”

  “And that’s why they belong here.”

  I waited because I knew there was more. Something that was going to break me.

  A heavy sigh heaved his massive shoulders. “Reed Dearborne and Lawrence Bennet are both in custody. They’re charged with multiple counts of racketeering, prostitution, fraud, and smuggling.” He paused. “Also murder, Grace. Their crimes went deep and dark and farther than any of us really estimated, even though I’ve been on an undercover team investigating Lawrence Bennet for the last year. Don’t think either of them are going to see the outside of a cell for the rest of their lives.”

  A gasp choked out in the middle of the stark relief that pounded through my blood stream. A buoy to my heart.

  Revulsion at the depths of the wickedness. The realization that it had been much worse than I’d ever allowed myself to imagine.

  “And?” I begged, edging forward, praying for news that wouldn’t shatter me a little more.

  Unsure of Ian’s fate.

  What he’d sacrificed last night.

  The idea of him being hurt was more than I could comprehend. More than I could physically bear, my mind not allowing me to imagine an outcome so reprehensible.

  Mack flinched. “Grace . . .”

  I hugged myself tighter, and my mind spun. They got to him. Oh, God, no, they got to him. He was gone. He was gone. No. God, please, no.

  My entire body tensed as I prepared to receive the news.

  “Ian is also in custody.”

  “What?” The word rushed from me in a rasp of shock.

  “He’s charged with racketeering and money laundering.”

  “Oh. God.” It was a whimper. A cry. Disbelief.

  I clutched myself, trying to stand. Trying not to allow the man to knock me off my feet again.

  “He . . . he was involved? The whole time, he was involved with them?” It didn’t matter how I tried to hold myself steady.

  Everything swayed.

  My body and my heart and my mind.

  Sympathy passed through Mack’s expression. An age of it, as if he were dredging it up from the past. “Ian has had probably the hardest life of anyone I’ve known, Grace.”

  For a second, my eyes squeezed closed, riddled with the warnings Ian had given that I hadn’t heeded.

  I’m no good.

  I’m the devil.

  My mind hadn’t even traipsed into the territory of this being what he’d meant.

  “That’s no excuse,” I spat, trying to hold my anger back. To just put it all behind me since the only thing that mattered was my children were home.

  That they were safe.

  But I couldn’t make myself budge from that spot.

  Because my soul screamed with how much Ian had come to matter.

  “He got involved with Bennet around the time he found his mother dead of an overdose. He was seventeen. Alone. Bennet swooped in. Became a father figure. Ian was seeded in that world before he even knew what being in that world meant.”

  My head shook, wanting to refute it, stomach tumbling with rolls of nausea that I could barely keep down.

  Sorrow for Ian. Anger at Ian.

  He didn’t deserve my sympathy, did he? But I couldn’t stop the way my spirit trembled in pain for the man I didn’t think I’d ever stop loving.

  Not after everything we’d shared.

  In agitation, Mack speared his fingers through his hair. “Ian’s done some shady shit, Grace. No question. He knows it. He’s known it for a long time. I’ve been begging him to cut ties with Bennet, knowing things were gonna get messy and hoping he would get away before it was too late.”

  Mack paused before he rushed, “He turned over everything, Grace. All the proof we needed to put Reed and Lawrence away for a long, long time. He broke into Bennet’s office. Produced all the evidence he could find on the two of them. By doing it, he implicated himself.”

  “What?” This time the word left me as a pained breath.

  As it all started coming together.

  What Ian had done. The goodbye of his text.

  He’d given himself up.

  For us.

  He’d lost his career.

  His freedom.

  His life.

  “Standing here, I’m making no excuses for what he’s done,” Mack continued, helplessness as he tipped his hands up. “He’s done some bad shit. What I am telling you is it about killed me to have to put him in cuffs because at the core of him, he’s one of the best men I’ve ever met. He proved that to me all over again last night. He gave himself up for you. For your family.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?” A shiver shook my voice, horror and desperation and worry.

  “Don’t know, Grace. Only thing I know is that this is what he wanted. He’s ready to pay for his sins. Because of you. For you. Because you were the one who showed him that he does have good inside. That he has something better to offer this world than taking from it. And I can only thank you for that.”

  He left me standing there with my tattered heart fluttering in the wind.

  I knew all the scars that remained would be the one’s scarred by Ian Jacobs.

  And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

  * * *

  “Ian Jacobs, you are hereby sentenced to a term of one year. A minimum-security facility is recommended.”

  A gavel cracked against the wood.

  Faith whimpered at my side, and Jace’s eyes squeezed closed, as if he couldn’t look at his brother being sentenced for what he had done.

  Ian didn’t even flinch from where he was standing in front of the judge. No trial since he’d pled guilty.

  Who knew how many years had been shaved off his sentence for his testimony against Reed Dearborne and Lawrence Bennet.

  He just gave a short nod of acceptance and let the guard lead him away in cuffs with his head held high. Somehow both resolute and riddled with shame.

  Not once in the last weeks had he talked to me, every attempt I’d made shut down.

  You’re better without me.

  Go.

  Live your life.

  So, my breath hitched when he paused to look back at me.

  That energy lashed between us. The same as it’d always been.

  Alive.

  Fierce.

  Powerful.

  Though this time bogged by the most severe sort of sorrow.

  Cinnamon eyes flashed, and I swore I heard him utter the words all over again.

  Goodbye, Angel Girl.

  All I could silently whisper back was, Thank you.

  I had no idea where I would be without him.

  He’d taught us so many things. He’d shown my heart what it really meant to love a man.

  Wholly and fully.

  He’d shown us what true sacrifice meant.

  He’d lost everything, and in return, given us a second chance.

  Joy.

  Peace.

  Ian Jacobs.

  Our unexpected hero.

  Forty-Five

  Ian

  The gate buzzed, and I stepped out into the late afternoon air. The air was hot from the summer heat, and I swore I could reach out and run my fingers through the heatwaves that sagged from the brilliant sky.

  I blinked against it, the first time I’d seen outside a prison yard in six months.

  Two steps away, and somehow the air felt different.

  Half of my sentence had been shaved off for good behavior.

  It almost made me want to laugh considering I hadn’t played partner to a whole lot of good behavior in my life.

  But I was finished with that. After all the shit I’d gotten myself wrapped up in, there was no chance I’d go that route again.

  Wouldn’t cause my brother worry.

  Wouldn’t unwittingly cause people harm.

  Never again.

  I walked away from the penitentiary, wearing the clothes I’d worn on the day I’d been arrested.

  Jace and Faith
were standing at the side of their SUV, all kinds of anxious love and anticipation radiating from them.

  Couldn’t help the one-sided smile that ticked up at the corner of my mouth when I saw them.

  Jace stepped forward. What looked like amusement flitted across his face. “Well, well, well, if this isn’t bringing back some bad memories I’d rather forget.”

  But there was no disappointment in his tone as he referred to the day so long ago when I’d picked his ass up after he’d been released from prison.

  He’d gone for me.

  Taken the fall for me.

  All in his bid to protect me.

  Because he was as selfless as they came.

  We’d lost so much because of it. Because of our mother who’d made terrible choices. Had put us in unspeakable situations.

  Part of me would never forgive her for what she’d done, but the other part would never forget her soft touch or the promise of her words.

  Forever and ever.

  “Guess I just wanted to be like my big brother,” I tossed out.

  “You just wish you could be as cool as me,” he said, smirk riding onto his face.

  “No wishing about it, asshole.”

  I was grinning by the time I made it to him, and he pulled me into a tight hug. He clapped me hard on the back.

  All the amusement bled away. “I am so damned proud of what you did, Ian. I know it wasn’t easy. That you lost everything because of it,” his voice nothing but quiet encouragement.

  “I’d do it all over again. A hundred times,” I muttered back.

  He hugged me tighter, and I just . . . let him. Let myself feel because I’d been refusing to allow myself to do it for too long.

  Truth was, seemed the only thing I could do was feel anymore.

  Grace had ensured that. Changed every-fucking-thing. Didn’t regret it for a second. Not for a moment. The only thing I regretted was that I couldn’t be better. Regretted that I couldn’t be right for them.

  My name nothing but tarnish and blame.

  Grace had tried to make contact with me multiple times over the months. I’d refused each time, praying she’d move on. Live the kind of life that she deserved.

  But a letter had made it through. The one that felt like a million pounds where I had it shoved in the pocket of my pants. I itched, thinking about the words that had been scratched on the page, the letters crooked and messy and all in pink.