by Jami Alden
Megan, who was packing up the last of his stuff, rolled her eyes. “Let me help you.”
“I got it,” he snapped, wincing at the pain that stabbed through his head when he lifted the bag off the floor.
“Stop being an idiot,” Megan said under her breath and took the duffel from him.
Sean forced himself to stay still, clenching his teeth against the nausea as he waited for the worst of the pain to subside and bit back a complaint about having to ask his baby sister to carry his luggage for him.
“Could be worse,” Megan said as though she’d read his mind. “Another inch to the left, and you wouldn’t have enough brains left to get annoyed with me.”
“Believe me, I know how lucky I am,” Sean said, wincing at the bite he couldn’t quite keep out of his voice.
“I’m going to go get your prescriptions filled,” Megan said. “And then I’ll meet you back here?”
Sean nodded. “I need to go say good-bye.”
Megan paused, studying him. “You sure that’s all you want to say?”
Sean looked away from his sister’s too-probing gaze. As though she would be able to read all of his secrets with one look. He didn’t want Megan to see that his system was rocked by the sensation of having every emotion, every fear, every desire he’d been suppressing from the day he was locked up come roaring back to life in the space of three days.
Didn’t want to admit that Krista was the woman who had ripped off the cover and brought it all screaming back.
And he sure as hell didn’t want to admit that he thought he might be in love for the first time in his life with a woman who was his destruction and salvation all wrapped up in one classically beautiful package.
He was already pretty sure he was crazy, but admitting out loud that he was in love with Krista Slater would be the closer. “What else is there?” he said.
Megan muttered something under her breath and then walked over to him and leaned up to peck him on the cheek. “I’ll be back in a few.”
Sean listened to the door of his hospital room click shut behind her as he braced himself for what he needed to do. God, he wanted to be a coward and slink off without a word. But Krista deserved better than that.
She deserved better than him.
For two days he’d been haunted, day and night, by thoughts of Krista, beaten, scared, lips blue with cold. And it didn’t stop there. As if reality wasn’t sufficiently traumatizing, his brain was clever enough to come up with all kinds of scenarios of what might have happened to her had he not shown up in time.
Sean didn’t know the extent of Maxwell’s depravity, but his too-vivid imagination had gone to the outer limits.
For a moment there on the dock, holding her in his arms, he’d felt a peace like nothing he’d ever felt before. If only he could hold onto that feeling, he could get through anything. They could get through anything. But to Sean’s dismay, the moment they got to the hospital, the moment Krista was safe and their lives weren’t in danger, Sean came out of combat mode.
And in that instant, all of his old demons came out to play. Lights were too harsh; people were too loud; the softest touch made him want to jump out of his skin. It was like the first few days after he was released from prison, the full-on sensory overload, the whole world too big, too overwhelming to deal with. His fear of being trapped came back with a vengeance, to the point where he’d pissed off the hospital staff by moving his bed directly under his wide-open window.
Even then, on the few occasions when he’d slept, he’d woken up soaked in sweat, gasping for air, convinced he was back in his cell or inside the engine room of Maxwell’s boat.
Before Krista had come stomping back into his life, he’d found peace in numbness, where everything stayed muted, distant, as though he was three steps removed from everything happening around him.
Now he longed for that same numbness but was afraid he’d never find it again, not without some serious pharmaceutical aid.
So in the two days since he’d pulled Krista out of the ocean, he’d come to a realization.
He had to let her go.
But Jesus, the idea of saying good-bye for good, face to face, made him feel like he had an anvil on his chest.
He walked the short distance to her room, and when he raised his hand to knock, he realized his hand was shaking. Grimacing, he curled his fist tighter and gave the door a sharp rap.
“Come in,” she called, and just the sound of her voice was enough to make his nerve endings buzz.
He pushed the door open and found her sitting up in bed. Her dyed-dark hair stuck up a little in the back, and her skin was a shade too pale.
“Hey,” she said softly. The joy in her clear eyes and the smile that swallowed up the bottom half of her face when she saw him just about made his heart explode. “I was starting to wonder why you hadn’t come to see me.”
Oh, he’d seen her plenty of times. Krista just didn’t know it. Several times when the nightmares ripped him from sleep he’d slipped down the hallway to her room. He’d hovered outside her door, face pressed against the tiny window, and taken a small degree of comfort in the steady rise and fall of her chest.
She was alive. She was okay.
“I figured you needed your rest,” he said, barely able to form the words as it felt like his heart was about to bust out of his chest.
He stood frozen in the doorway. It was too much. It was all too much.
Her smile faltered. “Aren’t you going to come in?”
Torn between the desire to turn tail and run in the opposite direction and the equally strong urge to snatch her up in his arms and never let go, he forced himself to take a few steps closer.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Head still hurts. You?”
“You can pretty much see for yourself,” she said with a little upward twist of her mouth.
The bruises on her face and the angry red marks on her wrists made him want to kill Maxwell all over again. “They told me nothing’s broken, so that’s good.”
“I should be able to get out of here tomorrow.” She looked him up and down and seemed to just notice he was dressed with his coat on. “Are you going now?”
“Yeah, Megan’s waiting for me downstairs,” Sean replied. “I wanted to stop by and say good-bye first.”
Krista’s brow knotted in that confused, slightly pissy way he’d come to adore. “Just good-bye?”
“No, not just good-bye,” he said. But with everything swimming in his head, the lights too bright, the room too small, and God, the scent of her skin over the hospital antiseptic smell, he didn’t really know where to start. “Do you mind if I open your window?” he asked abruptly.
“Of course not.”
The fresh air cleared his head. Tell her the important stuff. Tell her that you’re sorry. He sank into the chair next to her bed. “I didn’t mean what I said, back at Ibarra’s place. About not caring about what happened to you, wishing you had left me alone. I needed to know the truth about what had happened. And it feels good, knowing that we saved those girls and everyone got what was coming to them.”
Her hand was lying on top of the covers, just a few inches away, and it seemed natural to take it in his. Warmth washed through him at the first touch of her skin, and with it came a sense of peace, quieting the demons that had been raging inside of him for the past two days.
His destruction.
His salvation.
And then it hit him. What if he just held on tight? If he kept her close, he would never lose this feeling he got when she touched him—that everything was all right, no matter what was going on around them.
No, he had to let her go, he was still too messed up, too close to the edge of crazy to be the kind of guy Krista needed. The kind of guy she deserved. The way he’d lashed out at her, tearing her to shreds before he even realized what he was saying was proof of that.
But he held on, stroking the back of her
hand with his thumb, savoring the feel of her for a few more minutes before he had to let her go. “And I never would have had that closure without you. You’re brave, smart, and beautiful on top of that. I know what I said was awful, but I want you to know I think you’re pretty incredible.”
A soft smile curved her lips and her fingers squeezed his hand. “I think you’re pretty incredible too. I just wish there had been a better way for you to come into my life.”
Sean gave a short smile. “Me too. I know this is going to sound crazy, as fucked up as everything was, but I’m glad I know you.”
There was a sheen in her eyes, along with an expectant, almost hopeful look. “I’m really glad I know you too, Sean.”
Sean swallowed hard, telling himself he needed to let her go now. That it was better this way, he told himself, not to let either of them get too caught up in what had happened in three short, adrenaline-soaked, emotionally heightened days.
He had no right to drag her down into his abyss of emotional turmoil. He could barely keep his head in check. He needed quiet. He needed alone. He needed to get away from her and back to the place where he didn’t feel anything anymore. He opened his mouth to tell her good-bye.
“I love you.”
Krista’s heart stopped in her chest as the words popped from Sean’s mouth without warning.
She shook her head, sure she must have hallucinated it. She’d been bracing herself to get her heart crushed. Despite every tender word, everything in Sean’s manner told her that’s where this was going.
Not…
“Excuse me?” she said.
To his credit Sean looked as shocked as she felt at what he’d blurted out. His eyes were wide, his mouth hung slightly open. “Oh, fuck, I didn’t mean to say that.”
He dropped her hand like it was burning him and brought his own to his head as though he was in pain.
Krista pushed herself up against the back of the hospital bed. “Do you mean it?” Her heart thundered in her ears as she waited for his answer. It was irrational, absolutely insane to even entertain the idea of trying to take what had happened to them in three crazy days and turn it into something more permanent.
She was not naïve. She was not a romantic. She knew that the chances of this going anywhere good were infinitesimal at best.
But right now, she felt like she was going to live or die based on his answer.
“I’m a fucking mess,” he said. “I lose my temper all the time. I’m still trying to figure out what normal life even feels like.” He paused and looked at her, and what she saw in his eyes would have sent her to her knees if she hadn’t already been in bed.
She reached out her hand to him. He came to her warily, like a wild animal sniffing her out to decide whether or not he’d be safe. He perched on the side of the bed and slid his big hand into hers. At the first touch, the tension leaked out of him and his fingers tightened around her so tightly it was almost painful.
“I don’t know how to handle this. I can barely deal with my shit myself, and I don’t want to hurt you too—”
Krista brought her hand to his cheek and looked him square in the eye. “Did you mean it?”
The answer was there in the glittering green of his eyes. But she still felt joy pulse through her, warm and fierce and staggering in its force as he whispered, “Yes. I meant it. I mean it. It’s probably another sign of just how batshit I am, but yeah, I love you, Krista.”
“I guess that makes me batshit too,” Krista said, not even realizing she was crying until a fat tear dropped onto their clenched hands. “Because I love you back.”
His mouth came over hers, soft, tender, and so sweet it brought the fresh burn of tears to her eyes. Her lips parted eagerly under his, and even the prickle of pain from her bruised lips couldn’t stop her from sucking his tongue into her mouth. He groaned against her lips, pressing her back against the pillow as he threaded his fingers through her hair. “You better mean it,” he murmured against her lips, “because I’m going to hold you to it, no matter how jacked up on pain medication you are right now.”
She grinned, the pain of her injuries disappearing at the warmth of his touch. “I haven’t had any for twelve hours. This is all on me.”
He kissed her nose, her cheek, her lips again before he pulled back, his expression serious. “I can’t promise I’ll be any good at this. I came in here today to tell you good-bye. It would be better for both of us if I could just leave you in peace.” As she opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand. “Everything’s crazy and is going to stay that way for a while. I don’t want to be the one who drags you down with me.”
His arms unconsciously tightened around her. “I thought if I left you I could go back to where I was before you showed up. Numb and not feeling much of anything. You yanked me out of that and it’s scary as hell to feel everything at once after not feeling anything for so long. But the idea of leaving you to go back to that…I’ve got a lot of shit to work through, stuff you shouldn’t have to deal with, but I can’t let you go.”
Krista felt an odd twisting in her chest, as though she had just stepped off the side of a cliff and into a free fall. But then she looked into Sean’s eyes, which mirrored all the fear and hope and love welling up inside her, and she knew that with him there to catch her, everything would be okay. She stroked her thumb along the whiskers of his goatee, loving the way he nuzzled into her hand like some big jungle cat craving a loving stroke. “I don’t know if you noticed, Sean, but I’m not exactly a shrinking violet.”
Sean chuckled. “You’re a certified badass,” he said, turning to press an affectionate kiss into her palm.
“So are you. And I think two people who are badass enough to take down the biggest criminal network this city has ever seen are strong enough to overcome anything, as long as we have each other.”
Three Days Later
“You sure you don’t want me to go in with you?” Sean asked. They stood outside an interrogation room in the Seattle Police Department, and even Sean’s strong, steady presence and his hand on the small of her back wasn’t enough to banish the sickness twisting her stomach into knots.
Krista shook her head. “I need to talk to him, one on one. I need to try to understand.” As though there were any acceptable explanation for why a man she had admired, trusted, and loved like a father would go along with a plan to have her killed.
She looked up at Cole, whose harsh features were nearly as grim as Sean’s, and nodded for him to open the door.
Mark Benson looked up at the sound of the door closing, the click of the latch echoing through the small space like a gunshot. He’d aged a decade since she’d seen him barely a week ago, his face drawn and haggard.
He paled when he saw her, guilt flashing across his face as he took in the bruises that still marred her face.
Any illusion Krista might have clung to that somehow Mark wasn’t really involved, that maybe the recording of him with the blonde was somehow doctored or manufactured had died the day before when Mark had been picked up at the airport with little more than his passport and a ticket to Jakarta in his possession.
Still, Krista felt like a huge fist was squeezing her heart at the thought of how Mark had thrown her to the wolves.
“Krista, you have to know I never meant for you to get hurt by any of this,” Mark said without preamble. He half rose from his chair, cuffed wrists raised in supplication.
“But you did tell him, didn’t you? You told Maxwell I was trying to find out more about Nate?” She knew, but she needed to hear it from his lips, once and for all.
Mark nodded, his gaze locked on the table as though he couldn’t bear to look at her.
“Did you know all along that Sean was innocent? Did you help Maxwell cover up for his nephew?” After Maxwell’s death, they’d made a startling discovery. David Maxwell wasn’t actually David Maxwell at all. He was born Mark David Allen. His sister was Elizabeth Allen Brewster, Nate’s mother.
&
nbsp; The information hadn’t been made public yet, and judging from Mark’s reaction he was just as startled as Krista had been at the news. “His nephew? Brewster was his nephew? No, I had no idea. I swear. All he said was he didn’t want anyone connecting him to Brewster—I assumed he meant they had business dealings together. I had no idea Brewster was his nephew, and I had no idea he was paying Brewster to kill anyone.”
“You knew he would try to kill me though, didn’t you?” Krista felt the sting of tears behind her eyes when Mark didn’t even try to deny it.
“He was going to ruin me,” Mark said, his voice sounding choked. “My career, my family.”
Krista let out a mirthless laugh. “I’d say you did that yourself when you couldn’t bother to keep your pants zipped.”
“I made a mistake,” Mark said grimly, “and I didn’t want Rae and the girls to pay for it.”
“Public humiliation wasn’t worth my life?”
“It wasn’t that simple,” Mark said tightly. “He didn’t just threaten me. He threatened them too.”
Krista sank down into the hard plastic chair opposite him. “You could have come to me. We would have figured something out.”
Mark shook his head. “I was in too deep, and he’d made himself untouchable. Karev too.”
“No one is untouchable,” Krista said. “You of all people taught me that.”
“And so what?” Mark said angrily. “You got Maxwell—good for you. But did you think for a second about everyone else who’s going to suffer? The whole system is going to collapse. Convictions will be overturned, cases will be thrown out, and we’ll be without leadership in nearly every public office. Krista, you’ve lived and breathed this job for nearly a decade. Because of what you’ve done, it’s all going to dissolve into anarchy.”
Disgust rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. What had happened to turn this man into the kind of amoral monster who could help send innocent people to prison and help a slime ball like Karev ooze back to the streets? The kind of man who could look the other way when Maxwell took out hits on Jimmy Caparulo and Stew Kowalski.