AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sounds good.”
She steps into the other room and closes the door.
The next couple of hours pass in a hazy rush of activity.
We leave the apartment together and I barely even register the crowds as we weave our way through the city streets to get back to the agency. I give Leanne my bedroom key once I let them into the apartment, and then I excuse myself.
“I don’t usually leave the agency without checking on anything for a few days. I’ll be downstairs for a few hours, sorting through emails and calls.”
“Do you want help?” Toshi asks, sounding vaguely concerned.
I shake my head. “I won’t be doing any real work, just keeping up to date with anything that might become more urgent later.”
“Oh, okay,” he says.
“Have fun,” Leanne tells me, kissing my cheek before I go.
I close the door and listen to Toshi locking it before I head down the spiral staircase to the back door of the agency. I pick through my keys and have the right one ready by the time I reach the bottom.
Echo thinks it’s spooky down here with the lights out, but a little darkness never bothered me.
I lock the door behind me, because it’s still the city we’re talking about.
I might not be afraid of the supernatural, but there are scarier things in Cressidan City.
The file I’m looking for is still in my office, on my desk, where I left it when I was still thinking that Leanne might be able to get that damned jar for us.
That fucking jar. It contains the only evidence that my mother’s death was murder.
It won’t bring her back from the dead, and it won’t necessarily point the police to whoever Harlan sold her to before he threw her off the roof of his building.
All that jar ever really did was drive a wedge between my father and I.
It was insane to keep chasing Harlan after that, but I did, because what else did I have?
A dead mother, and a business partner who wasn’t sure about my mental stability.
Not much. I wanted this win. I needed it. So, I chased it, and when Leanne went for a job at Anchor West, it felt like fate was telling me that win was getting closer. I knew she would get that job. And I also knew she would work for me. Everything felt like it was falling into place.
It was perfect. My new mate would help us finally nail that bastard.
Then, we could all live happily ever after while that prick rotted away behind bars.
Unfortunately, that’s a fairytale ending, and life isn’t a fairytale.
Life is hard, it’s brutal, and you have to protect what’s yours if you want it to survive and thrive.
I can’t send Leanne into that viper pit. I can’t risk her safety for the sake of a piece of evidence that might no longer exist. She’s mine to protect. She’s worth more to me than this job, and she’s worth more than that evidence.
Spencer might think I’m a heartless monster, and maybe there have been times when he was right.
Maybe I lost my heart a little bit. Maybe I lost my way.
The bitterness of this world seeped into my soul a long time ago.
I’ve seen so much evidence of the terrible things that people do to each other.
I’ve helped track down murderers and rapists, stalkers and child abusers.
