I watch his fist ball again. He’s not paying enough attention, or maybe it’s simply because I’m handcuffed that he thinks he’s safe. The last second, as he pulling his fist back, I lunge at him.
Expecting it or not, when your forehead makes contact, it hurts, but I’m prepared for it. Darren, on the other hand, wasn’t. And he screams, staggering backwards as I look at him, laughing.
I know I look insane, because I can already feel the blood trickling down my face. But Darren’s holding his nose, and I heard the fucking cartilage cracking as I made contact. I know he’s in fucking pain, but it’s what he deserves.
And I fucking warned him.
“Just add assaulting an officer to the list of charges.” He groans out, nasally from the broken nose.
“Hmm.” I shrug, looking over at the cruiser to my left. “Pretty sure the dash cam got everything, including at least one of the gut punches you already got in.”
Eli stands in shock as he looks at me, and I smirk. “I’m thinking that him alone in a car with me is a pretty bad idea.”
Eli nods his head before looking down at Darren and nodding. “He’s right. I’ll take him up to the station. You take my car.”
I’m sure Darren’s grumbling about something else as I sit back down, sitting on the seat, before swinging my legs back into the car.
The door slams behind me and I’m not sure who exactly shuts it, nor do I care, but I find a fraction of relief when Eli actually gets into the driver’s seat and we pull away from where Darren is still pushing himself off of the ground.
“What did you do to piss him off that badly?”
“Told him the truth.” I see his eyes as he glances up in the mirror back at me. “Don’t worry, I kept your name out of it.”Even though I fucking shouldn’t have.
“I tried to call you this morning and give you a heads up, but no answer.”
Now, I feel like an asshole for debating whether I should have outed him. “Thanks man.” I let my guard down for the first time since the door burst open in the room. Watching Tatum’s eyes as they carried me out, watching her breakdown, I couldn’t let her see me afraid as well. “How bad is it?” It comes out as a whisper.
His eyes come back up and look at me in the rear-view mirror and I exhale, defeated, onto the seat.
“If I was to look just at the evidence without knowing everything… I would assume it was you.”
“What makes you think it wasn’t me?”
“You had no reason to kill him, and Darren knows that putting you in prison will hurt her. It’s his Hail Mary play.”
“They won’t let him take her back.”
“You know that. And I know that. But he has no fucking clue.”
?
I watch the car disappear through the gate and the rest of the cars following suit a few minutes afterwards.
“Don’t worry Tatum, they have nothing on him.”
“No, they do.” I whisper, looking over at Zeke, my eyes dropping to the ground.
“They can’t. He’s not that stupid. What could they even have on him?”
“Murder.” I look down, ashamed, knowing that this is all my fault.
“There’s no fucking way. We were all there. We made sure it was airtight.”
“That’s not the one.” Axe answers. “That was Tate’s husband.”
“That…” Zeke points where the cars had just disappeared through. “That was your husband.” He shakes his head, turning and walking away from us before he raises his arms, interlacing his fingers, resting them on his head, and looking up. “I thought my brother was at least smarter than that.”
“Zeke.” Axe calls after him.
