Page 122 of Painted Scars
“You had enough on your plate.” His voice heats with years of contempt. “The department closed your case before the ink was dry.”
Yeah, they did, citing not enough evidence for a conviction. Yet the DNA evidence Officer Kelly obtained matched Blackthorn.
August’s hands fist. “Formally, I let it go. Informally, I quietly gathered evidence. That bastard hurt one too many women. And when I started poking behind doors, the wrong people noticed.”
His jaw grinds, and he scrubs a hand over his mouth, weighing what he gives me and what he buries.
He braces his forearms on his knees and leans forward. “The Romans were coming for us both. They didn’t cut me from the force, they collared me. Tracked who I met, where I went, logged my patrol car, phone, computer. Kept me visible to map my network. If they saw me with you, they’d burn you even more than they did, and I refused to give them any ammo. When they came for my family, I made the shittiest decision of my life and went dark, quit the force, and wallowed in self-pity and whisky.”
His confession lands like a mace to the lungs, heavy, brutal, and bloody. Rational me rages with fury. Book Girlie me is relieved that he never stopped protecting me, and the tramp wants to crawl into his lap and hold him.
“I get it,” I croak, my throat dry and sore. “Better the devil you know, right? They used your badge as a way to leash you.”
“Something like that,” he mutters.
I meet his eyes. “You didn’t just cut me out to spare me from the Romans, August. That’s not love or “protection.” That’s locking me up in a cell and holding the keys under the guise of love.”
Muscles in his throat flex like he swallows something sharp.
I keep going, because if I stop, I’ll fold. “I have a right to know who I give my body to. Agency, trust, and choice are paramount to me.”
His throat works. “I had no fucking right to withdraw from you without consulting you. That’s on me. I wear that scar. Now I’m giving you the choice, if you want it. Can you forgive me and let me make this right?”
His jaw tightens. Mine does too.
What a pair we make. I flinch from love like it’s a blade. He runs from the damage he believes he’ll cause.
My chest pulls so tight, it hurts to breathe. “You want me to forgive you? Rewrite my future? For me to even consider it,you’re going to have to grovel and make a grand gesture worthy of a dark romance.”
His mouth twitches. “How many more severed fingers do you want?”
I get serious with him. “I don’t need fingers, August. I need proof that you won’t disappear again.”
“Glitter Bomb, I’m not going anywhere without you.”
My pulse riots in my throat as I search his face, weighing whether I believe him or if I’m such a romance sucker that I want to. “If I let you back in for a season two love interest, it’s not a free pass. There are rules.”
His brow arches. “Rules?”
“Non-negotiable rules.” I use the term he throws at me a lot. “No more masks between us. No more ‘for your own good.’ You don’t get to be my shadow and jailer.”
His mouth curves into a semi-smirk. “No more stalker and masks mean you’re cutting the best tropes out of my repertoire.”
“You’ve still got morally orange grumpy.”
Before I can come up with more banter, his phone buzzes, and he stuffs his hand in his pocket to retrieve it. The curve of his mouth flattens with whatever he reads.
My stomach knots, because I just know it’s more bad news.
“What is it?” I scoot to the edge of the bed.
August twists his phone screen to me. I read the headlines.Brutal Attack on Upstanding Citizen. Fire sweeps over me. The synopsis is even worse.Shadow Lake Police Force seeks a woman and male for questioning in an aggravated assault case on an esteemed newspaper editor.
“Esteemed, my ass,” I mutter, wanting to throw his phone at the wall.
The grainy image is unmistakable. It’s us, leaving out the front door.
“Of all the things to immortalize,” I groan. “Not my hair. Not my legs, which look ah-mazing in that skirt. No. They print me and the finger! I look like I’m auditioning forSerial Killer Weekly.”
