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I agreed with him, for the most part. “He could have made a decent cop if he had chosen that direction. But he went the mercenary route.”
Ethan sat down across from me, and I opened my eyes to look at him. He had a thoughtful look on his face. “Yet you haven’t turned him in. Why?”
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I had an answer. I shrugged. “I only worked with him because an influential and powerful man couldn’t find someone he loved, and he said Emerson and I working together was the best chance he had of getting her back. And I believed him. While she escaped on her own, we did catch—or, well, we killed—her kidnappers.
“If our positions had been reversed, I would have done anything to make sure my sister was safe, even if it meant relying on a criminal. I couldn’tnothelp, even if that meant working with a mercenary. After it was all over with, I had the opportunity to turn him in, but I couldn’t. He did the right thing and risked his life to help us find a kidnapped woman. He treated me well and was genuinely useful in tracking her down. He wanted to do the right thing, and I couldn’t have him arrested for that.”
We sat there silently for a few moments, both of us lost in our separate thoughts. My thoughts were on Alexi and our childhood and all the hard choices I had made to protect her. All the beatings I took to keep the attention off her were worth every bruise and broken bone. I had fought and stolen and cheated and done all sorts of illegal things to protect the two of us growing up, and I would do it again if I had to.
Thinking about the past was painful, so I tried to steer my thoughts back to the present, but my mind kept tripping over itself and reverting to the memories of my younger years, and the fact that my mother had probably murdered a man for abusing me. She had done something horrible, but she did it to protect me, so how different were we really? That didn’t justify everything else wrong she had done, but it did make me think that maybe, just maybe, she did love us in her own way. Maybe she didn’t have much love left in her, but some was still there.
I felt like I was going to cry, and I couldn’t stand to do that, so I shifted in my seat and forced myself to focus on Ethan. “Tell me something.”
He blinked, surprised. “What?”
“Just tell me something. Anything. Tell me a story.”
Perhaps my eyes were a little wet, or maybe he could hear the pain in my voice. He blinked rapidly while his brain processed the request, and then he nodded. “Okay.” He stood up and pulled his shirt over his head.
It was my turn to blink, and I sat up straighter. “What are you doing?”
My voice was slightly unsteady, and it irked me. I kicked myself internally for being so easily affected by him. Just because he was taking off his shirt didn’t mean anything. My mind wanted to run off in five different directions, but I forced it to halt and to pay attention.
He draped the shirt over the back of his chair, and I tried not to stare at his chest. It was hard not to, though. Between his smooth skin, defined muscles, and array of tattoos, my eyes didn’t know what to focus on. He was a bit thin, but still toned. He wasn’t a weightlifter by any means, but he was more in shape than I would have expected from a climatologist. He had held his own while fighting, so I shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Showing you one of my tattoos.”
I’d forgotten I had even asked him a question. I simply blinked at him, and he smiled, as though he knew how distracted I was. He pointed to his right side to a small tattoo. I frowned and squinted, barely making out what looked somewhat like a quarter moon with a circle attached to it.
“What is that?”
“It’s a symbol.” When he noticed me squinting, he walked over, took my hand, and pulled me to my feet. “It’s a symbol for platinum.”
“The metal?”
“Yes. In Novem culture, platinum represents strength, endurance, and determination.”
I snorted softly. “Everything is a symbol in your culture.”
He laughed. “You’re right. We’re very symbolic people.”
I studied the tattoo curiously. “Why platinum?”
“Before Sosa took over as Goliath, we were on a delivery. It was supposed to be routine, done it a thousand times, but this time another gang decided to pick a fight. They tried to wipe us out and steal our product. There were only about a dozen of us, and two went down immediately. I took a bullet, right here.” He took my hand and pressed my fingers to the center of the circle part of the tattoo. Even though I couldn’t see it, I could feel the ridge of scar tissue where the wound had healed.
“Sosa caught me as I went down, and our group retreated into a building. They had us pinned down, but we were a wily bunch, and we kept countering their attacks. We had a lot of firepower, which I don’t think they had anticipated. I didn’t participate in much of the fighting. I laid on the floor, mostly, while Sosa kept me safe and alive. We fought them for seven hours.”
My jaw dropped. “You were stuck without medical help forsevenhours?”
He nodded. “No one thought I’d make it.Ididn’t think I’d make it. Sosa wouldn’t let me give up, though. He treated my wounds the best he could, but the rest was up to me to maintain my will to survive. I held on. It was agony. I passed out for a little of it, but not much. When we finally beat them and a medic got to me, I had lost so much blood Sosa said I was a white man. I should have died, but I pulled through. Everyone said I had platinum bones. I shouldn’t have survived, but I did.”
“You endured.” It made sense. I ran my finger around the tattoo gently.How is his skin this smooth?“You survived.”
“That’s why I got this tattoo around the scar, to remind me I’m made of tougher stuff than I thought.” He smiled softly. “My bones—and my will—are platinum.”
I couldn’t imagine being shot and having to lay there for seven hours, thinking I could die at any second. I’d been through a lot, so I could empathize to an extent, but I couldn’t imagine the grit it would take to survive something like that.
“Well, I for one am very glad you didn’t give up.” I tilted my head back to meet his eyes. They were intense and focused on me. I almost wanted to take a step back, but I didn’t. “I’m not sure I would have survived that.”
