Page 2 of Chasing Forever

Ihadloved him. Madly. For a time. And I thought he loved me the same way. In the beginning, the good times outweighed the bad. He couldn’t seem to keep his hands off me. If we were in the same room, it never failed that I could feel his gaze tracking me the whole time. The passion between us was combustible, making it so easy to believe him when he promised he would never hurt me again. He had to mean it, right? Because he loved me so damn much.

But I learned a long time ago that obsession was different than love. It was like poison, slowly eating away at everything it touched. It ate away at my friends until there were none left, at my hobbies, at anything that took time away fromhim. It ate away at my relationship with the only family I had left until I was completely and utterly alone.

“Merritt?”

His head came up, his dark eyes meeting mine in the mirror above the sink. How was it possible for a monster to be as handsome as he was? As horrible as it made me sound, his looks had been the first thing I noticed about him, what drew me in. They were the reason I said yes when he approached me at that bar all those years ago and asked if he could buy me a drink. They were why I’d given him my number without hesitation and agreed to a first date.

Those looks had only gotten better with each passing year, but I couldn’t see them anymore. All I saw was a monster.

At my silence, the contrite mask he came into the bathroom wearing slowly fell away. There was that telltale tick in his jaw. The tightening around his eyes and lips. “Merritt.” My name came out a little rougher as his arms grew tighter, squeezing at my injured ribs and causing me to suck in a pained gasp. But despite seeing that he was hurting me, he didn’t loosen his hold. “Say it.”

“I—” I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. Something inside of me had broken. Maybe Warren himself had caused it, but whatever it was, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I loved him. Even knowing what would happen if I denied what he wanted.

Warren stepped back, grabbing me by my arm and using his grip to whip me around so fast my neck snapped painfully. “Fuckingsay it.”

The mask had fallen, revealing the monster lurking beneath. TherealWarren.

My whole body began to tremble as I tugged at my arm, trying to get free. Fear and adrenaline had dumped into my bloodstream. “Warren, let me go.”

“Why do you always have to be so fucking difficult, huh? Why do you have to make such a big deal out of every little thing? I already apologized, what more do you want?” he shouted. “You push and push until I have no choice.”

It was as if a switch inside me flipped with those last words. My lips parted and the words came out before I had a chance to stop them.

“I don’t love you.”

What came next was worse than anything before. Because for the first time since I met him, no matter how violent he was, no matter how cruel or terrifying, I still didn’t give him the words he wanted. After he finished, I lay on the bathroom floor, tears spilling down my face as every inch of me throbbed with each agonizing breath I took.

A part of me feared that I would never get out. That this was all that was left of my life.

But what I didn’t know, what I’d lost all faith in, was that angels really did exist. I found that out the next day when Blythe Fanning followed me into a bathroom and saved my life.

Chapter Two

Tristan

Now

My eyes scannedthe file I’d put together for what felt like the millionth time. It wasn’t an official file, given there wasn’t an official case, but I hadn’t been able to get the situation out of my head. Merritt Bell had been swirling around my mind for the past two months, and I couldn’t seem to dig the dark haired, green-eyed beauty out of my head.

What happened the first time I set my eyes on her in the middle of Alpha Omega’s offices was something I’d never experienced in my entire life. I wasn’t even sure how to describe it. It was like being struck by lightning, leaving behind a static charge that made my skin prickle and my blood hum.

Everything surrounding that first encounter had been pure havoc. From my sister being abducted to Merritt’s admission that her husband had been hurting her, there was so much I struggled to wrap my head around in those short, chaotic moments. It was a blessing that we got my sister back safe and sound, and by the time I was able to turn my mind back to the other woman who needed help, the crew from Alpha Omega was already on it.

As much as I wanted to help, I was pushed out every time I tried. As it turned out, according to my sister’s boyfriend and the co-owner of Alpha Omega, Rhodes Bradbury, Merritt wasn’t comfortable dealing with police. It wasn’t rational how bothered I was by that. I didn’t know her and she didn’t know me, so I had no right to be upset. I didn’t blame her for not automatically assuming my badge made me the good guy, not with how scary things were in the world lately. But this need to prove I could be trusted was something that I just couldn’t wrap my head around.

It was what drove to me looking into things, even after Rhodes and the guys he worked with had found her someplace safe to get away from the piece of shit she was married to. It was why I’d started digging into the man to the point some might consider a bit obsessive. But the more I found, the bigger the knot that had formed in my stomach when she said her husband’s abuse had grown. On paper, the man looked like a modern-day saint. Charming and charismatic. He was a philanthropist who donated hefty amounts of his paychecks to charities for the police, fire department, and the county women’s shelter. He volunteered at places like Hope House, the local children’s home that had been started by my buddy Zach’s parents years ago. He was pictured reading to elementary-aged kids, serving meals at a local soup kitchen, and helping to rebuild the Hennessey family’s barn when a fire had left the original structure a pile of ashes.

There wasn’t a single blemish on the guy’s record anywhere, not even so much as a speeding ticket. From the outside, he looked like a standup guy who would do anything for his community.

That was the problem. Call me jaded, but no one wasthisgood. I would have been skeptical of the man’s saint-like status even if I didn’t know he liked to take his hands to his wife behind closed doors.

It didn’t take long for me to realize why Merritt had been so against law enforcement intervening. Back when I was a kid, Hope Valley PD had struggled with corrupt cops within their ranks, but that poison had been plucked out at the root a long time ago, and our captain, Hayes Walker, my father’s best friend and former partner, ran a clean ship.

It wasn’t cops themselves that Warren Bell aligned himself with. He’d taken it a step farther. He was golf buddies with more than a few judges and had grown up running in the same circle with our town’s current mayor and other officials who held no small amount of power. He was insulated in a way that a small-town detective such as myself couldn’t touch him. Which left a foul taste in my mouth.

Rhodes had given me what little he had to help me form a clearer picture—including the photographs his team had taken of Merritt’s injuries—all of which I’d placed in the file I was slowly building.

Every time I looked at those pictures, I bounced between two feelings—red-tinged anger and gut-wrenching nausea. Knowing what that piece of human garbage had done to her made me feel downright violent at times.

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