It ripped and tore at my insides.
Loss.
A grief unlike anything I’d ever felt.
Hope scattering like the leaves.
“How can you do this?” I forced myself to look at his beautiful face.
Too beautiful. Too mesmerizing. Too dangerous.
“How can you, when you know what is at stake? When you know how badly I need you? I trusted you.” The last raked from my throat that was raw and aching.
As raw and aching as my heart.
My eyes squeezed closed when he reached out and brushed his fingertips down the side of my face.
Tenderly.
A stark contrast to the wickedness that blazed from his soul.
Then his voice twisted with that dark, bitter hatred—hatred I was sure was completely directed at himself.
“You shouldn’t have.”
Thirty-Eight
Ian
“What the fuck are you going to do?” Jace demanded below his breath.
Ripping at my hair, I paced the parlor at Jace’s place. A goddamned panther who was going to claw his way out and take everyone down with me when I did it.
Mack was sitting at the bar, grim expression on his face.
My attention darted their way. “Whatever the fuck I have to do.”
Mack shook his head. “This is messy, brother.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I spat.
It was a motherfucking mess.
A disaster.
That meteor I’d felt coming had finally broken through the atmosphere, nothing but a ball of obliteration that had made landfall.
An implosion no one had seen coming.
But I should have.
I fucking should have.
Fury boiled my blood, the hatred so intense the only thing I saw was red.
Worst part was Grace’s face when I’d walked away.
When I’d left her standing there like the asshole I’d warned her I was.
Her giving heart bleeding all over the ground after I’d trampled it.
But I had to.
I had to so there would be no mistake.
She was better off without me.
What could one dance hurt?
Everything.
Everything.
Ruin it all. And I was the bastard who’d gone after it when she’d warned me she couldn’t get involved. When she’d told me there was more going on than I could see. Then like some kind of arrogant fucker, I’d thought I’d be the one who’d right her world.
Steady it on its spinning axis.
And I would. If it was the last fucking thing I did, I would. Didn’t have anything left to lose, anyway.
Mack sighed and ran his palm over the scruff on his face. “They are painting you as the bad guy here, Ian. Reed has garnered the sympathy of every damned voter in the county. They think the poor guy almost lost his kids over the election.”
I paced some more. Rage blistering out with every violent step. “It’s right there, man. It’s right there. I just don’t know how to put my finger on it. Everything I need to put that fucker away is right there.”
Mack studied me while Jace nervously ran his hand over his head. He’d been in the middle of his own bullshit not long ago. The last thing he needed was a repeat.
“So, what . . . she has some photos that could be construed as incriminating?” Mack hedged, the insinuation that her evidence didn’t prove anything hanging in the dense air. I had little to nothing to go on.
Especially when a man like Reed made things that didn’t look so pretty go away.
Disappear.
My head shook as I tried to calculate. “But it’s more than that. Thomas . . . her oldest. He overheard someone in Reed’s office who was threatening Grace.”
“Who?” Mack’s entire demeanor went rigid. The guardian coming out to defend.
Frustration pursed my lips. “He didn’t get a look at him.”
His eyes moved over my face. “Not a whole lot to go on there, either, man. We have to have something solid to get a warrant.”
I whirled around, chest nothing but a jackhammer that’d sped out of control. “Night before last . . . I went by Reed’s place in the middle of the night. Lawrence Bennet was there . . . outside his house . . . having a little powwow with our friend Reed.” It was a scrape of icy sarcasm.
In shock, Mack reared back. “Fuck. Are you sure?”
I gave him a tight nod.
Awareness spun. Like the guy was adding it up. Solving a riddle he’d been trying to piece for years. “Goddamn it, Ian. I told you to get away from that piece of shit. He’s dirty as fuck.”
No shit.
Same as me.
“You think he’s involved with Reed in some way?” he pressed.
My voice was tight. “I don’t know. The only thing I know is none of this sits well. Lawrence has been pushing me harder, and I’ve been pushing back. Then he showed up at Reed’s place the night after I kicked Reed’s ass? Gut tells me something is going down.”
A heavy sound pulled from Jace’s chest. “Reed knows the whole town. It wouldn’t be that odd for a man who owns as much property as Lawrence does to be an associate.”