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“Tell me.” She leans forward, slowly stroking my arm.
“The other man was still in the bedroom when I confronted them. After he heard us fighting for a little while, he snapped, I guess.”
It’s a rotten memory I’ve kept locked away in a vault.
Serena’s betrayal was one thing, but this was so different.
So fucking unnecessary.
The Marines showed me plenty of gruesome shit, everything from half-starved kids to charred human flesh.
Active duty does that to every man who steps into a combat zone, I suppose, but this didn’t happen on a barricaded Fallujah street where you’d expect it. This ambush happened right in my own home.
“I told Serena I loved her—as well as I ever could. I always had. But she didn’t feel the same way anymore. We were too broken, too damaged. Too fucking betrayed. I was ready to walk away from the flaming wreck of our marriage and give her the divorce she wanted. Then her lover boy came barreling out with a gun.”
Destiny stops breathing.
She’s not the only one.
“Obviously, I tried to get her clear, push her out of his path, but the man was crazed—and clearly, he hadn’t fired anything at a living person before. He pulled the trigger anyway. Shot Serena before I could get her on the ground. The bullet ricocheted and grazed me.”
Deathly silence now.
Maybe she knows just getting this out is killing me.
Then her small hand comes up to my face, fluttering, and stops on that faded line on my cheek. I nod like my head weighs more than a boulder.
“She died instantly,” I say coldly. “The man was still there, staring in disbelief. I knocked him out cold before he could do more damage, tried to resuscitate her, called the cops, EMTs, the works. But when he woke up, he claimed I provoked the fight. He insistedIshot her in a jealous fit and because I had PTSD. Lying fuckrat.”
She’s too stunned for words, but her hand tightens on my arm, so small yet so soothing.
“There was a massive scandal. With my past, people thought I did it—it’s not unheard of. In crime of passion murders, it’s often the partner. And she was unfaithful, after all. There was a big investigation and it went to trial.”
“While you were still grieving,” she murmurs, shaking her head sharply.
“It was rough. I had to face up to her betrayal and death and the fact that I was being accused of her murder. I also had the media up my ass for—”
I stop.
Goddamn, where do I even begin with myotherdirt?
“My past. It always comes back to that.”
She looks at me, her eyes glassy with confusion.
“I don’t understand. What past?” she asks so gently.
I sigh out my soul.
“You’re too young and you’re not a crime geek. Don’t suppose you’ve heard of Aidan Murphy?”
She shakes her head.
“He was my uncle and almost like a father to me, after my real dad died. He was also a heartless, bullying, drug-dealing fuck who spent his last years in prison after he was busted as head of the Irish outfit all the way up the Pacific Coast.” I smile unevenly. “I was only seventeen when he went down, right after he drew me into his world. I also helped put his ass away by helping the Feds connect the dots.”
“Holy crap. Um, is there any movie you haven’t lived?” She looks at me fiercely. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I was young and I spent a year in witness protection before I enlisted to sort my shit out. My family also lost damn near everything as the Feds combed through assets, trying to find out where Uncle Aidan’s dirt ended and ours began. Point is, his trial was a big deal. So big that I had to hire a small army of reputation managers to clean up my history with it before Home Shepherd was ever a thought. Still, there’s always a few breadcrumbs somewhere. A few people really into the mob stuff who remember. I was already fabulously rich, a rising star in the business world when the shooting with Serena and her killer happened. You can imagine the shit show when the reporters found out about the Irish mob connection.”
