Ifeel exhausted.
Good, but exhausted.
I’m aching all over—between my legs, my arms, my shoulders, my back, the bruises on my ass—but they’re good aches. They’re a reminder of the last couple nights I spent with Angelo making up for lost time.
I lean back in the passenger side seat of his rental truck. He grins at me and takes my hand, squeezing it gently. “Think they’ll show?”
“I doubt they have much of a choice.”
He tilts his head. “I don’t know. Cops don’t like to admit when they’re wrong.”
“Hence this whole stupid mess?”
“Pretty much.” He glances at me, grinning. “It’s good to have you back, my frigid princess.”
“Don’t start with me.”
“I mean it.”
I smile at him and kiss the back of his hand. “It’s nice to be back.”
In between sessions of extremely intense and sweaty sex, we spent a lot of time talking about our lives, about the future, about what we want from the baby, about everything. We didn’t come to any conclusions, but I know him a lot better now than I did before, and he’s exactly what I assumed: loyal, loving, demanding, intense, and beautiful.
And above all, overprotective and dangerous. In a good way, of course.
All my life I’ve been looking for a cliff to jump from. A leap of faith, an act of reckless selfishness that might prove I’m truly alive. I’ve been drifting from one thing to the next, walking along the proper path, never deviating, too afraid to fail and too nervous to do anything but mindlessly go forward, but it feels like Angelo is the clouds, he’s the wind whipping through my hair and the second of being yanked down to earth, he’s the scream on my lips, the exhilarating excitement in my veins as I plummet down, down, down, past where I was meant to be and on to something better. Something my own.
He’s my jump, my leap. And I can’t say what’s going to happen tomorrow, or the next day, or a month or a year from now, and that’s what I love so much about it.
Everything else, my entire existence, it was planned and perfected.
This is messy and wrong and dangerous.
And I need it so badly it hurts.
The parking lot outside of the U-Haul place is deserted. The place is depression incarnate, like something from a movie: weeds sprouting between cracks, plants growing up in the nearby grass, a rusting old truck with windows so covered in dirt they look tinted black. The building is abandoned. It’s hard to say when it shut down, but probably in the last year or so. The interior is barren, all the boxes and packing materials taken away to somewhere else, wherever closed stores go when their doors lock for the last time.
Another truck glides into the lot and pulls across from ours. It’s midday and we’re near a major road, but there aren’t any other pedestrians around. Only a gas station a half mile back, a storage facility, and this abandoned building. A good place for an ambush.
“Stay in here,” Angelo says and taps the gun at his hip as he opens his door. I wish he didn’t need that thing. “Come out if it’s safe.”
“Be careful,” I say, and he only nods at me as he walks forward.
I watch him, fear ringing down my spine. It’s a real fear, a visceral fear, the sort of terror usually reserved for thoughts of my baby.
I don’t want to lose Angelo in the same way I can’t imagine losing this child.
It’s strange, how fast I fell and how hard.
But I took my leap and I won’t turn back.
The other truck’s door opens and Misty Vance steps out. She’s in jeans and a denim jacket, her hair pulled back. I note a lack of a holster at her hip. She comes closer to Angelo and there’s nobody else with her. I wait a beat and hop out, approaching somewhat skittishly, wondering if Misty got turned and took over her partner’s position as the chief of police’s new lackey.
Misty nods to me and her eyes narrow at Angelo. “You have no clue how pissed off John is right now,” she says. “What’d you do to him?”
“How’s he doing? He healing okay?”
Misty’s jaw works. “You know what, if he didn’t deserve it, I’d kill you myself.”
“Good thing he deserved it,” Angelo says. “Why’d you come here? I thought we’d meet with Danny.”
“Danny got reassigned. John’s on medical leave.”
“I take it the chief’s cleaning house, huh?” Angelo glances at me. “You must’ve really spooked him.”
“What did you two do?” Misty asks, glaring at me. “The whole precinct feels like a graveyard right now. I tried to help you, but god damn it, Sara. You stirred up some serious shit.”
I lean back against the front bumper of the truck. “I told the chief the truth. I told him everything I know and everything I guessed. And I told him he can fuck himself.”
Misty barks a laugh. “You told Corvine that? That old cowboy asshole?”
“Sure did.”
“Good for you. I never did like him.” She looks at Angelo and back to me. “I was sent to make a deal. I don’t want to be here because I find this whole mess extremely distasteful, but I agreed to do it anyway. Since I figure I’m just about the only cop left that doesn’t want to kill you both.”
“We only have one demand. Nicolas goes free,” Angelo says. “And we decide whether we release what we know to the press. That’s the deal.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Misty says. “We need assurances. Real fucking assurances. If we release Nicolas, we need to know this whole goddamn, shit-stain mess stays buried nice and deep.” She jabs a finger in my direction. “I can’t risk this one deciding she wants to take this into court just to get some false sense of justice.”
“I have no interest in making enemies with the Dallas PD for the rest of my life,” I say and nudge Angelo. “Same with you, right?”
“Hell, no. Fuck them. I don’t care if they hate me.”
“Angelo.”
He sighs. “Whatever Sara says, I’ll go with, but I want it on the record that I’d rather burn your whole fucking precinct to the ground than cut a deal. You slimy fucks.”
Misty gives him a hard look. “You’re preaching to the choir. Believe it or not, there are some of us that don’t agree with pretending like cops can’t fuck up sometimes. But unfortunately, I’m in the middle of this now, and all I want to do is get it over with. We release Nicolas, you all bury what you know, everyone walks away happy.”
“What about the case?” I ask.
“Our stats take a hit, but fuck the stats.” Misty smiles tightly. “I heard that’s what you said to the chief. Is it true?”
“More or less.”
She laughs and seems genuinely delighted. “The balls on you, girl. You would’ve made a good detective.”
“I’d rather work for Carmine Scavo than you people,” I tell her. “At least he’s got honor.” Which is true. Carmine doesn’t hide what he is and what he does. He obfuscates, he layers himself in protection and keeps some plausible deniability going, but it’s not like he’s walking around pretending to be a saint. The cops, they’re supposed to protect and serve. They’re supposed to be the good guys. Right now, they’re just a bunch of thugs with guns and badges protecting their own asses.
Misty’s smile disappears. “Right, let’s finish this then. We’re working on the honor system here for obvious reasons. In the next day or two, Nicolas will be released from prison and the charges will be dropped. We’ll cite new evidence or some shit, I don’t know. The prosecutor’s office will deal with that. Once he’s free, you destroy everything you have on what happened at the Two Lane Inn. And I mean everything. If so much as a whisper leaks about what really went down, there will be consequences.”
“You gonna follow through with those consequences, Misty?” Angelo asks.
She ignores him. “Do we have a deal?”
I hesitate, watching her. I hate this. Every piece of this. It’s my father’s world: a smoky room, a shady handshake. Except it’s hot out and we’re in some beat-up parking lot. It’s corrupt from the top to the bottom. And here I am, thinking I can do better.
There is no better—there’s only different.
I became a lawyer to fight this garbage.
But I’m not that girl anymore. The world isn’t black and white—it’s an ugly shade of gray—and I want to get Nicolas out of prison.
Nothing will bring back those dead cartel men. Not that I particularly mind. And the cops won’t ever face consequences for what happened, though I figure this whole ordeal is bad enough. Maybe they’ll think twice the next time they go off on some half-cocked raid.
“We have a deal,” I say.
“Great,” Misty says and makes a disgusted face. “I hope I never see either of you ever again. I fucking hate this trash.” Misty turns on her heel, marches to her truck, and gets inside. I stand next to Angelo and his hand slips into mine as she drives off.
“How’s it feel?” he asks once she’s gone.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “It’s almost anticlimactic. I expected some big fight, some dramatic confrontation, but we already did all that, didn’t we?”
“You confronted the chief of police. I beat the shit out of that garbage detective. I’d say we’ve been busy. What else did you want? Some protracted gun battle? This is the real world, princess.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Just none of it feels good.”
He hugs me against him. It feels good, his big arms, his warm chest. “This is corruption. This is how it happens. And you know what? If it saves an innocent life then fuck it.” He kisses my cheek. “I’m proud of you.”
“I’m proud of myself.” I grin at him and stand on my toes to kiss his lips. “What are the chances this is really all over?”
“I think Corvine is smart enough to cut his losses and move on, but I’ll make sure Carmine keeps an eye out for the wily old bastard.”
“Think I can count this as a win? Even though nobody’s going to know that I solved the case?”
“I think you deserve as much credit as you can take.”
“Sounds good to me.”
He wraps an arm across my shoulder and hugs me tighter. I lean into him, breathing his smell, smiling. None of this was perfect. The bad guys aren’t going to get punished. There aren’t any good guys, either. It’s just a bunch of people making dumb decisions and groping their way blindly forward, struggling in the dark, doing what they think is right.
I’m done with right. Now I just want what feels good.
And that’s Angelo.
