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“Fuck.” He’s pacing now, moving back and forth like an agitated cat. “I know you can handle yourself. This isn’t... I didn’t say it because you’re a woman, all right? It’s got nothing to do with that.”
“Then what is it, huh? Would you have busted in on Max?”
“Probably.” He lets out a sharp laugh. “Once a worry gets in my head...”
“I work on the street every day dealing with the community. Dealing with bad people. I know what I’m doing.” My tone is a bit softer now that he’s calmed down. “I’m good at my job and Idon’tmake dumb rookie moves.”
When he looks up at me, I see something I’ve never seen before. Darkness. Owen’s eyes are peering into another world—something beyond me—that’s filled with pain. It’s his history, the past he never speaks of.
“Look, I should have given you more warning. I’ll concede to that.” I touch his arm. “But you don’t have to worry about me, okay? I was trained by the best.”
“I can’tnotworry, Anderson. It’s why I left.” He stalks over to the kitchen and flicks on the coffee machine with such aggression it’s like the appliance has personally offended him.
“What do you mean?”
His back is to me. The black leather jacket makes him look even bigger, tougher. Blue jeans cup his ass and thighs, shaping his muscular legs to perfection. The back of his wavy blond hair is mussed. He’s run his fingers through it one too many times. God, he’s beautiful. From every angle. But spending this much time with him has shown me there’s a tenderness beneath the joker exterior. A damaged part he does his best to hide.
The silence is broken by the hum of the coffee machine. “Owen?”
“I left because I couldn’t handle the thought that I might...lose a friend on the job.” He still hasn’t faced me. “And I was right, wasn’t I? How long after I left did we lose Ryan in that raid? It happened within weeks.”
I remember the story like it was yesterday. Ryan was a young officer on the rise—smart, action-oriented, brave. He, Max and Owen were nicknamed the Three Stooges during our academy days. But Ryan was killed during a raid because he went against orders, thinking he heard a child crying inside a drug lab. His story was a warning to recruits—don’t be impulsive,neverdisobey an order. In fact, Max had taken Ryan’s death so hard he’d also left his job for a period of time, following Owen to New York City. Difference was, Max returned home to give it another shot.
“Why didn’t you come back for the funeral?” I ask.
“I couldn’t.” He turns around, his jaw tight. Eyes faraway. “I couldn’t stand to be around death anymore. It follows me everywhere.”
I want to run to him, because my heart is shattering into a million pieces. I want to fix him, put him back together. I want to do whatever I can to make him whole.
“Don’t.” He holds up a hand. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you think I’m a project.”
“What happened to you?” I’m closer now, as though someone has my feet connected to a remote control. As though he’s a magnet and I’m being drawn to him against my better judgement. “When you were young, what happened?”
“You really want to know?” His eyes are so blue it almost hurts to look at them. But they’re red-rimmed now, wild and angry and sad and terrified. “You want every sordid detail, huh? Well, I should have fucking died the night my parents did. I should have been gutted and robbed like they were.”
“What?” I shake my head.
“My father was working in Papua New Guinea for a big bank. We were supposed to be there for two years while he was CEO. One night we were going to a charity gala. My mother was dressed to the nines and covered in diamonds, and my father looked at her like she was the most beautiful creature in the universe.” He swallows, his hands curling into fists. “My brother and I were going with them. It was the first time we were able to go, because there’d been threats against us. Kidnapping threats. It was common, we were told. Desperate people trying to make money any way they could.”
My stomach swishes and I clamp my hand over my mouth. “Kidnapping?”
“And worse. The night of the gala I was sick, and my mother wanted to cancel. But she was already dressed up, and my brother was so excited. I convinced them to go, told them to have a good time because I wanted to stay home and play video games on my own without my little brother bugging me.” His jaw twitches. “Since my ticket wasn’t going to be used they took Lillian.”
“Who’s Lillian?” I search my brain for the name but come up empty.
“She was my girlfriend. Her dad was my father’s chief of staff, and so when he took the job in PNG, her family came with us. She was...” He swallowed. “She was my first everything. I was so in love with her, I’d told my father I was going to marry her the second I turned eighteen. In fact, I was the one who suggested they take her with them that night—because she had this new dress and she looked so fucking beautiful in it. I wanted the world to see how beautiful she was.”
Oh no. I feel my eyes well, the path of his story laid out like a horrible, twisted road in front of me. I can see when he talks about her, that hewasso in love. That he’s still so in pain.
“Their usual driver was sick, so they had a different guy. Apparently he went off the approved route, and they were stopped by a group of men. They robbed my parents, but something went wrong. Maybe my father fought back? They ended up killing everyone in the car. My mother, my father, my brother, my girlfriend...everyone I cared about.”
I can only stare for a minute while my brain catches up. It’s like I’m swimming through mud, trying to understand how Owen is even standing right now. How he’s even functioning. My mum ran off with another man when I was twelve and it shook me to my core. But it also shaped me—made me determined to be the best person I could be. Determined to show the world I was fine without her, and that my dad and brothers were all I needed. It made me driven, ambitious, hardworking.
But to lose one’s entire family... I can’t even comprehend what my life would be like. WhatIwould be like.
