Page 37 of Playing With Temptation

In the years I’d known Ethan Lenox, I’d seen him angry, enraged even, but I’d never seen him vibrate with fury. I’d also only ever known him as a choirboy when it came to policy and procedures. Therefore, I was taken totally off guard when he stepped closer to the bed and in a harsh murmur, stated, “Fuck the tree.”

“Ethan—”

He cut me off to tell me, “All my life I knew I was gonna be a cop. I never regretted not joining the military or working for TC. I’m serving just like my dad and uncles. Just doing it in a different uniform. But today is the closest I’ve felt to regret. I want justice for the girl who was pulled out of a pond but right now, I want the man who put a bullet in my partner more, and if that means Dylan works his magic in a not-so-legal way, we’ll deal with it. But I want a starting point, and I want that by tomorrow morning, not in two weeks after uniforms go door to door and hope someone gives us footage from their doorbell cameras without a warrant, or we wait with our thumbs up are asses while someone in tech gets us traffic cams.”

He wasn’t wrong. It could take weeks for us to get access to traffic cameras in the area. And if someone didn’t want to hand over recordings, they didn’t have to.

“It doesn’t need to be said, I have no issue with Dylan getting his intel however he comes by it. And if it was just me, I wouldn’t give a fuck. But we’ve got a dead Jane Doe⁠—”

“And we’ll take care of her. Or I will because you’re on leave until those staples come out of your hard-ass head.”

Evidently my head wasn’t hard enough.

“I was hoping I hallucinated Captain Anderson coming in telling me I had ten days mandatory administrative leave.”

At the time of her arrival, I’d been pretty hopped up on pain meds. I could show up to work tomorrow and tell her I didn’t remember her stopping by.

“If you’re thinking about showing up to work tomorrow and telling her you have no recollection of talking to her, think again. She came in with Whittman who was in uniform and she asked him to turn on his body camera.”

Fuck.

“Seriously?”

“C’mon, Jase. Before she was promoted to captain she sat in the same bullpen as us. She knows you. Besides, you were going on and on about how happy you were she got promoted and how much you love working with her and how great she was. Then there was the part where you went into great detail about how you think we need more K9 units.”

We did need more K9 units.

“You’re fuckin’ with me.”

At least I hoped he was.

“Nope.”

“And you didn’t stop that shit?”

Ethan’s face took on a hard edge. “Wasn’t here. I was out looking for the motherfucker who put a round through your shoulder.”

At this juncture I wasn’t sure who was more pissed I’d been shot—him or me.

What I was certain of was, Ethan Lenox was a good man, a good partner, and as loyal as the day was long.

“Now, we gonna talk about how Rainy tore out of here looking like you ripped her soul from her body?”

I clenched my jaw and shook my head.

“Nope.”

“Jase—”

“I fucked up. Nothing more to say.”

Even though I said that, Ethan didn’t agree.

“You gonna fix it?”

My throbbing head started to pound.

“I don’t know.”