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“I’m less worried about ensuring a fucking heir,” I snarl, “and more concerned with what that type of trauma would do to your body. I’m not asking for a kid. I’m asking to know the real you.”
“I don’t know.” Lying flat again, she buries her face in the pillows. “I’ve chosen a career that doesn’t lend toward families, Archer. I’m busy. I’m professional. I have responsibilities at work. If I ever decided I would like a kid later in life, that discussion would come when I’m forty-five and probably interviewing surrogates.”
I narrow my eyes to dangerous slits. “Life expectancy for people with hemophilia?”
“Jesus Christ.” She pushes up from the bed and leaves the bedroom so I’m left with nothing but a memory.
She steps into the bathroom and shouts through the door, “Normal! So long as I stick to my routine. Chances are, your stupid ass, chasing bad guys with guns, will probably die before me.”
Then she opens the door and pokes her head into the hall. “Don’t die, Malone.”
My lips twitch.She cares.She cares more than she can accept. And the fact she does injects me with a sense of euphoria more satisfying than anything synthetic my father thought his sons should try. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll make sure you end up in my autopsy room,” she bites out. “Then I’ll shove a cactus up your ass and cut off your cock. I know you’d be mad about being buried a eunuch.”
“But you’d be at the funeral, right?” Climbing from the bed, I swagger into the hall and place my hand on the door to stop her from locking me out. “You’d be there, front and center and broken-hearted because you want me back.”
“If you say so.” Rolling her eyes, she turns away and leaves me standing alone. “I’m having a shower, then I’ll be ready to go to work.”
“Let me join you.” I nudge the door open, despite her over-the-shoulder glare, and follow her all the way in. “Economize our time and water.”
“Takes the same amount of both.” But she reaches over and flips the taps on. “Have you heard from Fletcher?”
And just like that, my cock turns soft.
“I don’t enjoy talking about him when we’re in the shower together.”
Stepping under the spray and tipping her head so the water pushes her hair back, she sniggers. “I like talking about him. He’s cute.”
“He’s about to be dropped into the ocean with cement shoes if you don’t cut that shit out.”
Pausing, she looks across at me and smirks. “That’s very… mafia of you, Malone.”
She likes to tease. And she’s quick enough, beautiful enough, I actually enjoy it. There’s not another soul on this planet so blasé to discuss my past the way she does. But she makes it fun. She makes it a game, and not a threat I have to deal with.
“A man doesn’t forget where he comes from.” I pump soap into my hands and go to work trailing it over her torso. “You know my secret. And now I know yours. The perfect power exchange. But to answer your question, I spoke to Fletch and Aubree late yesterday afternoon.”
She hums in the back of her throat as my hand moves lower. Lower. “And?”
“We’re trying to get the warrant. We know who hurt that little girl. We just have to prove it and get that asshole off the streets.”
“And if no one approves the warrant? Or if he finds the diary first and destroys it?”
“Then we’re fucked,” I admit. “It’s hard going toe to toe with our own boss’ family. If the mayor wants him protected, he can make it damn near impossible for us to get close enough to do anything about it.”
“If the mayor fucks with your investigation and protects a murderer, then he’s as guilty as Garry.”
“Pretty much.” I nudge Minka around and help her rinse the suds from her skin. “Though the law won’t see it that way. Tribble will stand behind red tape, possibly even dropping me and Fletch down to parking meter duty as revenge, and Garry will get to walk. Eventually, the evidence will be destroyed, and our case will be shoved in a drawer by the chief, never to be opened again.”
“At which point,” she counters with a playful grin, “maybe someone can call the vigilante.” Smirking, she looks up at me. “They get the job done.”
“That’s not how the law works either,” I growl. “Killing a murderer doesn’t make the vigilante any less of a murderer. In the end, that case has to be solved and the perp convicted. When it’s all said and done, thisherowill spend their life behind bars too. And for what?”
“Mm.” Pumping soap into her hand, she lifts her proud chin. “Turn. I’ll wash your back.”
My cock hardens without my permission, but I spin and rest my forearms on the wall above my head.
She runs her hands along my back, dragging her nails over my skin until my muscles bunch and release. “And I think the answer to that is justice.”
