by Violet Duke
Flinging out bait and letting his crazy hooks sink in somewhere seemed to be the best way to navigate this. “It was all so overwhelming. First the kids, and then the kiss.” She wrung her hands, and again, noticed how his eyes glued to parts of her body. Yuck. “I suppose you already guessed that with the kids taking up all my free time, I’m…” Lowering her voice and her eyes, she whispered, “Not that experienced when it comes to all of that.”
Peeking out through her lashes, she saw him lick his lips.
So, so gross.
“I had a feeling,” he sighed happily. “You were saving yourself for me.”
Again with the weird, off-balance comments. His brain was a seriously frightening place.
“I know Caine took advantage of you today. That bastard.”
“No. He wouldn’t do that, would he?” She edged her question with doubt. “Is that…is that why he told me to get a restraining order on you?”
“Yes!” he declared. “Oh, Addie, you’re so naive and innocent. Your virginity is such a special gift. And all of these guys have been trying to take that from you. From me.”
Good lord, it was like following him down a creepy, psychedelic rabbit hole.
Vicious disgust filled his eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m not upset with you, Addie. I forgive you for everything. It’s all that bastard’s fault. He tried to take what’s mine earlier today. What you’ve been holding onto for me. Just like this guy here.” David pressed his knife closer to Marco’s neck.
Addison did her best not to react. “You really forgive me? You’re not going to…” She paused to let his sick imagination start galloping away. “Punish me?” she finished, playing with the hem of her shirt nervously.
“Punish you?” he echoed, looking like she’d just offered him a big bowl of candy.
Caine had been reluctant to share the case reports of David’s previous assault reports, so she’d asked his sister Lia to have their foster brother Drew hack the information for her. In his assault charge prior to the last one, the one where it was suspected that he’d drugged the girl, but it’d been settled out of court, the victim had reported that David had tried to force her to strip for him. For being a ‘bad girl.’ He kept telling her that was her punishment.
“Because I’ll make it up to you however want, David. I mean here you are protecting me even after another man was touching my body.” Right now, it was better that he directed his anger at a man that wasn’t here, than at Marco.
“You were a bad girl,” he finished, taking this to the messed up place she knew he would.
“I’d understand if you felt you needed to punish me, David. And I promise, I’ll do anything to make these guys understand that they can’t have my body.”
“Because it belongs to me,” he snarled, eyes fixating on her hands still wringing the hem of her shirt, this time high enough that he got a flash of skin.
“Strip for me, Addie. Right now. In front of all of these guys.” His crazed gaze traveled up to meet hers, gleaming with both violent triumph, and thirsty impatience. “Take off all your clothes and come to me. That’ll show them who you belong to. And I’ll forgive you for all your indiscretions.”
“Will you let Marco go?”
A weird look came over him. He looked down at Marco as if he’d forgotten he was there. Suspicion narrowed his gaze.
Shit. She’d pushed too hard. She quickly began lifting her shirt to try and distract him. “Could you at least move him to the side? So I can see your face?” she ventured. “Right now, it feels like I’m stripping for Marco because I can’t see you.”
David immediately shoved Marco to his knees. “You really do love me, don’t you, sweetie?”
Aaand they were back in crazy town.
She heard the footsteps beside her, and instinctively moved in the opposite direction. But under the pretense of being illuminated with more light from the squad cars. All the while, she dragged her shirt higher and higher, watching David pivot slowly in the direction she was leading him, eyes riveted on her now fully exposed bra.
She tossed her shirt to the ground near him.
As she moved to unsnap and unzip her jeans, Addison racked her brain on how to get David to drop that knife. She had his undivided focus now, yes, but it would only take a split second for him to slash through Marco’s jugular.
She first dragged her zipper all the way down, and then slipped her thumbs under the waistband of her jeans before she stopped.
“Why’d you stop?” he demanded, almost frantically.
“That knife. It looks brown, not black.” Moving to rezip her jeans, she started backing away from him. “Did you bring that knife to hurt me, David? That isn’t the knife from my van. It’s brown, not black.” It was clearly black, and she’d never once carried a knife in her van, but she was going with a Hail Mary at this point.
“It’s not brown,” insisted David.
Frowning at the knife, mentally she was shouting for him to get to the next logical step. If she asked him to do it, he’d balk again. “It’s so dark where you’re standing. But it looks brown, David.” She fiddled with her zipper tab to try and help him along.
He took two steps forward. “It’s black, look.” He lifted the knife a few inches closer to the glowing beam of the nearest headlight.
That’s all they needed.
Caine came flying out of the dark and tackled him, just as Marco spun around and put some hurt on the bastard as well.
All the men around them exploded into action a split second later as well.
Meanwhile, Addison just stood there, frozen in delayed fear and an overdose of adrenaline as she watched David’s manic expression fill with hatred.
“You tricked me, you bitch! You’re just like all those other cock teases! You whore! You’ll open your legs to this police trash but—“
Caine knocked him unconscious.
But he didn’t stop there. He began raining down unholy vengeance with his fists, pummeling the already out-cold David like he was a punching bag.
“Caine!”
At the sound of her voice, he stopped. Chest heaving, eyes filled with unadulterated rage…and fear. He looked pained. Almost unable to stop.
Addison quickly ran into his direct sightline. “You did it. You saved me. Now stop, Caine. You’re a good cop. You trust the system. Now just let him go face justice. And come to me.” She held out her hand to him. “Come back to me, Caine.”
His voice barely sounded human. “He was going to rape you, Addison. Maybe even torture you. Kill you.” He flexed his blood-covered fists and raised it to his temples in anguish.
“I know. And you stopped him. So now please. Come here and comfort me. Because I’m scared out of my mind, Caine. Or at the very least come here and yell at me for showing all your buddies my underwear. I know it’s just boring, white cotton and—”
That made him lurch to his feet.
He stomped over to her and didn’t even pause when one of the guys tossed him a blanket from his squad car. Eyes hard, frame tense, expression…raggedly relieved, he bundled the blanket around her and yanked her into his arms. “I can’t believe you did that, woman.”
“I’m sorry. It was the only way I could think of to distract him enough to maybe let Marco go.”
“I’m not angry that these yahoos saw your freaking hot as hell underwear.” His lips flattened. “Okay, that’s not true, I’ll probably be pissed tomorrow at every guy here who didn’t avert his eyes. I’m not angry at you for that though. I’m impressed actually, at your quick thinking and your cool head while you were setting him up.”
He exhaled heavily. “But I’m furious with you for putting yourself in harm’s way.”
“But Marco…”
“I know.” He sighed. “You were being Addison and thinking about someone other than yourself, like always.” Holding her tighter, he muttered something that sounded like, “Goodness and light.”
“What?” She smiled at the welcom
e sight of his eyes softly crinkling at the corners.
“Nothing. You ready to go home, sweetheart?”
Home. She loved the sound of that coming from his lips.
“But don’t you have to finish up here?”
“Yeah, I need to get a statement from you and fill out a shit-ton of paperwork. But I’ll split it up with Marco. My shift ended a half hour ago so I can leave right after I’m done with that. Just let me tie up some loose ends here and then we can go home to the kids, okay?”
Okay? That sounded absolutely…perfect.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CAINE UNLOCKED THE DOOR to his apartment and tried not to let the sight of the two kids in there running up to greet them make him smile like a sap.
He failed pretty spectacularly.
After they both thanked Lia for watching the kids, he putting in the DVD he’d picked up earlier for the kids and popped ‘em some popcorn while they got settled under a big blanket on the couch.
Addison came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “How did you know they’d be up?”
“When I picked them up from school today, they both passed out as soon as we got home. Lia said they only woke up a few hours ago. Poor things must be exhausted from the night prior.” He nodded over at the TV. “I figured it’d be okay for them to stay up a bit longer seeing as how tomorrow is Saturday.”
“School’s almost over so their little inner clocks are already starting to adjust to the summer. So this is perfect. Thank you. For thinking of everything. For thinking about them, period.”
“No thanks needed.” He pressed a kiss onto the top of her head. “After they go to sleep, you and I, we need to talk.” His voice turned serious then. “About everything. David’s trial. You, the kids.”
Her expression was unsurprised. “I know.”
“But until then, the only decision you need to make is if you want to put chocolate chips on the buttery popcorn or potato chips on the kettle corn popcorn.”
She chuckled. “You’re worse than the kids.”
He grinned unabashedly. “Both it is. I’ll bring over the popcorn and fixings, you bring over the chocolate and strawberry milk.”
Shaking her head, she reached into the cupboard for his staple milk supplements. “Do the guys at the station know you still drink chocolate and strawberry milk?”
“Are you kidding me? What do you think the most popular vending machine drink is after we’re done with our shifts?”
“I will never look at the guys the same way again.”
“Damn straight.” He tilted her chin up to brush his lips against hers. “Better still if you didn’t look at them at all.”
She paused a beat before asking softly, “What about you?”
A slow smile stretched across her face when he understood her meaning. “I make a conscious effort not to check out the guys I work with.” He rubbed his thumb over her lower lip. “And as far as any women are concerned, I seem to have developed this contagious affliction where women simply become invisible when they get near me.”
She stared at him. “Is that so?”
“Yeah. I think I caught it from you. Used to be, that the only women who would fade out of existence were the ones standing beside you.”
“Movie’s starting!” called out Tanner. “Quit making out in there, you two.”
At the sound of Kylie asking him what ‘making out’ meant, Caine and Addison rushed out to the living room to stop him from answering.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
SINCE THE KIDS INSISTED on sleeping outside on the futon mattress again, Caine helped Addison cover them both with the comforter before turning off the lights, leaving on just the two nightlights he’d picked up along with the DVD.
It’d been hard switching to the four-to-midnight shift and leaving Addison’s safety in Marco’s hands, even though, all kidding aside, he’d come to trust Marco even more than some of the guys he’d worked alongside for years at his old precinct.
In fact, the only way he’d been able to stay away from the diner during his first break was to go shopping for the kids.
Judging by the way Addison was gazing at the nightlights, it was time well-spent.
He dropped down onto the bed and settled his back against the headboard as Addison entered the room. She looked good in here. Belonged here. “Ready to talk?”
Her steps faltered just a tiny bit, but she continued her path over to him.
When she sat next to him hesitantly, he pulled her in close, tucked her alongside him. He’d thought about this a lot, how this conversation would go. But nothing about the situation was black and white.
Caine had considered what lengths his parents would go to for any of their kids, what measures he’d take for his own.
What lines he’d cross for Addison.
With a heavy sigh, he started with the positives. “You and the kids aren’t in any danger any more. With David’s priors showing a continued escalation of dangerous behavior, along with all the different charges against him, not to mention that the search of his place tonight produced photos of you, a bed set up with restraints, along with some ketamine—the date rape drug that wipes your memory—we already had a rock solid case. But since he held an officer at knifepoint, our guys at the courthouse are positive his bail will be set at a million dollars. And not just that, but again, because he was holding a cop hostage, he’ll have a tough time getting an affordable bail bond, if at all.”
“But,” he sighed heavily, “when this goes to trial, everything’s going to come out. About your mom, the van, the kids, everything. Whatever lawyer David hires will put you through the wringer. I’ve seen lawyers harass rape victims on the stand to the point of abuse in my opinion, redirecting the blame from the rapist to everything from how much the victims drank to how wet they were.” He shut his eyes to block the images of Addison going through that. “I asked a good attorney friend of mine—off the record, of course—and he said it’ll look better if you take the kids to social services now. Before they hire a private investigator to dig up dirt on you.”
She looked pale, stricken. “That makes sense. But. Trials like this, they take time, don’t they? Months on end?”
He cringed. Honestly, he’d seen some take a year to go to trial. And he told her as much.
“That’s a year in the foster care system, Caine. And who knows if I’ll get them back after. I mean, what judge would grant me full custody after all of this?”
“I’ll testify, we all will, to show the judge how great you’ve been with them. How perfect a mom you’ve been to them this entire time.”
She shook her head. “You can’t testify.”
“Of course I can. There’s no conflict of interest so I sure as hell will be testifying.”
“No, Caine. I mean you can’t testify because…” She paused, clearly reluctant to say what he knew had been bothering her since yesterday. God, he was crazy about this woman.
“Because I denied knowing you and the kids were living in the car when a fellow officer asked, omitted that info completely on a half dozen different reports and paperwork regarding your case, and straight-out lied when my Captain and Joe asked me about it? By the way, Joe told me in confidence today that he’s known almost the entire time, and Bernadette—sharp old bat—apparently figured it out about a year ago, just FYI. Anyway, yeah, are those the reasons why you think I can’t testify?”
A holy-shit look cloaked her expression. “Um…yes. That.”
Admittedly this wasn’t going to be easy for him. To not just bend the rules, but flat out break them. For the first time ever.
It did help immensely to know that Joe and Bernadette were going to corroborate on the watered down lie they’d come up with about her only staying in her van once in a while with the kids…sort of like camping, whenever she wasn’t staying with one of them. And the part about him not knowing she didn’t have custody of the kids in the first place was absolutely tru
e. He hadn’t asked; she hadn’t come out and said it. Semantics or not, it wasn’t a lie.
The one lie remaining that would have to follow him to the stand, however, was about him personally having no knowledge of her living in the van…in an effort to keep social services from taking the kids from her. Yeah, there wasn’t a semantic way out of that one.
The idea of lying on the stand…truth be told, he was struggling hard with. What right did he have to be angry about one of his friends being a dirty cop now? Lying on the stand was the same thing as spitting on the justice system he believed in and faced bullets with little more than his badge because of.
That said, as difficult as the lie itself was to come to terms with, the reasons he had for lying, and the outcome that would result from doing so—those were easy to be on board with.
“I’m testifying, Addison. Period.”
“Caine, I can’t ask you to do that. I know how much it would mess you up on the inside if you got up there and lied on the stand.”
She knew him well.
“But it’ll hurt your custody case if I don’t, honey. You and I both know it’s going to come up when the trial starts. David is crazy. He’ll come at us with all he’s got to discredit you, hurt you. So I’ll lie if I have to.”
It burned his gut to say it out loud. But not as badly as the thought of Addison losing the kids. He’d never, not once, felt there was ever two paths he had to choose from where his badge lay on one path, and not both.
He did now.
By the look on Addison’s face, he wasn’t hiding his moral turmoil well. “There’s still time to change your story to your Captain and Marco. What if you tell them that I lied to you? Or that it was all a part of the plan and—”
“You’re aiming to get yourself pushed up against another wall again, woman.”
That stopped her rambling. And got her breathing going triple time.
Caine tasted his favorite spot on her neck to see if it was as sweet as he remembered. “I love that you’re worried about me. But let someone worry about you for a change, okay? I said it’ll be fine. Whatever crisis of conscience I’m dealing with, I’ll get over.” He sat up. “But that’s actually not what I wanted to talk about.”