Confess (Sin City Salvation 1)

“What’s for dinner?” he asked.

“Pasta,” Birdie griped. “Again.”

I shrugged. “That’s what happens when you let the preggo dictate the menu every night.”

Ace dished himself a heaping plate and sat down in an empty space at the table, shoving forkfuls of food into his mouth as though he hadn’t eaten all day. I intended to let him finish his meal first, but Birdie had other ideas.

“Have you figured anything out yet?” she asked. “I’m going stir-crazy here.”

Ace shot her a pointed look. “It won’t kill you to stay out of trouble for a change.”

Birdie mumbled something under her breath, and Ace chose to ignore it, though I doubted that happened often.

“I took a look at the car,” he said. “Tore the whole thing apart. It was definitely tampered with.”

My stomach sank, and I set down my fork as I looked at him for answers. “How?”

“The steering shaft was sawed down to the bone. A little bit of torque on the steering wheel caused it to snap clean in two. That wasn’t no accident.”

I looked at Birdie. At this point in the past, we would have run. We would have left town and started fresh somewhere else. But that wasn’t an option anymore, at least not for me. My home was here. I was having a baby, and I couldn’t run anymore.

“What are we going to do?” Birdie asked.

I wanted to give her an answer, but when I looked at her, I realized she wasn’t asking me. She was asking Ace.

“Lucian has a security system,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure out who it was.”

“I WANT TO THANK YOU all for coming,” I spoke into the microphone, and it made an unpleasant screech as I adjusted it.

A flash went off, followed by a few more as I stared out into the sea of faces.

“This may come as a surprise”—I laughed nervously—“but I’m not really one for words, so I’m going to keep this short and to the point.”

A few more cameras went off as I tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear.

“You may have come here with the notion that you were here to help me celebrate the release of my book. But the truth is, the reason we’re all here tonight is because of Lucian West. He was a man of few words himself, but when he did have something to say, he made sure it was important.”

I glanced down at my shoes and tried to hold back the tears that were already threatening. “I wish I’d paid attention to everything he had to say when he was here with me. I wish that I’d taken even a second more to notice and appreciate all the good he did. But life doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes, we don’t even realize how important the memories we’re making are until it’s too late.”

I stalled momentarily to compose myself, and Kate gave me an encouraging smile from her place at the front of the crowd.

“Anyway, I don’t think I need to tell you that Lucian was an exceptional man, and it was a shame that so few really knew that. So, my hope with this book is that you will read it with an open mind and decide for yourself.”

Kal gave me a thumbs-up, and I smiled, deciding to end it there. “So that’s it, I guess. Thanks again for coming. I really do appreciate it.”

I handed off the mic and stepped down from the stage, my cheeks flushed and my emotions running at an all-time high.

“You did an amazing job,” Kal said as Kate nodded her agreement enthusiastically. “What’s next?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“What are you going to write next?” Kal clarified.

“Oh.” I frowned. “I haven’t really given that any thought. I mean, I’m not really a writer—”

Kal laughed and shook his head. “You wrote a book, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but it was mostly just piecing things together.”

“You did an exceptional job at piecing together Lucian’s story,” Kate chimed in. “It could be just the beginning for you, if you wanted it. No pressure, but I hope you’ll think about it.”

“I don’t even know what I’d write about,” I admitted. “This project came so easily to me because it was important.”

“You could write about others who have been wrongfully convicted,” Kal suggested. “Some of Lucian’s clients, maybe. Just an idea.”

“Oh.” Kate snapped her fingers. “That reminds me. Did you hear what happened with the Ariana Sanders case?”

“No, what happened?”

“Another victim came forward,” she said. “She’d been attacked a few months prior to Ariana. Same m.o., same everything. Anyway, as it turns out, she was able to identify the attacker, and they matched his fingerprints to Ariana’s apartment as well.”

My stomach felt like it had jumped into my throat. “So Emmanuel’s name has been cleared?”

Kate gave a bittersweet nod. “New charges have been filed in the case, so if nothing else, at least now the world will know it wasn’t Emmanuel.”