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“For what?” Rhys said casually – too casually.
“So no one you were close to?”
“Not really. One of my foster brothers and I joined the army at the same time, but he stayed in after I finished my last tour and we lost touch. What about you?”
Finn stiffened. He hadn’t meant for the conversation to swing towards him. But fair was fair. He couldn’t very well expect Rhys to open up if he wasn’t willing to do the same. “My mom left when I was seven. I never knew why – one day she was there, one day she wasn’t. And I already told you about my dad.”
“You said he beat the shit out of you. What happened?” Rhys asked softly.
Finn quickly told him about what had happened between him and Hunter.
“So your dad didn’t know you were gay before that?”
Finn shook his head. “It honestly never occurred to me to tell him. We were so close that I figured he wouldn’t care. I guess reading people has never been my strong suit,” Finn said with a self-deprecating laugh.
“You read me pretty well,” Rhys said. Before Finn could respond, Rhys asked, “What happened after your dad heard about you and the mayor’s son?”
“After Cal fixed everything with the cops, he took me home. My dad and I lived in the foreman’s house – that little one next to ours – and Cal dropped me off and said he’d check back in with me after my dad and I had a chance to talk. I didn’t even get to tell my Dad my side of the story – he just started hitting me the second I walked in the door. Kept calling me a faggot. I guess Cal must have waited outside or something because he was the one who pulled him off of me. I’m not sure what happened after that. Cal doesn’t really talk about it. I woke up in the hospital and Cal told me Dad was gone. I heard he got a job at a ranch in Wyoming, but not really sure.”
They rode in silence for a while before Rhys said, “You can ask me, you know.”
“Ask you what?” Finn said even though he knew.
Rhys snorted and said. “I went to prison for assaulting another cop. My partner.”
“What did he do?”
Rhys shot him a sharp look. “What makes you thinkhedid something?”
“Dunno – guess you don’t strike me as the type to go after someone unless you were provoked.” Rhys was silent for a long time, studying him until Finn felt the need to squirm in his saddle.
“He used our personal relationship to sell information on one of my CIs,” Rhys finally said.
“CI?”
“Confidential Informant. I worked Narcotics and busted a kid for possession. Turned out that he’d gotten mixed up with a gang and witnessed the murder of a rival dealer so I worked with the DA to get the kid a deal. The dealer he’d been working for was someone the Feds had been trying to put away for years so they agreed to put him in protective custody until the trial, then Witness Protection.”
“What happened?” Finn asked when Rhys fell silent, seeming to get lost in the past.
“My partner on the force was also my lover. I trusted him one hundred percent so when he came to my place I never even thought to put away the information I had on my CI. Turned out my partner had been working for the dealer for years and he sold the kid’s location to him. The kid, his mother and his protective detail were murdered the day before the trial. The dealer walked away scot free.”
“Fuck,” Finn whispered.
“I was one of only a few people who knew where the kid had been stashed so I knew the leak could have come from me. Tom was the only person in my life that could have been involved so I confronted him. He admitted it. Said no one would believe a rookie cop’s word over someone who’d been on the force for fifteen years. I just wish I’d killed the fucker before they pulled me off of him.” The venom in Rhys’ voice was chilling.
Finn moved his horse closer to Rhys’ so their legs brushed together and that seemed to pull the other man out of the dark place he’d gone. “What happened to him?” Finn asked.
“He spent three weeks in coma. Woke up just in time to watch me get sentenced to four years in prison. He was right – I had no proof and he had a stellar reputation. I ended up taking a plea deal that made it possible to get a sentence that gave me chance at parole. Said all the right things at my parole hearing.”
“How long were you in there for?”
“Two years. Spent most of it in solitary since being a cop in prison doesn’t make you a lot of friends,” Rhys said with a bitter laugh.
Finn shuddered at what Rhys was saying. He reached down and grabbed the mare’s reins and pulled her to a stop, then put his hand over one of Rhys’.
“I’m sorry, Rhys. I’m sorry that happened to you.”
ChapterFour
