“He’s not getting away with it,” Jack assures us, his gaze traveling over each of us. “I can promise you that.”
Chapter 28
Anastasia
I’m still trembling.
It’s been three hours since we left the police station, and I can’t seem to get myself under control. Shouldn’t I be relieved? Grateful that they caught the guy who murdered my friend, tried to kill Sawyer and Jack, and has been after me?
But it’s not relief I feel.
It’s this twisting reminder in my gut of that night I found her. Because I saw those pictures. The ones they tried to hide from Weston and me. They’d been scattered all over the floor in the fight, left there for everyone to see.
A strangled sob leaves me, and I sink to the floor of my bathroom.
God, please help me. Please, Lord. It hurts.
How can it still hurt so bad?
I’d been looking for her. Stumbling around in the dark, injured and bleeding, trying to get to my friend. And I’d tripped over her body.
Fallen to the ground right beside her.
And he’d been there. Right there. Watching me the whole time.
My shoulders shake, and my chest burns with the force of my pain. Weston had to have seen those pictures, too. He’d been forced to face that monster just like I had, and seeing him lose it like that—he’d been completely out of control.
Lost to his rage.
While I’d stood there and stared at the man who murdered my friend.
He looks so ordinary. Like anyone I could pass on the street. How many times did I see him? Shouldn’t I have known?
Violet would have.
She was always so good at reading people.
Is that why he killed her? Was he at that party? Did she want to leave because she knew what he was? Because she sensed he was a bad guy?
The door to my bathroom opens slowly, and I turn my face to look at Sawyer through my tears. His expression is hard, his gaze full of pain.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“For what?”
Sawyer kneels in front of me. “That he killed her. That you found her. That you had to see those pictures. And that I didn’t move fast enough to remove him from this world forever.”
My eyes fill all over again, making it impossible to see. But I can feel Sawyer as he sits beside me. “It’s not your fault.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not sorry, baby.” He pulls me into his lap, cradling me in strong arms that I know would move the world for me if I needed him to.
“It just hurts so bad, Sawyer. I should be relieved that he’s been caught, but tonight was just a reminder of that moment when I found her. And to know he was there? Why didn’t he just kill me, too? Why did he let me live, only to come after me now?”
“We may never know, Anastasia. But Jack and Leopold will find out as much as they can.”
I nod. Jack stayed back at the precinct with Leopold while the rest of us left. Zane went to relieve Ryker so he could handle Weston, who took off from the precinct and hasn’t been seen since.
Tonight felt an awful lot like ripping open an old wound, just to throw salt into the torn flesh. But maybe it’s also the first step to healing. Maybe we’ll be able to finally lay all of this to rest.
