In that regard, Brewster is the perfect fall man.
She flops onto her back. “Right. Giving Grayson what he wants, while eliminating Brewster as a threat.”
“If there was ever a contender for the dark triad on the dirty dozen scale, it’s Brewster,” I say. “He’s an elite psychopath. He has no connection to my sister, therefore the authorities won’t draw a connection to Grayson. And with Brewster behind bars, he’s less likely to establish any connection to you for Ericson’s murder.”
“Less likely,” she repeats, then drops her head my way. “You like your numbers. ‘Less likely’ isn’t math you can accept. You’re holding something back.”
My gaze drifts over her captivating features, and I want nothing more than to lie to her, to let her believe we can eliminate our problems so easily. Ultimately, if she’d agree to leave with me right now, fly to another country and vanish, the whole situation would disappear and resolve itself.
However, selfishly running away won’t help her realize her potential.
Red seeps through the bandage on my hand, and I lift it before blood can stain the sheet. “I should redress my hand,” I say, but her soft touch on my arm—that skin-to-skin contact—prevents me from moving, from even breathing.
“Just tell me,” she says.
“You’re right,” I say, inspecting the damage to my hand. Blakely took advantage of my weakness, which reaffirms what I’m about to tell her. “Brewster won’t take being framed so gracefully. He’ll dig until he finds what he needs to mount a defense, which means you’ll always be in danger—” I lift my gaze to hers “—as long as he’s alive.”
She sits forward and links her arms around her covered knees. “You’re forgetting that I’m confessing to the crime, which completely voids that hypothetically absurd idea anyway. So, what else do you got?”
I fell in love with her fire, so much so I welcomed the burn, but in moments like this, her obstinance makes me want to either punch a wall or pin her to the bed.
“Memory and time,” I say, sitting up to join her. “They’re a bitch. You can’t undo either, and you can’t exert control where you’re at an equal risk of losing it.”
The same infuriating impatience must plague her as she shoves her fingers into her hair. “Alex, what the hell? Don’t speak to me in riddles tonight.”
“You can’t confess to Ericson’s murder,” I say. “They won’t believe you.”
Her gaze travels to me, and it’s there in her stunned expression, the understanding between us. She knows I’m capable of altering evidence. If she hasn’t already figured out why I targeted the victims on her list, then she’s piecing it together now.
“I can still try,” she says, attempting to call my bluff. “A confession from me, the person hired to take revenge on Ericson, would be enough to muddy the water.” She shrugs. “And if nothing else, it would alleviate my conscience.”
I run my hand over my hair, anxious to treat my hand. “You can always try, and you might even succeed. Or you could wind up in an institution. Someone with a weighty title and influence, like the renowned Dr. Noble, could make that happen easily enough.”
She throws the covers off and slips out of bed.
Battered and bone-weary, exhaustion plucks at my patience. “Come back to bed.”
“I’m leaving,” she says, searching for her shoes. “Maybe I’ll just get out of this whole fucking crazy city.”
I toss off the covers and climb out of bed. I have her in my arms before she’s able to get to the bedroom door. Her fight is weak; she gives up easily as I band my arms around her. She’s just as exhausted as I am.
“Look at me.” The serious tone of my voice makes her instantly look up. “You’re a justice dealer.”
Her brows pinch together as confusion mars her features. “What—?”
“You took Ericson’s life in that alley because he needed to die,” I tell her. “Revenge, justice, balancing the scales… However you want to define it, it’s in your makeup, your DNA. From the first moment you fought back against a bully on a playground, you knew your course, Blakely.” I expel a heavy breath, softening my tone as I raise my hand to push the hair away from her face. “There was a moment, somewhere before we met, that you questioned when not if you’d ever take a life. You knew at some point, revenge wouldn’t be enough.”
She’s still—too still—some mix of fear and shock and maybe even relief washing over her. I release her, removing my arms to give her space, but stay close.
She doesn’t deny what I’ve said. I know this about her, because I’ve studied her psychopathy and her personality type, and yes, there’s a chance Blakely never would’ve committed murder.
But there’s a greater chance she would have.
And in that event, she wouldn’t have had the emotions and self-preservation to protect herself.
After a tension-filled beat where we gauge each other, the silence declaring all the confessions either of us refuse to reveal, she swallows, blinking as she resurfaces from the turmoil of her thoughts.
“I always thought I could stop myself,” she confesses.
I inhale deeply, her scent abrasive as I sear it into my lungs. “You might have.”
“I’ll never really know, though, will I,” she says. “Not now.”
But she does know. And I deserve all her outrage and condemnation, but I’m not the only bad guy in her life.
I’ll let her use me as her punching bag, though. Whatever she needs. She can put all the blame on me, and I’ll take it for her. Just like I’ll take the pain she needs to inflict so she can make love.
“No matter what you chose to do in a nanosecond in that alley,” I say, “the fact of the matter is Ericson was the real monster. He never would’ve been prosecuted, maybe never even seen the inside of a court room. He never would’ve stopped hurting women until someone stopped him. Permanently.”
She rubs the fresh bruises wrapping her wrist, her gaze cast downward. As she brings her eyes up to meet mine, my chest is hit with the impact of her softness, the cruel vulnerability she now suffers, leaving her open and exposed.
“You were saving a life,” I say to her, trying to reach her. “You’ve been so focused on the life you took, you never think about the life you saved that night.”
Her gaze shimmers with the wetness of unshed tears, and I ache for her, wanting to bring her into me, but scared to lose this moment.
She blinks, then wipes away the trail of tears streaking her cheeks. “I hate this feeling,” she admits. “I want to turn it off.”
I cup her face and stroke my thumb across the fresh stream of tears. “You saved her life,” I say again, because she needs to hear it. “So I won’t let you lose yours.”
Inhaling a shuddering breath, she pulls away and tucks her hair behind her ears. Just like that, Blakely has learned how to transition her emotions. “And then what? After we complete this insane plan of yours, Grayson just simply disappears from our life?”
The way she says our life gives me a deranged level of hope I’ll keep fighting for.