Hunted (Love like Yours Series Book 3)

by Nicole S. Goodin

  Walking away from this man was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do in my entire life. I’d walked away before, but this time was different. This time it was real.

  I turned the door handle.

  “Wait.”

  I hung my head and waited.

  “I’ll tell you.”

  My head flicked up and I froze. I stood still, debating with myself internally.

  “You’ll tell me everything?” I asked timidly.

  “Everything.” He confirmed. “I’ll tell you it all, and then you’ll leave me anyway.”

  I released the handle.

  “Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tip toe if you must, but take the step.”

  - Author unknown

  42. Harrison

  “You’ll wanna sit down for this.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me and I waited for the back chat. Quinn didn’t like to take instructions from anyone, the woman was infuriating. Surprisingly though, she kept her mouth shut, and sat her ass down.

  I picked the seat opposite her. I really would have preferred to slide in next to her and hold her while I smashed the last bit of trust she had in me, but Quinn had a wild streak, and I was worried for the safety of my balls.

  “Just tell me already.” She demanded with her arms crossed and a pissed off expression on her face.

  “What do you want to know?”

  She huffed out a breath. “Are you kidding me? What do I want to know? For fuck sakes Harrison… I want to know what happened to you back then; I want to know where you disappear to in the middle of the night, why you’re always sneaking around… I want to know why you’re always hurt. I just want no more lies.”

  Her breathing was ragged and her words came out in a rush. She was hurting – I was hurting her.

  “They’re all telling me it’s another woman. You know that right?” She added quietly.

  I ground my teeth together and felt my nostrils flare. “It’s not another woman Skippy. There’s not another woman in the fucking world.”

  She sighed. “I know that.”

  “You know?” I demanded.

  She nodded and met my gaze. “I can see it when you look at me.”

  My shoulders sagged in relief.

  Maybe this will be okay.

  “So if that’s not it, then I know it’s bad... it’s fucking bad isn’t it?”

  I scrubbed my hands over my face and breathed deeply.

  I have to tell her… it’s time she knew.

  “Every day in that court room, I see assholes… bigger assholes than you can possibly comprehend Quinn. They’re genuinely terrible people. They do horrible things, over and over and over again, and some of them get away with it.”

  I’d always believed there were three types of people in this world. Good people, who in general, made good choices, the kind that never intentionally hurt other people. Then there were good people who made bad decisions, people that made mistakes, but tried their hardest to make up for them. And then there was the last type, the type of people I dealt with constantly. Bad people. The kind who hurt others for their own pleasure, the ones who cared about nothing and no one other than themselves.

  I classed myself in the second category of the three, Quinn was in the first, and the pieces of shit I was going to tell her about, they were undoubtedly in the latter.

  She nodded, waiting for me to continue.

  “I have to stand there, and watch their victims break all over again, when these pricks walk free.”

  “But you and Reeve have a fantastic success rate.” She argued.

  “We do.” I agreed. “But some get away. Then there’s other trials, other cases, ones I’m not involved with… I see a lot that I can’t fix.”

  She nodded. “Yeah… I guess that would be hard. But I still don’t know what this has to do with anything?”

  “But there is something I can do.” I replied quietly.

  Her eyes asked me for the answer.

  “I hunt them.” I told her, staring at my hands.

  “Who?”

  I paused. “The ones that get away.”

  I glanced up at her. She didn’t understand.

  I took a deep breath. “When I first started, I’d watch a trial, and then I’d find the asshole that got away with his crimes. I would just watch him, track him down in a bar maybe. I’d say or do something that pissed him off and he’d hit me. That was all it took to get most of them locked up, assaulting a lawyer isn’t the easiest thing to get out of.”

  She smiled a little. “That’s stupid, but honorable.”

  I shook my head.

  Maybe it was… if it had ended there.

  “I felt good about what I was doing. I was making a difference. I started sitting in on more and more rulings. The problem was, after a certain amount of these assault incidents, I was pulled aside by a judge and told to keep my nose out of that world. He knew what I was doing, hell, he even appreciated it. But he knew that if this pattern kept emerging, there would be no more convictions.”

  Quinn was listening intently to me.

  “So I got more creative. I hired an ex cop to help me track these scumbags down, and I went to work. Some of them were found with large amounts of drugs that they swore they knew nothing about, some were caught with files on their computers that breached their court conditions… the list goes on. I broke into houses, bought drugs, and threatened people. I did a lot of bad things.”

  I studied Quinn’s face. She didn’t look horrified… yet.

  I could feel the sweat beading on my brow.

  “Some of them though, they were untouchable. The only option I had… was to take care of them myself.”

  Recognition dawned on Quinn’s face and she pulled back, as far away from me as she could get.

  “You killed them?” She whispered.

  “No.” I replied quietly.

  She relaxed and sagged down in the seat, her relief evident.

  “Not intentionally.” I whispered.

  Her mouth gaped, but no sound came out.

  Desperation filled me.

  She has to understand.

  “You have to believe me, Quinn. I never set out to kill anyone. I just wanted to hurt him… fuck, that’s bad enough…” I rubbed my temples. “I hurt a lot of men. I justified what I was doing because they were scum, rapists, pedophiles… the worst of the worst.”

  She was visibly shaking. I wanted to comfort her, reach out and take her hand, but I knew it wasn’t what she wanted from me. So instead I just kept talking.

  “One night, I was tracking the worst guy I’d encountered yet. Max, my contact, had given me the name of the dive he spent his time in. I waited and waited for him, and eventually he came out into the alleyway to take a piss. That’s when it happened. I cleared my throat, he turned, and I shoved him hard in the chest...”

  My voice cracked as I thought about it. It was the worst night of my life.

  “He tripped over some crates and fell. He hit his head on the way down and crumpled. I thought he was faking it.”

  Quinn whimpered.

  “But he was dead.” I choked out. “I never intended to kill him.”

  I lifted my head back up to Quinn, but she wouldn’t look at me. Tears were streaming down her face.

  “I found out later that he was high as a kite, he’d been on a four day bender and been fighting non-stop. They wrote his death off as an accident. Apparently he would have died from any type of impact, if he didn’t overdose first… they decided he’d just tripped and hit his head.”

  “You think that makes it okay?” She spat the words at me.

  “No!” I yelled. “I know that doesn’t make it okay. It doesn’t stop me from thinking about it every single day of my life, even though I know I’ve done the world a favor. He’ll never kidnap and trade another young girl for sex, he’ll never get children high and sell them as slaves, he’ll never murder an
d rape again. I have to believe that I did the right thing going there that night, and I have to try and let the rest go.”

  “He did those things?” Quinn asked quietly, her anger evaporating slightly.

  “He was the devil.” I growled. “But nothing he did wrong makes what I did right. And I have to live with that.”

  She sat silently, twisting a ring around her finger, contemplating what I’d told her. She hadn’t run out the door, and I was surprised. I didn’t think she could handle hearing what I’d just told her.

  “What happened to you when you… when you…”

  “When I got bashed half to death?”

  She nodded, flinching at my choice of words.

  “After he died… I stopped doing it for a while. I needed a break. I needed to stop, and I did for a long time… but then there was this one day.”

  I closed my eyes as I recalled the memory.

  “I was waiting for my hearing and I slipped into the back of the courtroom to hear the verdict of the case ahead of mine. The victim was a young girl, maybe fifteen years old, and the defendant was her uncle. He’d been accused of raping her, regularly, for three years. He was found not guilty. This poor girl broke down sobbing and shaking as the verdict was read out. She was either one hell of an actress, or the court had made the wrong decision.”

  “Oh god.” Quinn whispered.

  My skin still prickled at the thought of her innocent face.

  “I’d been around a lot of lowlifes, and I usually knew how to pick them. So I watched him… there was a hunger in his eyes as he looked at that young girl, and I knew he was guilty.”

  “So you hunted him.” She stated.

  I nodded solemnly. “I beat him within an inch of his life that night. I told him if he ever touched that girl again, I’d be back to finish the job.”

  She nodded in acceptance, knowing exactly what I would have done.

  “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “I’m getting to it.” I reassured her. “After that, I started up again. I didn’t go out often, but when I did, I was vicious. Something inside of me had snapped. But these guys, they don’t just take a beating lying down, so obviously I’ve taken a few hits. I’ve been stabbed, had bones broken, stitches… but nothing quite like that night.”

  Surprising me, Quinn reached out and took my hand. I squeezed it gratefully.

  “I had called Max, and like usual, I gave him a name and asked him to call me back with a location. Only this time he sounded weird… off, somehow. I ignored my instincts and when he texted me an address that night, I went straight there.”

  “Harrison.” She whispered. She knew this was the part where it all went wrong.

  “They ambushed me. I tried to run… Max was there… the name I’d given him was his nephew – his brother’s son. I’ve since found out that feeding his dodgy nephew information was the reason he was thrown from the force in the first place.”

  I shook thinking about it. I had been sure I was going to die that night.

  “There were so many of them, I never stood a chance. The last thing I remember before I passed out was Max, standing over me. ‘You had a good run kid.’ – that’s what he said to me, right before the world went dark.”

  I sighed and met her eyes.

  “I don’t know what happened after that. I don’t know if they thought I was dead, I don’t know who called me an ambulance; I remember nothing after that point.” I looked into her green eyes and squeezed her hand. “Except for you.”

  “Me?” She blanched,

  I’d never told her this part.

  “But we’d never met?”

  I shrugged. “I dreamt about you. Your green eyes, your velvet voice. I must have dreamed about you one hundred times in that hospital… and I’ve dreamed of you every night since.”

  “But… what? How?”

  “I don’t know... but when I finally woke up, and you were there, reading to me, I knew you. Your eyes, your face, your voice… I already knew you.”

  “You opened your eyes once.” She smiled a small smile as she told me. “I was reading to you, and you opened your eyes, only for a moment. You looked into my eyes and then you drifted back off to sleep.”

  I rubbed my thumbs gently over the back of her hands. She smiled at me and I couldn’t remember ever seeing someone so… captivating.

  I saw the exact moment recognition dawned on her. Her muscles tensed and her eyes narrowed at me.

  “You’re doing it again.” She stated.

  Here it goes.

  I shook my head.

  “You nearly died, and you still haven’t stopped?” She screamed at me, getting to her feet and pulling her hands from mine. “Is it worth your life?” She spat.

  “Quinn, please, just –”

  “Don’t. Is that what this is? Are you out for revenge?” She was fuming. Her body was shaking and her face was flushed. “This isn’t the fucking Green Arrow Harrison. This is your life.”

  “Quinn, it’s –”

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed for real this time?”

  “No!” I screamed at her. “It’s not like that.”

  She choked out a sob. “What about me?” She whispered.

  “Please… it’s the only thing I can do.” I pleaded with her.

  She nodded, tears streaming down her face. “Then this is the only thing I can do.”

  I watched her turn and walk out of my life forever.

  “There’s more, Quinn.” I whispered into the empty room, long after she’d left.

  “I can’t stop.” I hung my head in my hands and spoke the words quietly to myself.

  “I had a client… and I let her down. And the man that had been harassing her, Quinn, do you know what he did?” I whispered to no one.

  “He killed her.”

  “If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.”

  - Mo Willems

  43. Quinn

  I could barely see through the tears enough to keep the car on the road. My intention had been to get to Ellerslie, but when I called her she hadn’t picked up.

  Instead I found myself sitting in the driveway of Logan’s house.

  I didn’t want to be at home right now, but I didn’t know where else to go.

  How can he do this to me?

  I knew without a doubt now that I loved him. He was it for me. I loved him with everything I had and everything I was.

  I slammed my fist down onto the horn and a loud beep sounded out through the darkness.

  I could barely breathe, I was crying so hard.

  I love him and he’s gone.

  “Is this karma?” I screamed into the empty car. I slammed my fist into the horn, over and over again. “Is this what I deserve?”

  I didn’t even hear the door open; it wasn’t until I smelt Logan’s cologne that I realized he was there.

  “I’ve got you shorty.” He told me when I fought roughly against his arms.

  I sagged against him, exhausted, and let him lift me from the car and carry me inside the house.

  He sat me down carefully on the couch and snagged a blanket from the back. He wrapped it around me and tucked me into his side, rubbing my arm up and down, trying to warm me up.

  It was only then that I realized I was drenched.

  “I’m wet.” I stated lamely.

  “It’s raining honey.”

  “Oh.” It was all I could think to say.

  The tears had stopped now, but my body was still wracked with huge, shaking sobs.

  “Are you okay?” Logan slid off the couch and crouched in front of me so he could look into my eyes.

  I shrugged and my lip quivered.

  “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry again.” He said quickly.

  I huffed out a laugh. There was nothing that terrified Logan more than a crying woman.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What the hell is goin’ on Q? You’re a mess. I’ve never seen you
like this. Should I get Lawson? Ellerslie?”

  I didn’t know what it was, maybe the concern in his eyes, or maybe it was just the fact that I’d known him my whole life, and I knew I could trust him. I never intended to tell him, but I opened my mouth and the words spewed out. I told him everything I knew about Harrison the vigilante.

  ***

  “Does he know how god damn stupid this is? I mean damn.” He paced backwards and forwards in front of me.

  Logan had heard the whole story and he was shocked, to say the least. He’d called Ellerslie for me, who was on her way over, and then he’d made me a cup of tea.

  The shaking had stopped, but now I felt like I weighed a thousand pounds. I was shattered, emotionally and physically.

  “I don’t think he can see past those victims in the court room.”

  We sat in silence. The enormity of the situation weighing down on us both.

  “He killed a man Logan.” I whispered, terrified to hear my own voice saying those words out loud.

  “Do you think he can live with that?” He asked.

  I shrugged. “Am I a terrible person for hoping that he can?” I replied quietly. I avoided his gaze, and stared into my tea.

  Logan was quiet for a long time.

  When I finally looked up, he was staring at me.

  “So you really love him.” He didn’t say it like a question; he was purely stating a fact.

  I thought hard about it before I spoke. Things were a lot harder to take back once you said them out loud.

  “I think…” I replied quietly. “I think I’ve never loved anything as much as I love that man.” I swirled my cup and watched the liquid forming a whirl pool.

  Logan sighed.

  “But it’s not enough is it?” I looked at him as though he might actually have the answers. “How can that not be enough?” A single tear ran down my cheek and I swiped it away angrily.

  “Oh Q.” He sighed, sitting next to me and wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “Love like that, from a woman like you? It should be enough.”