“I what?” I asked in shock.
“Katy. She’s also known as Katy Roberts. Luke Roberts’, the chief of police, daughter,” Castiel said it slower as if I was too stupid to get his drift.
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
And fuck again because I’d been having goddamn sexually explicit dreams about my boss’s daughter. Fuck me in the ass with a hot fire poker.
Didn’t that just figure? The first woman to draw me in since Tasia’s betrayal, and she was the one woman I couldn’t have.
Wasn’t that just how the cookie crumbled?
“I’ll take care of it,” I sighed. “She didn’t say anything.”
Zee snorted. “Did you honestly expect her to? I mean she’s a cop’s daughter. She knows what to do and not to do.”
That was true. Normally families of cops—at least immediate family members—tried their utmost best to be respectful to other cops because they respected the job.
“You’re going to wish that you didn’t do that.” Zee laughed. “Luke’s protective of her after her ordeal.”
“Her ordeal?” I feigned ignorance.
Though I had a gut feeling I knew what ordeal he was talking about.
“Girl moved in with her boyfriend. Boyfriend set Luke’s radar off and he forbid her from seeing him. Shit went down, and all of a sudden Katy’s back goes up and she chooses the boyfriend over her dad. He didn’t see her for six months. And in those six months, Katy got her ass beat on a daily basis,” Zee explained. “How have you not heard about this?”
I had no idea what to say.
I tried to stay out of everyone else’s business like I’d like them to stay out of mine.
I tried not to get into office politics, and I damn sure stayed my ass away from the rumor mills.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “But I have a feeling that I might be spared.”
“Why?” Castiel wondered.
“Because yesterday I was leaving work for lunch when I saw Katy collapse on the steps. Apparently, Katy’s ex is about to be set free on parole,” I explained. “She told me so herself.”
“Shit,” Castiel said. “We’re going to have to beef up security.”
Honestly, knowing that she worked here where there were safeguards in place made my heart feel at ease.
I couldn’t say I knew Zee and Castiel well, but I could say that I knew they’d do what they had to do to protect Katy.
The other question was, why was it suddenly my top most priority?
And why did I feel like confessing all of my sins to her father before he found out everything on his own?
***
That was how I found myself in Luke Roberts’ office an hour later.
I should’ve been at home already, changing out of my godawful uncomfortable uniform, getting ready for my run, and getting Sister some exercise since she’d been cooped up for hours.
Yet, I was here. At the police station. Waiting for Luke Roberts to permit me to come in.
To say that Luke Roberts was a friend of mine would be a lie.
He didn’t like me.
I was the cause of quite a few headaches for him, and when he saw me, he saw a fuck-up.
I wasn’t a fuck-up.
I was a grown ass man always finding myself in situations that I couldn’t control even if I’d wanted to.
I mean, how the hell was I supposed to know that the fish I set free was a lake record? How the hell was I supposed to know that the men were two of the most prominent business moguls in the area?
And the very next day, when I’d found myself involved in the shooting of a teenage girl? Well, that’d been the last straw for Luke Roberts.
I hadn’t been the one doing the shooting.
Honestly, I’d just been one of the ones that had arrived on scene at the end of the whole shit storm.
But having my name in the papers, again, had been enough for Luke to send me to the dead zone.
The dead zone being the city’s other office. The one that was so far away from everything that it might as well be out of town.
“Officer Gibbs?”
Startled out of the contemplation of my life, I stood up and smiled at Luke’s secretary.
Also, one of my greatest regrets.
I’m sure that it didn’t help that I’d ended it when things began to get serious—well, kind of.
She’d wanted it to be serious, and all I’d wanted was to have a consistent bedroom partner that didn’t want any commitments.
Honestly, that’d been what we’d agreed on. So how was I supposed to know that she wanted more than that? If I had known, I wouldn’t have been with her at all.
But, at my age, it was easier to be upfront with a woman than to risk them thinking that it was anything more than it wasn’t. Apparently, I hadn’t been honest enough, because Donna had taken that proverbial next step in her mind already.