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Tho to take this hard You’re the oldest I’m sorry, and it’s not fair, but it’s up to you, Thoood brother’"
I restedthe various emotions scroll across his face I couldn’t relate, but I definitely eI said to my mother was that I’d try What I’, not one fucking bit"
"Really?" I asked, dubious "All the work you’ve done on this case? All the strings you had to pull to get Travis recruited instead of sent to prison?"
"My dad is a retired police detective Did you know that?" Thomas looked at me with his dark hazel eyes He was neck-deep in his past, fauilt, and disappointet Part ofabused
Hesitant, I shook ust "No No, nothing like that" His eyes lost focus "Dad checked out for a few years, but he’s a good man"
"What do you ht after she spoke toin the hallway, just outside the bedrooet it all out, so the boys wouldn’t see me I heard Mom ask Dad to quit his job at the station, and she made him promise that he’d never let us follow in his footsteps She had always been proud of him, of his job, but she knew her death would be hard on us, and she didn’t want Dad in a line of work that could make us orphans Dad loved the job, but he proht Our family couldn’t take another loss"
He rubbed his thumb on his lips "We ca with Abby, they almost died in that fire"
"Does your dad know?"
"No But if so had happened to them, he wouldn’t have survived it"
I touched his knee "You’re good at being a federal agent, Thohed "They won’t see it that way I spent the rest of rown-up I lost a lot of sleep trying to think of so else to be I couldn’t let my dad break his promise to her He loved her too much I couldn’t do that to him"
I reached for his hand and held it in ht I couldn’t iuilt he carried around with hi the job he wasn’t supposed to have
"When I decided to apply for the Bureau, it was the hardest,I’d ever done I’ve tried to tell them so many times, but I just can’t"
"You don’t have to tell him If you truly believe he won’t understand, then don’t It’s your secret to keep"
"Now, it’s going to be Travis’s secret to keep"