Prologue
When the most important person in your world is hurt – and I don’t mean an accidental bump in the street, or something a little more serious like a car accident, but something more, something so much worse – a man learns who he is right down at the core.
Will he protect her? Can he do what needs to be done to make it better? Is he willing to take it as far as it needs to go, or is he a pussy that talks a big game but has no guts?
And if he chooses the second, then did he truly love her at all?
No.
The answer is no, because a man that loves with his whole heart won’t be stopped. There is no line. There’s no ‘too far’.
There’s just her.
And her pain is his responsibility to fix, even if she’ll never know it was he who stepped in.
I stop behind the new couple in Oz’s living room and watch the way they gravitate toward each other. She leans into him, despite his scary exterior, and each time she does, he accepts her touch and gives back some of his own.
Kane Bishop is a fucking criminal. He’s a gun carrying, throat slitting, zero tolerance for fuckwits, criminal. He might also be a cop, but in his blood, deep in his soul, he’s pure thug.
And he’s exactly who I need today, as I approach that line that so few men are willing to cross.
For her, I would do anything.
Silently, I tap his shoulder and hope no one else is paying us too much attention. This is between me and him. Not the other cops in this room, and definitely not his girl, who just so happens to be an identical twin and carbon copy of the woman I love.
The woman I’ve loved since before I should have.
“Bishop?”
He turns away from his girlfriend’s silly joke, and the moment his dark eyes meet mine, his smile is wiped clean. Kane Bishop knows how to read moods. He knows how to gauge a situation.
And he knows danger when he sees it.
A lifted brow is the only permission I get to speak, but his eyes scream ‘what the fuck do you want?’
“Can we talk a sec?”
Kane has been an undercover cop for a long time. He’s been under for what must be most of his adult life, and just weeks ago, he was thought dead.
For months, Jess grieved his death, and for months, we, her family, held her while she cried.
But now he’s back.
And when a guy he hardly knows taps him on the shoulder, he pays attention. He needs no other words. No explanation. He simply drops a kiss on Jess’ brow, whispers something I don’t need to know into her ear, and turns away from the guys he was talking with.
I lead him toward the back door, because what I have to say isn’t for the ears of those inside this house.
I don’t slow when the twins’ brother curiously watches us move through the crowded living room, or when Alex and Oz watch us in that suspicious way cops watch everyone.
The chief and his deputy know who and what they have in this house today, so they stay vigilant, but when your baby sister is in love with the guy,andhe saved your life a few months ago, you tend to be a little more forgiving.
So, instead of arresting him, they offer him a beer and congratulations on not being dead after all.
We step through the sliding glass door, down the back steps, and onto spongy grass. This house is surrounded by forest, which is handy for me.
I don’t stop on the grass.
I don’t stop at the edge of Oz’s yard.