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That night was months before I met Katie. So, it couldn’t have been premeditated. Could it? Not unless she was trying to get close to the chief.
“Jackson…” Katie’s voice broke through my musings.
“Yeah, darlin’,” I said as if I hadn’t been buried in the fucking shitshow of that night in that parking lot.
“Jackson, the detective asked about Michelle—Nina,” Katie said.
“Sorry, Detective. What was the question?”
“You knew Nina Weldon, correct?”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t know her. We hooked up once, in Nashville several months before I met Katie the first time.”
“When you say hooked up, what do you mean?” he asked.
I stared at him incredulously.
Is he fucking serious?
I glanced at my family members and then at Katie. They were all aware of my lascivious past but detailing it in front of them wasn’t something I wanted to do.
“Jackie boy, answer the man,” my grandfather ordered.
I sighed. “What I mean by hook up is the guys on the team and I were killin’ time in Nashville on our way to a race. We decided to hit up a bar, and she came on to me. I fucked her in the bathroom and then took her out to the truck and fucked her there as well. She got pissed off when I declined breakfast with her the next morning. I didn’t even know her name until we were nearly abducted in New York. I had no clue she was related to Katie until she and Neil had an argument outside the room they tortured us in.”
Katie squeezed my arm that she had in a death grip. I didn’t think she could squeeze my arm any tighter to her, but she did. We were sitting in our go-to position. My hand was between her legs just above her knee, gripping her inner thigh, and she wedged herself behind my shoulder. I squeezed her leg in reassurance.
Katie knew about the incident. She knew it was a part of my past that I was ashamed of. That made me make some changes to my life. She knew that the months I’d spent celibate after that were due to that incident, and without them, I didn’t think I’d have been ready for Katie Carter to bust down the doors to my heart and rattle the windows to my soul.
“Did your encounter with her end amicably?”
Jesus fucking Christ. Can we please change the subject?
I huffed before I said, “Until she started making plans for us as if we were now dating or some shit, yes, it was amicable. After I told her I wasn’t interested in her that way, no.”
“So, you had no inclination that she meant you any ill will?” Detective Blanchard asked.
I shook my head. “No, sir. I didn’t expect to ever see her again. Not even after Katie and I started seeing each other. Nashville’s a pretty big place. I figured the chance we’d even bump into one another would be slim to none.”
“So, you hooked up with your girlfriend’s sister?”
I felt Katie go rigid behind me. “Months before I met my girlfriend and without any knowledge that they were related.”
“Do you typically pickup random women you don’t know whose name you cannot recall?”
An explosion detonated in my chest and head as his words washed over me. Anger burned through the wreckage.
How dare that motherfucker…
My dad stood. In the place of the worried father we’d all seen the last few days stood the deadly Marine Colonel with a SpecialOps background and training. His back was ramrod straight, arms crossed over his chest. His presence was made even more foreboding when my uncle and grandfather, both former Navy SEALs, stood behind him.
His voice remained calm, but the threat was blatant as he said, “Detective, do you have any further questions that would be helpful to the investigation? If not, then I suggest you take your leave because, while they are willing to help in any way they can, neither Jackson and Katie, nor their family, are willing to allow y’all to denigrate the victims.”
Detective Blanchard stood. “One last question…Katie, did you know your mother was aware you had two siblings?”
Katie gasped and buried her head behind my shoulder. My shirt grew damp with her tears. With every drop, the anger that had erupted with the detective’s asinine questions grew into a raging inferno, choking out all reason. If it hadn’t been for Katie using me to shield her from all the shit being slung at us, I’d have used the good detective as fucking practice for what I was planning for Nina, Caleb, and yeah. Even Neil.
I was over being the good guy. All these fuckers best take notice. I was ready to unleash the beast.
