One to Save (One to Hold 6)

Marcus is the epitome of smooth. “Thank you, Mr. Mason—”

“Earl,” the prosecutor corrects him.

“Earl,” he nods. “I knew once you’d had a chance to see what was at stake, it would be a pretty simple decision.”

“Nothing is simple.” Earl’s expression goes immediately serious. “Murder, vigilante justice, these are not things I take lightly by any means.”

“Of course not,” Marcus says. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“However, there are also situations in which reasonable, thoughtful men are compelled to act.” He pauses as if for emphasis. “In my considered opinion, this was one of those situations.”

Rising from my chair, I reach across the table, holding out my hand. Earl seems surprised, but then he takes it, giving me a firm shake back.

“I can assure you,” I say, infusing my words with as much sincerity as possible. “This was one of those situations.”

Earl nods and smiles for the first time since we’ve seen him. “Let’s get Mr. Alexander back home to his family.”

Chapter 15: Badass

Derek

Breakfast is over, and I’m facing free time. I know my defiance of Chairman and his band of “badasses” at dinner won’t go unanswered. What I don’t know is when or how the answer will come. I decide to make my way to the weight room in the interim. It’s been years since I’ve faced the prospect of hand-to-hand combat. I was trained to do it in the Middle East. I never dreamed I’d face it behind bars in my own country.

The prospect of Rev and a shiv flickers through my mind. It could get a whole lot worse than hand-to-hand. It doesn’t scare me. It pisses me off. Adrenaline surges in my veins, and I feel myself getting ready. I’m running on three weeks of uninterrupted frustration here, starting the day Melissa put me out of the house. My only break lasted all of five minutes in my office when I held her in my arms again. When she’d asked me to make love to her, and the fucking cops walked in. Maybe a good fight is exactly what I need.

Last night, I’d stood at the bars of my cell. My forearms rested on the door and I looked out at the peeling white paint, the center space filled with round tables bathed in the blue light of the dark hours. None of us would be here for long. Jail was a constant stream of in and out, depending on what happened with the courts. I wondered how much longer I’d have before moving either to prison or being allowed to walk.

Stuart had said he would bring me pictures of Melissa and Dex, but I can only guess he wasn’t able to make it happen before visiting hours ended. Closing my eyes, I tried to conjure the scent of ocean roses. I couldn’t, but I could remember how it felt to smell them. My body craved hers. Standing in the darkness, I considered the worst—a lifetime of separation. It clenched my insides, and even if I wasn’t afraid of the inmates or the horrors of life inside, I didn’t know how I’d get through the years of this separation. Would I ask her to wait for me? Could I be that selfish?

“Melissa,” I whispered into the darkness.

I hadn’t been given many breaks since this nightmare began, but the greatest one had been encountering Benjamin Lance at check-in.

Ben is from New Orleans just like me, and even though he’s from one of the rougher, African-American neighborhoods while I grew up in the Garden District, we’d bonded over our hometown connection when we did our police training. I can only imagine his shock at seeing me booked for murder. He’d managed to get me my own cell and kept it that way for the several days I’d been in hock. If nothing changed, it’d be the last kindness I could expect.

My thoughts drifted to Slayde Bennett. I could still see him sitting in that courtroom, ice blue eyes full of hate and rage. He was deadly calm as his judgment was handed down. He walked out of the room with a life sentence and never looked back. I never thought I’d see him again. He was a murderer and he could rot in prison for all I cared. It only shows how you never know the moments that will alter your life.

Remembering him last year, standing in that corridor with Kenny, he had changed. I was too angry at the time. The idea of a murderer walking free, getting out of the judgment I’d spent so much effort to secure, hit too close to home. It smacked too much of Sloan’s ability to slip out of every charge I’d tried to make stick. All I could see was the system failing again.

Yet now, looking back, I have a different view. He still had the body of a fighter. He still moved like he could take anyone out with one hit. He still had the ink, and he projected aggression. Only the eyes had changed. My first sight of him stands out, the way he looked at Kenny, the tenderness and love. I didn’t want to see it that day. I only wanted justice, and I took everything from him again.

Exhaling, I turn and walk into the darkness at the back of my cell. I demanded justice in all things. Why should I escape it?

Melissa’s beautiful smile fills my memories, her soft body in my arms and her beautiful hair spilling around us. Closing my eyes, I feel her lips against mine. Placing my fists against the cinder-block wall, I remember her legs around my waist, her soft sighs and little moans as I move inside her, plunging into her depths. Again, the prospect of a life sentence twists my stomach.

She needs to understand why I did this and why I didn’t tell her. It’s something I could never say before, but now that I’m facing a future without her, I want her to know. I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t put it behind me. As much as I love her, it went against my nature to allow him to walk. Jessica Black or no Jessica Black. Star or no Star, none of it mattered. He’d touched her in a way that couldn’t be forgiven or forgotten.

It went beyond our beginning—his lying to me about her. It went beyond me not knowing what a loser he’d become when I’d agreed to track her for him. It went beyond her showing up in my office that day she’d learned the truth and shooting all my dreams to hell with one word.

After all I’d lost and all I’d found, the idea of him being aliv

e in the world after what he’d done to her was abhorrent to me. She’d shown me that picture of her battered face, and it was indelibly marked on my soul. The mere fact of it was an underlying driving force I couldn’t deny. As much as Melissa was mine, his unanswered crime was like the distant hum of a freight train growing louder and louder until it blasted through everything.

Inevitably, inexorably, as long as I lived on this planet, my future would lead to that moment in a small conference room in Baltimore when I got revenge. The darkness of what he’d done to her overcame me, and somewhere in that darkness I lost myself. No matter how honorable or law-abiding I might be, nothing would satisfy the blood lust in me. Sloan Reynolds had to die.

And now, justice continues its journey. Now I have to pay.

All the thoughts keeping me awake last night press against my brain as I enter the empty gym. I sit on the vinyl-covered bench and the low throb of pain sticks in my chest. Melissa... my soul cries her name. I want her. I need her. How will I survive if I’m in this place until I die, separated from her forever? Fuck.