Absolution (The Protectors 1)

Something tight deep inside of me released. I had been worried that I was the odd man out in our relationship.

“Me too,” I said and then I leaned over and kissed him. “I love you too,” I said against his mouth.

A pent up rush of air fled Mace’s lips and I realized he’d been struggling with the same feelings. I sealed my mouth over his and kissed him until we were both breathless before I released him and sat back down. As much as I would have liked to revel in this new development, I knew I needed to try and figure out how to mend the rift between Jonas and Mace.

“Mace, how did you meet Ronan?”

Mace began toying with the bottle of beer. “It was a year after Evan’s death before the cops finally found the guy who did it. I’d taken a leave of absence from the force after we lost him and I’d started drinking every day to try and deal with it. The news that they had him helped snap me out of it but when the trial finally rolled around, everything went to hell and I just lost it.”

“Was he acquitted?” I asked.

Mace nodded. “His attorney got this rookie cop to admit he’d fucked up the chain of custody with the DNA evidence. Fucker smiled at me and Shel when he walked out of the court room a free man. Told us he was sorry for our loss.”

“I’m sorry, Mace,” I said as I covered his hand with mine.

“Nothing mattered after that. Not my marriage, not my job, nothing. I drank until I blacked out. I fucked anything that moved and didn’t even try to hide it. I stole money from Shel and my parents to buy booze and if anyone got in my way…”

“Your dad?” I asked, remembering Mace’s admission about striking out at his father.

“He tried to take my keys away from me after he came to my house to check on me. Shel had already left me by then and I was stumbling around in the garage trying to get in my car.” Mace choked up and his fingers laced with mine and squeezed hard.

“I left him there on the floor of my garage covered in blood. I didn’t even remember doing it until I saw him the next day, his face all bruised up. I left after that. Never spoke to him or my mom again. I started staying in shitty motels and drinking myself into a stupor every night. When it got to be too much, I bought a gun off the streets. I met Ronan a couple weeks after I was released from the psych ward.”

“How’d you meet?”

“He found me. No idea how. I was just sitting in this bar and there he was. He asked me all sorts of questions about my past, my job as a cop. I finally told him to fuck off. When he wouldn’t stop hassling me, I took a swing at him. Then the cops showed up and I spent the night in the drunk tank. A cop I used to work with told me the news the next morning when he released me.”

“What news?”

“My son’s killer was murdered the night before. Shot execution style in his own house.”

“Fuck,” I murmured.

“The cop said if I hadn’t been in the drunk tank, I’d have been their first suspect.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Ronan set you up so you’d have an alibi.”

Mace nodded. “The guy raped another boy a few months after he was acquitted. The kid survived but had brain damage from lack of oxygen. The fucker had strangled him and left him for dead but some hikers found him in time.”

“So Ronan took him out.”

“He approached me a few days later. Offered me a chance to make sure what happened to Evan didn’t happen to other kids. He got me sober and then gave me a reason to stay that way.”

Mace looked at the beer in front of him. “I like testing myself,” he said as he fingered the label. “I like knowing I’m still stronger than it.” Mace twisted the top off the beer and then rose and went to the sink and dumped it out.

“Jonas was right, wasn’t he?” I said.

Mace leaned against the counter but didn’t look at me. “They were just monsters to me at first. I only saw the face of the man who killed my son when I looked through the scope of my rifle. I only heard Evan calling out for me when I pulled the trigger. Then I started seeing everything else. Their wives, their kids…the people who loved them because they didn’t know the evil that lay beneath the suit and tie or the high powered job or the charming smile. The way my parents and Shel and Evan loved me.”