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When I was a kid, those impromptu days, sometimes weeks spent at the clubhouse seemed like a grand adventure, a cool reason to skip school. But as time went on and my understanding became clearer, they were more terrifying than fun. I didn’t know any better back then. I thought it was all normal, how every family lived their lives.
Until I met Luke and his picture-perfect family who did things like game night and family vacations and backyard barbecues. He was the last kid on the planet who deserved to take a stray bullet, but he had. And chances were good the reason his family hadn’t gotten any justice was because the shooter or his boss, had a cop or three on their payroll.
That was why I was here, to make sure that while the bad guys did their thing, the good guys did the same. Protect the innocent.
That meant I needed to do what Jenkins had advised and own both parts of myself. Even though I wasn’t a criminal, I did have insight into the way criminals thought and the steps they took to evade the law. I knew many of the players most cops didn’t even know to look for, and I would use that, use every tool at my disposal to become the best cop I could be.
It didn’t fucking matter what anyone thought about me, not even the Feds.
Results. Justice. Saving innocent lives.
Those were the things that mattered.
Chapter Seven
Madison
“You can’t expect to get over your grief so quickly, Calvin.” I sat cross-legged on the oversized chair in Cal’s suite of rooms with Ava Rose cooing in my arms, listening to Cal rant, his words swinging from angry to tearful.
“I don’t expect that I’ll ever get over the murder of my wife, Madison, but I do feel guilty. I feel responsible.” He stood and started pacing the length of the room, raking one hand and then the other to his already disheveled hair. “I should have listened when Ma told me to get her under control.”
I understood what he meant in the context of the Ashby family, but the fact was Bonnie had been a new member of the family, and she didn’t think that way.
The grief-ravaged face of my friend almost broke my heart, but it was time for some hard truths. “Uhm, sorry to tell you Cal, but that’s not how relationships work. You couldn’t have ordered her to do anything, especially if she was determined.”
I was quite sure the horror and sadness in Cal’s face spoke to the battle raging between his heart and his brain. “No, I could have, Maddie. She loved me, and she would have listened if I’d spoken up. But I didn’t. Instead of being a man and protecting her, keeping her safe, I chose to keep the peace.”
“Considering all the tension between your wife and your family, I understand why.” Maddie knew some serious hate-vibes existed between Bonnie and the Ashby women, and none of them had tried to hide it.
Cal stopped pacing and looked at me, eyes red and face splotchy from crying. “That’s my point. If I had put my foot down, there could have been peace for everyone, not just me.”
“Good point. But given everything she’d been through; don’t you think your mom and sister could have cut her a little slack?” I had a feeling that whatever Bonnie had been doing, she’d been trying to find a way to break free of the Ashby grip on her family.
“Yeah, and I’m so fucking pissed I can barely stand to look at them, Madison. But how does that help anything right now?”
“It means that you guys talk about family a lot, how important it is and all that jazz, but Bonnie was family, too. So what if she wasn’t blood? She was your family, the mother of your child, and she was hurting and no one came to her aid. If you failed her, so did everyone else.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “That’s still not helping, Madison.”
I shrugged. True, I thought, but no way I was going to let him take all the blame for her murder. “She’s dead, Cal. Nothing but a resurrection is going to help you feel better about that.”
“Vengeance. That’ll help.” Hate filled his gaze and every inch of his body, and I knew shit around here would get a lot worse before it got better.
“Shit, sometimes I wonder if I even loved her, or if I just loved that she was so broken that she loved me back.”
“No.” I shook my head and stood, bouncing Ava Rose as she started to fuss. “It’s not the time to think like that. It’s not productive, and it’s not what this little girl needs. She’s too young to even remember Bonnie, and you owe it to her to remember the good things about her and pass it on. Little girls need that.”
