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She eyes the weapon and then me. “Sig Sauer P238. Easy to handle and conceal.” She picks it up and checks the chamber, which is loaded. “Thank you,” she says. “It was on my naughty list.”
“Then I take it you still know how to shoot.”
“We confirmed that while I huddled on the floor of the Porsche with a gun in my hand. Yes. I still know how to shoot.”
“Right,” I say. “There was that unfortunate incident where we indeed had this conversation. When were you last at the shooting range?”
“It’s been too long.”
“Then we’re going today.”
“Sure,” she agrees. “I’m all in. Please let Tag pay me a visit with that Sig on my person.”
And there she is. The woman I fell in love with. Tough as nails. She’s standing strong. She’s fighting. She sets the gun back down and folds her arms in front of her. “So, Rick,” she says, “tell me about the tongue you cut out.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Candace
I watch Rick’s handsome face process my query, seconds ticking by, his expression unchanged. To most, he’d be unreadable, unaffected even, but I know this man. His spine is stiff, his shoulders knotted. His jaw hard enough to shatter. Yes, I’m pushing Rick. Yes, I’m making him talk about the hard stuff, but with reason. When his father pushed him to a place where he forgot to hold back, he gave me the gift of realization. That scar on Rick’s face, the one he won’t talk about, tells me everything I need to know. I just didn’t realize it. It tells his story, the one he doesn’t want me to know. The one he replaces by labeling himself a monster and killer, only he’s not simple. He’s never been simple. He needs to know that he isn’t that simple to me, either. He is not a label to me. He’s not good or bad, right or wrong. He’s a man, flawed and perfect all at once.
Several drawn-out seconds go by before he scrubs that jaw, his hands settling on his hips. “I could tell you I didn’t do what I said I did. I could tell you I was just talking, but that would be a lie and you know what? I’ve never lied to you. I’m not going to start now. Yes. I cut his damn tongue out because he did things to that little girl with his damn tongue. And I don’t regret it.” He holds his hands to his side. “This is me. Still a surgeon and always a savage, baby.”
Before he even finishes that sentence, my arms are around him and I’m peering up at him. “Thank you.”
His brow furrows. “For what?”
“Trusting me and telling me the hard truth.”
“What happened to our deal?”
“I can handle the truth, even the dark, hard truth, Rick. But you calling yourself a killer and a monster, over and over, feels like a wall that you used to hide from me and divide us. It also makes me realize that I have some guilt in why you stayed away. I obviously made you feel that there was only black and white. That I couldn’t live inside the gray with you.”
“You didn’t. That’s not what happened. That’s not how things happened at all. It’s not that simple.”
Not that simple.
Words that he might as well have snatched out of my own mind.
His hand settles at the back of my head and he leans in close, settling his forehead on mine. “I know you can handle a lot of things.” He pulls back to look at me. “I admit I was afraid to see myself through your eyes, but more so, I thought you deserved better.”
Words that ping a warning in my mind. “And now?”
There’s a really badly timed knock on the door. “Of fucking course,” Rick mumbles, kissing me fast and hard before saying, “Sorry, baby. That would be Adam, and—”
“I know. Let him in.”
He hesitates, searching my face before he says, “And now, you’re stuck with me. Killer, monster, and Purple People Eater.”
I smile despite myself, forever charmed by his goofy jokes that make almost no sense. He smiles, too, and when Adam knocks again, he grimaces before he shouts out, “Enter, asshole!”
He and I turn to find Adam entering the kitchen with Smith on his heels. “I see you let your pops live,” Adam says, setting a box on the counter. “Donuts,” he says. “A dozen, and Candace,” he adds, “if you want more than one, I suggest you dive for the box. I’ve seen Savage inhale that many or more in about sixty seconds flat.”
“He’s exaggerating,” Rick assures me. “It takes me a full five minutes for a dozen.”
“It used to take ten minutes,” I tease.
“With age comes wisdom and technique,” he says, and I don’t feel even a tiny cringe with reference to technique despite it reminding me of his conversation with his father.
