Bonnie’s brows flickered. “I want to say no. The person who pushed me against the wall was definitely a male. But a few months ago, I wouldn’t have thought anyone would cut the head off a mouse and leave it at my doorstep, so…anything’s possible.” A visible shudder rolled down her spine.
He set a hand on the small of her back. “What can I do?”
She leaned a cheek on her knee and looked at him. “Tell me about Billings.”
It was three in the morning. Hardly the time to rehash his past. But sitting in bed with Bonnie, watching the sadness in her eyes, he would have done anything she asked. “I have a cousin. His name is Monty Cruz. He was part of the UFC while I was an Army Ranger. I wanted a change, and he got in my ear about how good the UFC lifestyle was. How good it felt to be in the ring. So when my contract ended, I got out and started training. I got good. Spent most of my time in Billings with him but also traveled a lot.”
“You were close.”
“Really close. My grandmother who raised me had passed. I had no siblings. He was my closest family. I thought I knew him.”
“What happened?”
“He had a party. That whole scene wasn’t really my thing, but I went because he was the host. When I was ready to leave, I went to find him. He was upstairs in his bedroom, standing over the body of a woman who’d been shot.”
Bonnie sucked in a shaky breath. “The woman in the article.”
“He’d already dropped the pistol. And when I told him I was calling 9-1-1, he flipped out. We fought. I got to the gun before him.”
She gasped.
“He didn’t want me to tell anyone. He wanted to use his money to make it disappear.”
“What did you do?”
“Someone else walked in. Saw us. Called the police. He told them a different story than what happened. Tried to pin the murder on me. We went to trial. During the trial, we were both out on bail when he sent someone to kill me.”
Her skin chilled. “Who?”
“A paid hit man.”
“And you killed him in self-defense.” Her frown deepened. “How did they prove Monty was guilty if you were holding the murder weapon?”
“Monty had cameras in the halls in his home. He tried to have the footage erased but police recovered it. It was the audio that saved me. It caught everything he said. They also traced the money that the hit man was paid back to Monty.”
He traced a circle on her thigh with his finger.
“The story divided a lot of people in Billings though,” he continued. “Not everyone believed I was innocent. Some thought I was an accomplice. It made living there hard.”
“So you moved.”
“So I moved.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Like you, I know that trusting the wrong person can hurt you.”
Bonnie shook her head. “But he was your cousin. He was family. I can’t imagine how that would have felt.”
“Not everyone has a great family.”
For a moment she just watched him, a new softness in her eyes. A tinge of sadness. Then she crawled into his lap, her legs and arms wrapping around him as she hugged him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you out sooner. I’m sorry that the reporter published part of your story—the parts that made you look like the bad guy.”
He wrapped his arms around her. And for some reason, holding her, feeling the softness that was Bonnie, took the edge off the pain of his past.
CHAPTER 19
Bonnie cracked one eye open. Darkness. Well, close to darkness. There was a small slip of light sneaking in from behind the curtains. She could just make out Zane’s navy bedsheets beneath her. His dark oak drawers against the wall.
