Midnight Sins (Midnight #2)(51)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Her cheek rested on his arm as she gazed at him. “Why did you become a cop?”

The memory of his mother’s scream burned in his mind. “My dad was a cop. He worked for the Atlanta PD for eighteen years.”

Most folks took the statement at face value and left it at that. A boy, wanting to grow up and be like his father.

Some truth. Some lie.

“But why did you join the force?” The dark eyes that stared back at him saw too much.

Too deeply.

Todd found himself telling her a story he’d never told another. Not even the grandfather who’d wound up raising him. “My dad worked undercover. Deep undercover. Months would go by and we wouldn’t see him, then when he would finally come home, he’d be a stranger.” A hard, brooding stranger who smelled of alcohol and smoke. One whose eyes had been flint sharp and whose mouth had never smiled.

“He was a good cop, though. Everyone said so.” And there had been so many plaques and medals in his dad’s room. His mom had polished them every single week, smiling that same, sad smile as she cleaned them. “I don’t know how many guys my dad put away over the years. Drug dealers. Robbers. Killers. He made a lot of enemies in his time, the kind of enemies who don’t forget or forgive when they’ve been betrayed.”

Cara didn’t speak. Just watched him.

“A guy got out one day. Tony Costa. My dad had been undercover in the guy’s crew. Busted him for selling coke and for the murders of two prostitutes.”

“And he got out?” Cara asked, surprise in her voice.

The woman didn’t understand the human justice system. “He rolled on some higher-ups. Pleaded to manslaughter for the prostitutes and wound up serving a seven-year sentence.” He sucked in a deep breath. This was the part that he hated to remember. “I was fourteen when Tony was paroled. I remember because it was my birthday. Mom had ordered me a cake and we were just leaving the house to go get it.” He’d been going to have a swimming party. The plan had been to get the cake and go back home to set up before his friends came over.

“Costa was waiting for us in the driveway. He had a gun.”

“Todd…”

“He made us go back inside. Told mom to call dad. Said to ‘get the bastard over there so he could watch.’ But dad was undercover, and mom couldn’t get him. She told Costa she could call his captain, but—” A lump was in his throat now, choking back the words. “But Costa knew a call to the captain would have cops swarming over him. So he smiled at my mom, and he killed her. The bastard shot her point-blank in the head.”

She wrapped her arms around him, turning to burrow her head against his neck. “I’m so sorry.”

He felt cold. Even with the warmth of her body pressing down against him, he felt so damn cold. “Then he turned the gun on me.”

She froze against him. A burst of wind blew into the room, sweeping over his body, ruffling the sheets and covers.

Her head lifted. “He shot you.”

Todd caught her hand. Brought it to rest against the old, jagged scar on his left side. “I tried to run, but the bullet caught me.” He’d thought he was dying when he felt the burning lash of the pain in his side. The fiery agony had stolen his breath, then he’d seen the blood. So much blood. His. His mother’s. Everywhere. “He left me there. Bleeding out on the floor, with my mother’s body only a few feet away.” He still had nightmares about that day. Still woke up in a cold sweat, wishing he’d done something to save his mother. Wishing he couldn’t still smell her blood on his skin.

“But you survived.” Her fingers curled over the white scar. “You got out of there. You lived. ”

“A neighbor heard the gunshots. Called nine-one-one. I woke up in a hospital, my side stitched up, and found my grandfather sitting beside me.”

“And where was your father?” He caught the snap of anger in her voice—and the soft echo of pain, for him.

“Tracking Costa. He came to see me, once, in the hospital. He hugged me and told me that he regretted a lot of the things he’d done in his life.” His dad had been the same hard, stranger, but he’d also seemed…desperate. He’d put back on his wedding band, a ring Todd had never seen the man wear. “He told me then that ‘if you go too deep into the devil’s world, only darkness will fill you.’ It was the last thing he ever said to me.”

“Did he catch the man who’d shot you?” Quiet words in a beautiful face that was suddenly deadly.

The windows were still closed to the night. The magic wind had disappeared now. The air was strangely tense around him.

“Yeah, he caught him. Didn’t even try to bring him in. My dad shot Costa in the head and in the heart. Then he turned the gun on himself.”

Eighteen years on the force, and his dad had eaten his gun. And left him alone.

“I hated him for leaving me. For years, I didn’t understand why he’d done it—”

“He thought it was his fault,” she said, her voice soft. “Humans…do crazy things when guilt presses on them.”

This was the part he didn’t like to think about. “I blamed him, Cara. For my mother’s death. For me getting shot. If he’d just been at home, taking care of his family like he should have been doing, none of this would have ever happened.” The words came from the boy he’d been, though he liked to think the man knew better.

Yeah, he liked to think that. “When I first woke up and realized that my mom was gone, I wished it had been him instead of her.”

And he’d kept wishing that, even when his father had finally come to see him in the hospital. He’d wished it until…“His captain came to see me a few days after I was released. I was staying at my grandfather’s.” His mom’s father had been an affluent, somewhat reserved man who lived in one of the older, richer parts of Atlanta. He’d never approved of his only child marrying a cop, and he’d been fighting hard to get a custody hearing for Todd when the captain had come calling with his dark news.

“How did you feel, when you learned what had happened?” Her naked body pressed against his, and the flesh-on-flesh contact was strangely comforting. Her hand stroked his scar, softly, tenderly, and the mysterious eyes that stared into his held no censure.

Just patience. Warmth.

Warmth in darkness.

His skin didn’t seem quite so cold anymore, but inside, he still felt like his heart was encased in ice. “I was so f**king glad that Tony Costa was dead. So f**king glad.”