By the time we pulled into the church parking lot, there were already more cars than I expected. Sam knew a lot of people, so I wasn’t surprised to see the crowd, but that didn’t make it any easier knowing every person walking through those doors was here because he was dead.
Mace parked near the side entrance, and neither one of us moved right away. He sat behind the wheel staring straight ahead while I looked toward the church.
“You good?” I asked.
His head turned in my direction. “Yeah...”
The answer came too fast, sounding like a lie, but I let it go. Mace had been off ever since Sam got shot, and although I knew losing him had hit everybody different, something about the way Mace was handling it kept catching my attention. He was usually the one person I could count on to keep his emotions out of whatever needed to be handled. Since Sam died, he’dbeen quieter than usual, barely sleeping and spending every free minute trying to figure out who killed him.
I understood that better than anybody, so I didn’t question it.
We got out and headed toward the church. A few people stopped me before I could make it through the door, offering condolences and asking if I needed anything. I thanked them and kept moving. Everybody meant well, but there wasn’t anything anybody could give me unless they knew who killed my cousin.
The second I steppedinside,my eyes found my aunt.
She was sitting near the front of the church surrounded by family, dressed in black with a tissue balled up in one hand. I’d seen her cry plenty of times over the years, but I’d never seen her look the way she did the day he died… or right now.
Losing a child did something different to a person.
I stood here for a second before making my way toward her. She didn’t notice me until I was almost in front of her, but the second she looked up and saw me, whatever little strength she’d been holding onto disappeared.
“Kaiden…”
Nobody called me that anymore… Well, nobody but her.
I bent down just as she reached for me, and the second her arms went around my neck, she broke down.
“My baby gone.”
I closed my eyes and held her tighter.
“I know.”
“Somebody killed my baby.”
Her whole body shook against mine, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could say to make it better. This was the woman who had stepped in when my own mother couldn’t take care of me. She’d fed me, clothed me, made sure I went to school and gave me a home when I didn’t have one. As far as I was concerned, she’d raised two sons.
Now one of us was dead.
“I need you to find out who did this,” she cried against my shoulder.
My jaw tightened as I looked over her head toward the casket sitting at the front of the church.
“I will.”
She pulled back enough to look at me, tears running down her face. “Promise me.”
I didn’t hesitate.
“I promise.”
I stayed with her until she finally loosened her arms from around me. One of my older cousins moved closer to help her back into her seat, but she kept one hand wrapped around mine like she wasn’t ready to let me go.
“You sitting with me?” she asked.
“Where else I’ma sit?”
She nodded, wiping at her face with the tissue in her hand. “You always got something smart to say.”