He angled in farther, his voice dripping with a growled promise, “But what I’ll never be is a dirty cop. And you know as fucking well as I do that Bennet is as dirty as they come.”
“My shit’s clean.”
It was a lie I’d been feeding myself for so long, I should have believed it. But the truth of just how shady that shit went was impossible to ignore.
He sat back in the booth. “You better make sure it stays that way.”
I tried to tamp it down, stop it from boiling up, the old hatred for owing anyone anything. But Bennet had been there for me when I’d been that pathetic, scared kid.
He fed me and had given me a job. Picked me up and dusted me off. Told me he’d always be there for me, and he’d stuck by his word.
I’d owed him. Felt loyal to him.
But as the years had passed, the side jobs he’d had me doing for him became more and more warped. Darkness concealed by the light, feigned good deeds that were nothing but a cover.
Had to wonder if that hadn’t been the reason I’d been drawn to him all along. The reason I’d ended up at his feet. The lure of wickedness hidden inside him, the same kind of wickedness that thrived inside me.
Mack shook his head and swore, looking away for a second like he’d just heard every single one of my thoughts. “You’re one of the good guys, Ian. Fucking good, no matter if you want to be or not. It’s time to start living that way. Because I know you. I fucking know you better than anyone, and it will kill me if you let the grief you refuse to feel continue to own you.”
“I’m fine.”
A hard breath of disbelief and frustration jetted from his nose. “Do you really believe all the bullshit you feed yourself?”
“What can I say? It’s a talent.” My response was hard, but Mack laughed and scrubbed a hand over his face. Asshole was grinning again.
I started to tell him to go to hell when my phone dinged. I reached for it, figuring it was Jace following up about the building.
I fucking froze when I saw who the text was from.
My ice-cold heart flashed with a bolt of heat. A frenzy pumped directly into my veins.
Unknown: Thank you for what you did today. I wish I could have truly expressed to you what it meant to me. I want you to know it meant everything.
Grace.
I sat there staring at her message, fighting that same feeling again.
“Who’s that?” Mack nudged me with his boot from under the table.
I shoved my phone into my pocket. “No one.”
“No one?” he challenged.
“That’s what I said.”
Fucker grinned. “And you’re lying. I see it written all over you.”
I sent him a glare and tried to ignore the excitement that blazed just beneath the surface of my skin, my phone burning a damned hole in my pocket.
I had a number.
An in.
And I was fucking going to take it.
Mack laughed. “Looks to me like you’re not feeling so cold, after all. Maybe I shouldn’t lose hope in my best friend just yet.”
“It’s just a fuck, Mack.”
At least, that’s what I wanted it to be. Still, I cringed when I said it, as if it were insulting her, the girl who dripped sex and indecency and then had me fumbling when she looked at me with those sad, fathomless eyes.
Truth was, if I was right about the girl, that was probably all that the text was.
A thank you.
Mack was right. I wasn’t anything but an asshole. A predator. After one thing. Because sitting there right then? I knew I was going to take it as an invitation.
Problem was, everything about it felt different. Body lighting up at the thought. Pulse doing something funny when it thrummed an extra beat.
“One day, some girl is going to make a crack in that impenetrable stone, and you’re gonna put one on her finger. Have a small herd of kids. And you’re going to be happy, Ian. Fucking happy because it’s about time you had a little of the real kind.”
“You want to be called Uncle? You’ve got Jace for that. So why don’t we drop this bullshit you’re trying to get at? You know what’s important to me. What I live for, and you know damned well that I’ll live the way I want. I won’t let anyone get in the way of that.”
And it sure as fuck wasn’t going to involve marriage and a family.
I edged up so I could get my wallet out of my pocket, dug into it, and pulled out a twenty. I tossed it onto the table. “I have to go.”
Asshole cracked a grin. “Where you headin’, Ian?”
I pushed out of the booth and shot him a finger, not turning to look back. Only thing I heard was his laughter following me to the door.