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“Wait,” I interrupted, the small but uttered strongly enough to get the attention of the men in the room. “You think that Robert set the fire?”
Robert wouldn’t be sick enough to try and kill his son. Me, maybe. But Nathan? No. He couldn’t.
“The fire department hasn’t even come to a conclusion on what started the fire yet. And when they do, it’ll be me that caused this. I just forgot to blow out a candle.” There was an edge of desperation to my voice now. I was willing these men to believe that it was an accident from me rather than malicious intent from the father of my child that caused the fire.
Keltan’s look was even and kind. I appreciated it that he schooled it so it wasn’t full of pity. I knew the pity was there. In everyone. Of course these people pitied the woman who had her son kidnapped by an abusive ex, the woman who waitressed to make ends meet. The woman who now had nowhere to live and was at the mercy of a silent badass who’d carried her out of the fire and kissed her.
“Duke’s got experience with arson,” he explained, voice patient. Soft.
I looked to Duke, and despite the situation, I raised my brow, face teasing. “You a firebug in high school?” I asked, smile in my voice, if at least there wasn’t one on my face.
He smiled at me. “Somethin’ like that, babydoll.”
Lance stiffened behind him, I wasn’t sure if it was my teasing tone, Duke’s smile, or the ‘babydoll’, maybe a combination. Regardless, he had no right to be jealous if that’s what this was.
I definitely didn’t have a right to feel glad about his possible jealousy.
“Duke went in this morning, before the fire department came back,” Keltan continued. “Fire started in the kitchen, you burn candles in there?”
I shook my head.
“Leave the oven on?” Keltan probed.
I shook my head again.
“Front door was jammed shut,” Keltan continued. “Not obviously. Something that might’ve been missed.”
Shit. I remembered it. Not being able to open the door. How could I forget that feeling of naked panic at not having an escape from the fire?
I simply hadn’t thought on it.
Or I had forced myself not to think about it.
“Guessin’ he did it himself, or hired someone,” Keltan continued. “Wouldn’t have gone in the house. Either he knows the security system is tight, or he didn’t want the risk of bein’ caught inside, evidence tying him here. He was stupid enough to think that the town fire department wouldn’t look into it. But we are. He knows you’ve got people on you, ‘cause we made sure he knew. We know he’s a stupid fuck, ‘cause he took a woman like you, a kid like Nathan—two things he should treasure beyond all else—and he fucked that over. That’s beyond stupid. Then, he took your boy. Put his hands on you. More fuckin’ stupid. Colossal. He got bested by us. Realized you’re not as weak as he convinced himself you were. Realized you were stronger than him all along. We know someone started this on purpose. And unless you’ve got some secret life we don’t know about—impossible ‘cause we know everything—it was him.”
There was a lot said in that moment. There was information. A shitload of it. And there was respect. Keltan respected me. He was making that clear. In his badass, hot guy way. It wasn’t mushy in the slightest, but I had to bite back tears regardless.
“My ex-husband tried to burn me alive,” I whispered. “My ex-husband tried to burn my son alive,” my voice fractured on the last words.
Lance stepped forward, death glaring Duke as he tried to do the same. “Elena,” he said, voice as gentle as I’d ever heard it.
I ignored this. Because there was something else happening inside me. Something breaking. Something getting stronger, I wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.
I looked to Keltan. “You got a number for him?”
Keltan blinked. “Elena, I’m not sure that’s a good—”
“You got a number?” I repeated.
He nodded once.
“In your phone?”
Another nod.
I held out my hand, request clear enough so I didn’t need to speak. Good God, I was spending so much time around Lance, I was turning into him, with all these nonverbal, hard-faced demands.
I didn’t know what he’d gone through in his life, but it was sharp, puncturing, it had sanded him down so he was all sharp edges. Life had done enough to me so I might have been hard edges too, if it hadn’t given me things to make me soft. If it hadn’t given me Nathan. And my son almost frickin’ died. Because of a man who had tormented and abused me.
I was nothing but a sharp edge at this moment.
“Elena,” Lance said, now standing so close to me, the warmth of his body made my own flush. His scent assaulted me. Both of these things, in addition to that same harsh softness to his voice would have made soft Elena little more than his slave, but I was hard Elena so I was unfazed.
