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I’m a bad man. I do what I want—take what I want—and the whole damn world lets me because I have a badge.
It’s the perfect disguise, too. As much as cops get shit on, there’s a reason so many of us turn out to be garbage. Something about the job calls to a certain type of twisted soul, and I answered the call when I realized it gave me a cover to the darkness inside of me.
People see the uniform first. The gun next. Sometimes the cuffs, or the badge. Rarely do they pay attention to the man instead of the symbol, and that’s exactly how I like it.
I’m the one who gets to watch. To observe.
To judge.
Angela Havers thinks I’m a good guy. The friendly cop that patrols outside of Louise’s Florals, the small florist shop in the middle of my beat. You wouldn’t think flowers would be a big draw in the middle of such a rough-and-tumble neighborhood on the edge of Springfield. You’d be wrong. People seem to appreciate the spot of brightness in the middle of a concrete jungle.
Me? I only give a shit about my pretty little florist.
Seven years my junior, she has an innocence about her that makes her seem even younger. At least until you get a good look at her lovely hazel eyes and realize that they’re haunted.
She’s seen some shit, but it didn’t break her. She’s still my angel. Sweet and tender and so utterly delicious, she makes my mouth water for a taste that I can’t have unless I want to devour her whole.
She’s kind, too. As a cop, I’m used to getting comped. Freebies are part and parcel of having the badge, especially when half the territory you’re patrolling is full of criminals, the other made up of the good folk who like the facade that we’re here to protect them.
Maybe my fellow cops are. Me? From the moment she shyly flagged me down months ago, offering me a single daisy to brighten my day, I’ve only ever cared about keeping one soul safe. Of watching her, of learning all her secrets, of obsessing over the moment I could find a way to make her mine.
My angel.
At the very least, she needs the protection. Her innocence blinds her to just how dangerous Springfield can be. I know that all too well. Lowlife crooks scatter around the city like cockroaches, looking up to gang leaders like the dark figure who conducts his business out of the aptly named Devil’s Playground.
Meanwhile, Devil himself thinks he rules the streets as easily as he controls his club, his runners, his girls, and his business—and for a favor here and there, and a weekly deposit into my checking account, that’s perfectly fine with me.
So long as none of his men set their eyes on my woman.
I let it be known that she’s under my protection. Anyone who even looks twice knows what’s coming for them, and while Lincoln Crewes might be known as the Devil of Springfield, the brawling gangster at least hassomemorals.
I have fuckingnone.
Which is why, after slipping into her apartment building one afternoon months ago, going up to her floor on the pretense that I was answering a fictitious call, I was pleased to see that she had a decent deadbolt lock on it. I’d slit the throat of anyone who thought to hurt my angel, but that wouldn’t mean anything if I lost her before I could make her mine.
But while she’s got the deadbolt covered, what was the point when she doesn’t bother shutting up her windows? It’s like a fucking invitation to the worst of us, cop or criminal. Anyone with bad intentions could sneak up the fire escape and let themselves into the sanctuary of her bedroom.
Which is why I spend nearly every night I can climbing into her apartment, standing guard over her as she sleeps.
I find peace in her snuffling snores, and rage in her frequent nightmares.
She’s been hurt. My innocent flower has scars she carries deep that only come out when she’s sleeping. Her whimpers have me reaching for my gun every goddamn time.
I don’t have a name. Can’t get one, either, without showing my hand. So, forcing myself calm no matter what it takes, I vow that, if any bastard tries to hurt her again, I’ll be there to show him what true justice looks like.
And if I ever get the name of the prick who already did?
He’ll live to regret it.
Oh, wait. Hewon’t.
I never stay in her shabby studio apartment for long. A few hours—when the worst of the worthless crooks in Springfield are up to no good, and Devil and his goons run the night—before I begrudgingly head back to my empty bed across town; it’s not my home, but a place I put my head down between patrols. I have a hunting cabin—myrealhome—up in the hills for when the city life turns me feral and I need some peace before I go rabid, but I haven’t gone back since the daisy wilted and died, and I started to worry that the same thing might happen to my precious angel.
The cabin is just too far from her. What would I do if she needed me and I was an hour away? Hell no. I have to keep close because, given how sweet and innocent yet broken she is deep down, the wrong sort of man is attracted to a woman like her.
Ask me how I fucking know.
