Better When He's Brave

It wasn’t a declaration of love. He didn’t even ask me to be his girlfriend, but him saying I would always be the one that got all of him, all of who he really was, felt just as important as those three little words.

I was going to thank him and smother him with my relief and with more kisses and definitely more sex, but his eyes got flinty and he suddenly bolted up in the bed and pulled at his hair.

“Son of a bitch!” He didn’t apologize for the interruption to our intimate moment; instead he swung his long legs over the edge of the bed and reached for his pants. I saw his shoulders tense, which made me sit up and ask him,“What’s wrong?”

He looked pissed off and extra wild as he started pulling on his clothes.

“It’s the beginning. All of it has been about the beginning. It started with Novak.”

“So what?” I didn’t understand what he was talking about but he was making me nervous. This was the first time I had seen both the cop and the beast loose at the same time. He was frightening in his ferocity.

“I didn’t see the connection when Roark started messing with Nassir and Race. I totally blew the relationship between him and my brother. It took a bomb threat and too many dead kids for me to see the way he was hitting at me where it hurt me the most, but now I see it all. It’s been about paying us back by using our weakness against us, and the only weakness Roark has shown is his bizarre obsession with his old man. I looked everywhere in this damn city for him except for the one place where he would feel closest to his father.” He swore some more and I shivered as he clipped his gun on his belt.

His train of thought sounded ominous and I had a really bad feeling about it. “You think Conner is at Novak’s old warehouse?”

He just grunted and dug a card out of his wallet that he tossed in my direction.

“I don’t know if he’s there or not but I need to go check it out.”

I picked up the card with the marshals’ logo on it and curled my fingers around it. “Don’t go alone.” My voice was barely a whisper. I couldn’t stand the thought of him in danger even though I knew it was his job.

Titus bent over to kiss me hard on the mouth and told me to trust him and to believe that he could do his job. He told me he would call for backup and that if I didn’t hear from him in an hour to call the marshals. I knew exactly where Novak’s old spot was located. If he didn’t call me in an hour I was going after him myself; I just didn’t tell him that. So I kissed him back with everything I had and told him I would do exactly what he had asked me to do. As I watched his broad back disappear out the door I asked any higher entity that might be listening to keep this man that held this world up safe. I didn’t want to live in this place without him.

Chapter 18

Titus

I was surprised when the big, lifted-up truck rolled to a stop next to the GTO where it was parked up on a hill overlooking the battered and long-abandoned warehouse that Novak and his now defunct crew used to work out of. I had been standing there for a while, just waiting and watching, kicking myself for not putting the pieces together sooner, which seemed to be how I handled everything dealing with Roark. Sometime the bad guys were just better than I was. When the driver climbed out of the beast of a machine, some of the surprise wore off and I figured I should’ve known he had to be lurking around waiting to make whatever move he was planning after the attack. The way he had watched those video cameras so that we couldn’t miss seeing that he was tied into Roark’s plans was telling. The entire way Booker had acted when he was in Race’s building had hinted that something was up, that he was maneuvering pieces around the game board we couldn’t see. It was just like an ex-con to make up his own rules and forget to clue the rest of the players what they were.

If I was surprised to see him I don’t think he was at all shocked when I was on him before his feet hit the ground. I wanted to rip his head off and spit down his throat for the danger he had put Reeve in. I was happy I hadn’t called in for backup yet. I couldn’t drop-kick him across the Point if I had witnesses.

He thumped against the side of the truck as I barreled into him but we were evenly matched in the size and bulk department, so it wasn’t long before I had a fist in my ribs and we were both rolling around on the asphalt exchanging heavy blows and grunting with exertion. He got in a good shot to my cheek and I was pretty sure I broke his nose when I slammed my forehead into the center of his face. I took an elbow to the sternum, which knocked the wind out of me, so I retaliated with a kidney punch that finally had the other man rolling away from me. We both staggered to our feet, bloodied and furious, as we continued to circle one another like fighting dogs.

“She could have died, asshole.” I spit a mouthful of blood toward his feet, making him step back and swear at me.

“She has a gun and she knows how to use it. It was the only way any of us were going to get close to Roark. Someone needed to get in on the inside and the only way to do that was to give him something he wants.”

“Reeve’s corpse?” Just saying the words made my blood heat even more and I took another threatening step toward the other man. Booker held his hands up in front of him in a gesture of surrender and shook his head slowly.

“No. He wants you, but in order to convince him that I was trustworthy, that I would follow through, I had to show him how far I would go. Why do you think I let the cameras catch me? I know every fucking blind spot in that building. I wanted you guys to see me. Race is smart and it’s your fucking job to figure shit out. I wanted you to know something was up.”