Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

“This is already fucked up, Nor,” I said, slipping back into calling him by a nickname like we’d never been apart. It just came out. Shit. “I mean—”

“Just stop.” We stood there in silence, him staring at me and me finally looking away because I had no idea what the hell to say.

“It was good you caught Hartley.”

My eyes were back on him.

“I’m sorry we—”

“It’s not—”

“It is,” he croaked, stopping me, hand slipping around my bicep, squeezing tight. “We—I didn’t know what to do with how that went down. It would’ve been better off if you let me shoot him.”

I cleared my throat. “I know.”

“More people died because you let him live that night.”

I yanked free of his hold and took a step back. “I know that too,” I retorted, angry but quiet, feeling my body wash hot, then cold with regret and shame.

He moved forward into my space, grabbing hold of my jacket. “But it was right, what you did.”

I searched his face for clarity because he was making no sense.

“If I’d shot him, I would’ve been guilty because I had him.”

I understood like no one else could because I was there. Hartley had me in his hands, a knife shoved into my side, and Cochran was looming above us, gun in both hands, and he could have shot Hartley, killed him if I hadn’t used my body to cover the psychopath and keep my partner from becoming a murderer.

“You—” His voice bottomed out. “—did it to protect me, not him.”

That revelation had only taken close to four years. “Fuck you,” I raged, the hurt and anger over his betrayal—he’d never even visited me once when I was in the hospital—boiling over like it always did whenever I revisited that time in my life.

He had been my family, his wife and kids, his parents, his siblings, and in one moment he was gone and so were all the rest of them. His wife had come around, finally, but no one else did, and it still hurt. Mostly it was that helplessness that came from things being taken away while I’d had no control. I hated that. I was a foster kid, so I’d never had a say about any part of my life, and to have that happen again when I was older had made me gun-shy of partnership and putting my faith in anyone. Ian was the one who changed that, the only one strong enough to break through the wall I’d put up.

From the beginning, Ian had simply assumed I belonged to him, his backup, his friend, his shadow, and because he took me for granted, I had uncoiled, relented, and finally trusted. Anyone but Ian, anyone who wasn’t a battering ram, all prickly vulnerability, dangerous temper, and raw, primal heat—constantly in my space, close, leaning, bumping, touching—I would have kept at a distance. But there was no saying no to Ian Doyle. The ache that welled up in me made it hard to breathe.

“Fuck me?” Cochran yelled.

I couldn’t even be bothered to have my head in a fight. That was how much I didn’t care about Norris Cochran. After shoving him back, I strode to the edge of the parking lot. He was there fast, walking around in front of me.

“So,” I demanded shortly, meeting his gaze. “If Fiore killed Romelli, where did your guy get the gun?”

He took a breath. “Well, so Fiore shot Romelli, Darra’s sure of it. He was in the bedroom when he heard the shot, and when he came out, he saw somebody run out the front door.”

“So he followed him out to the street?”

“No, Romelli was killed in his penthouse.”

“Oh, so your guy follows this Fiore down however many stairs.”

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “And when he gets there, he follows him into an alley and watches him stash the gun in a drain.”

“Why would he do that? Why not just take the gun with him?”

“Well, I don’t know if you remember, but at that time, with his father having just been murdered—everybody was watching Joey. They found him that night like a half an hour after the shooting.”

“And this Fiore, he was a mob enforcer like Darra?”

“No, not at all. Like I said, he was just one of Vincent Romelli’s goons.”

“Then why kill his son?”

“We don’t know.”

“Does he still work for Strada?”

“No, I ran him through the system and he’s clean. He’s always been clean. He was a known associate of Vincent Romelli and he was questioned when Vincent Romelli was gunned down, but he and his buddy Sal something were the only ones who got out.”

“But—”

“Oh, and Joey Romelli.”

“The son was there when his father died?”

“Yeah. Fiore was the one who got him out of the massacre.”

I needed a second. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I know!” he snapped at me. “It makes no sense.”