Page 12 of Wicked Love
“The only things I kept from you didn’t have anything to do with you or your family anyway,” he said. “They aren’t the kind of things I’d tellanyone, because of the trouble it could make for us. I do work for a business that’s been in my family for generations. We do deal in real estate among various other things. But not all of those business dealings are strictly legal… Actually, quite a few of them aren’t.”
My chest tightened at that admission. I felt the need to say the words out loud, to put a clear label on what he’d just confessed to. “So, you’re a criminal, then?”
Beckett gave me a small, crooked smile. “That’s one way of putting it.”
He hadn’t even tried to deny it. I swallowed thickly. “And I’m supposed to believe that even though you’re involved in all this illegal stuff, you had nothing to do with the crimes the other guys and I have been investigating?”
“Just because I’m a criminal, that doesn’t mean I’m out to attack you—or that I go around hurting innocent people in general. I’ve always tried to limit the collateral damage from our activities as much as possible and to focus on victimless crimes.”
My eyebrows shot up. An edge crept into my voice as I spoke. “And are you sure there really are crimes with no victims at all?”
Beckett inclined his head. “Okay, so possibly someone is always taking a minor hit. But there are plenty of victims from all sorts of technically legal business practices too, a lot of them way worse off and less deserving of their trouble than anyone affected by my actions.”
“And I’m just supposed to take your word for it?”
He gazed back at me with the unflappable composure I’d always admired in him. “You know who I am, Maddie. I didn’t tell you the details, but I didn’t pretend to be someone I’m not either. Everything you already believed about the kind of man you knew is still true. Maybe you don’t like the new details you’ve learned, but consider that my work also puts me in a position to do plenty of good for the people around me too. Like setting up that pro bono medical clinic, which is still in the works. I wasn’t lying about that either.”
My stomach knotted. He sounded so sincere—but how could I trust a guy who’d just admitted that most of his dealings were illegal?
“I’ll understand if you can’t accept this side of my life,” Beckett went on. “I knew it was going to come out eventually, so maybe it was wrong of me to put off the confession. You don’t have to decide whether we could continue our relationship right now, as much as I’d like to. But no matter how you feel about the kind of work I do, the more important subject right now is your father’s murder. And I promise you—I swear on the entire family business and my life—no one connected with me had anything to do with that.”
My mouth pulled into a grimace. “That’s easy to say but not so easy to prove.”
“It’s always difficult, if not impossible, to prove a negative. I’m sure you know that from your studies.” A fond note warmed his voice just for a second and sent a tingle over my skin that I didn’t know what to do with. “Like I told you, I had no idea he even was murdered until yesterday. I’ve spent the past day verifying that my family wasn’t involved. The ‘proof’ the other guys offered revealed my ties to some of the businesses you didn’t know about, but none of those businesses actually factored into your dad’s death, did they?”
They didn’t. We hadn’t been able to find any connection between Beckett and the places we actually knew Dad had been mixed up with. I sucked my lip under my teeth to worry at it.
“You did see me at the club before we met,” I pushed, watching his reaction.
Beckett sighed, and for the first time a twinge of regret passed through his expression. “The first time I saw you, you were at the club with the other guys. I’d been keeping an eye onthemfor a few months because they’d been sticking their noses into the underworld of this city, and I didn’t know what their end goal was. I wanted to make sure they didn’t know anything about my operations that could harm my family.”
A prickle ran down my back. “So you set yourself up to bump into me—so that you could find out more about them?”
“At first,” Beckett said quietly. “But it became clear very quickly that if they were wrapped up in anything on my level, you didn’t know about it… and also that you were more than worth pursuing simply for whoyouare. I didn’t reallyneedto talk to you again after that first conversation. I simply wanted to. I wanted to get to know you, and then I wanted to keep seeing you, only because of how much you brighten my life. You’re something special, Maddie. And if someone’s been threatening you, then I’ll do everything in my power to stop them. I’m sure I can do a hell of a lot more than that trio of college boys.”
He'd continued speaking softly the whole way through, but a thread of menace wound through his tone with the last couple of sentences. His back drew a little straighter, his expression hardening.
I was dealing with not just a criminal but a leader among criminals, and he was willing to put all his influence and power into defending me. It should have scared me, and it did a little, but at the same time I couldn’t deny the thrill that shot through me at his intensity.
It took me a moment to find my tongue. I wasn’t going to let him win me over that easily. “I still don’t know that it isn’t someone underyourorders who was making those threats. It isn’t just the club and the trucking company. The guys have direct reason to believe you’re involved.” I wasn’t going to betray them by giving away what they’d heard and from who, not until we were sure it was safe to tell Beckett.
Beckett frowned. “Then they must have been misinformed by someone with a separate agenda—most likely, to cover their own tracks. I have to assume that whoever was responsible for your father’s murder, it was another criminal who’s aware of my family’s dealings and saw us as an easy target to frame so they could divert your investigation.” His eyes flashed. “Unfortunately for them, with my underworld connections, I can help you track them down. And see justice done however you’d like it served.”
The dark promise in his words provoked another tingle that raced straight to my core. I glanced away, grappling with my feelings.
Everything Beckett had said made sense. It was a much more reasonable story than anything the Vigil guys had been able to cobble together with the vague evidence and hearsay they’d had to rely on.
If Beckett was telling the truth, he could be the key to finding out what had really happened to Dad—and who had done it. How could I throw that chance away because of a sketchy stranger’s words?
I had no idea how to wrap my head around everything he’d told me about his life. I’d been falling for him, hard, but the idea of dating a guy who was a consummate career criminal… I winced inwardly at the thought.
But then, was that reaction really fair? Beckett did illegal things, but how many times had I watched the Vigil guys break into buildings they weren’t supposed to have access to and resort to violence to get their way?
They did it in the name of justice. Beckett’s family used crime to make money. So maybe the ends justified the means in the Vigil’s case. But I couldn’t even say that Beckett’s ends were all that bad if he used the profits from activities he claimed didn’t hurt anyone innocent to set up places like that pro bono clinic.
I rubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand. He’d said I didn’t need to decide how I felt about him personally or our relationship right away. That the most important thing was figuring out the crime that’d now affected all of our lives. And no matter how conflicted my emotions were about the things he’d admitted, I couldn’t say I thought he was lying.
Between his story and the way the evidence added up—or didn’t—I couldn’t see how he could be involved in Dad’s death or the cover-up. It was much easier to believe that the guy who’d pointed the finger at him had been purposefully misleading us for their own gain. The stranger had put on an act to convince the Vigil guys, and they’d fallen for it because they’d already been uneasy about Beckett’s presence in my life. He really had been a perfect target.
