That I couldn’t compromise the investigation by running off to fight a battle I wasn’t qualified to fight.
But that’s what I wanted to do.
I wanted to fight.
I wanted to crush and destroy and eradicate.
Which was why I’d forced myself out back. Trying to breathe in the cool while a fire torched my nerves.
Mack had stationed a cruiser out front, which was about the only solace I found in all of this.
I looked up at Faith who was just standing there.
She was in the shadows of the night, the moon a sliver that shed the barest light on the yard, Faith protected by the walls of the old house.
Still, I swore they howled and yelped. Cries of the ghosts that were held within.
That chocolate hair was a river around her shoulders, a white V-neck tee and fitted, holey jeans hugging her body in all the right ways and making my heart do crazy things.
Thumping and thudding and thrashing.
Fuck.
I was going to lose it.
Wanting to protect her.
Wanting to wipe that expression from her face.
Wanting to love her.
That was the crux of it all.
I wanted to keep her.
Which was so goddamned stupid. But loving her had always made me do stupid things.
She clutched that same monitor in her hands and edged farther onto the porch.
Coming my way.
Every step torture.
Lighting on my flesh.
Teasing my restraints.
She eased down beside me, tucking her legs up to her chest. She set her cheek on her knees and looked over at me.
“I don’t understand what’s happening, Jace. What someone wants from me when I don’t have the first clue what they want or what they’re looking for.”
A stake of guilt cut right through the center of my chest. Did she really not know about the shit Joseph was into?
“What Joseph was into.” Her words were soggy, coming from her like she’d tapped right into my thoughts. “He . . . he was working so hard, saying he was doing everything he could to get the money together to fix up the house.”
Anger surged.
Joseph had always been a liar. Saving face. Manipulating every situation to look like the good guy when he was setting things up to land in his favor.
“He didn’t say anything to you? In the days or months before he died, that seemed out of place?”
Faith blinked. From the corner of her eye, a tear streaked free.
And there I was, wanting to reach out, gather it up, kiss it away.
“He . . . he never said a whole lot about work. He just said it was busy.” She blinked again. “Honestly, the last couple of years, he hadn’t been around all that much. Working long hours. Traveling.”
She shook her head, her face pinching like she’d just caught on to something. I waited, watching her profile as her mind worked.
“God, I was a fool, wasn’t I? Blind?” she said in that sweet, sad way. “I mean, there were these times when I got this feelin’ . . .”
She touched her chest right over her heart. “This intuition that something wasn’t right. I ignored it, Jace. I ignored it because I didn’t want to believe my husband could be involved in anything illegal.”
She will hate me.
She will hate me.
When she found out, she was going to hate me. I deserved it, and at the same damned time, I wanted to reject it.
Lay every ounce of blame on Joseph, the piece of shit.
But even if it was his fault, it didn’t mean I wasn’t responsible.
She blinked into the distance. “And now . . . someone somehow thinks that I was involved?”
Her face pinched in rejection of the idea. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? They think I have knowledge of something? Possession of something that Joseph never should have had? Tell me he wasn’t corrupt, Jace. Tell me I’m being crazy.”
She looked at me with that pleading expression.
A million lies danced on the tip of my tongue, desperate to do anything to take the blame away from her.
“The shipping yards . . .” I hedged, shifting to lean my forearms on the top of my thighs, my feet slowly rocking us where they were planted on the porch.
I glanced over at her. “They invite trouble. There is so much crime down there, shit being moved around that shouldn’t be.”
I tried to deliver it gently. As soft as the girl. Didn’t want to taint her with any of the nastiness that thrived and lived in that area. The guns and the drugs and all the shit that came through. All masked by what looked like legitimate businesses.
Laundered and shaken and put right back onto the streets.
Guessed I should have thought of that before I got everyone mixed up in that world in the first place.
Even with those words, she squeezed her eyes shut. “Joseph wouldn’t . . .” she started to say before she trailed off, gasping over a cry in her throat.