I nodded, my throat too tight to speak.
Because the truth was, I didn’t need Kat to forgive me for Richard.
I needed her to forgive me for Sam.
I needed her to forgive me for Frankie.
And I needed to forgive myself too.
And I had no idea if either of us ever would.
Chapter Eighteen
Katrina
The morning light rose over the house across the street as I sat drinking my coffee. Frankie hadn’t spoken to me since Haizley was here. She answered my questions, a simple yes or no. But she wouldn’t talk to me.
She overheard my conversation with Haizley. She knew I’d shared her story with Derek, and she was furious with me because of it. She blamed me for his walking out of the diner and disappearing.
Wherever he’d gone, he came back. I was ashamed to admit I’d been sitting on these front steps every day for hours on end, hoping to catch a glimpse of him walking into Haizley’s house.
Yesterday paid off.
He drove slowly past the house without looking in my direction. Maybe he saw me sitting here; maybe he just finally decided to keep his distance. Realized Frankie and I were more trouble than we were worth.
It shouldn’t have bothered me.
I should have celebrated the fact that he was finally listening to me. Finally staying away. Only, it didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like a loss. I couldn’t understand my attraction to him. I mean, sure, he was gorgeous with his dark hair and wide shoulders. His hands rough from years of working with wood and concrete.
But it was more than just his looks. To say his eyes were blue was true, but there was more than the color of his irises. Therewas pain from a childhood filled with abuse, but they also hinted at a capacity to love in a way I had never seen. Then there was a hidden darkness that lurked in the corners. A darkness that somehow felt like protection.
He didn’t care about his presence the way Richard did. How people judged his outward appearance didn’t seem to matter to him. He walked with a natural confidence, one born from a place of experience rather than ego.
He also didn’t push his strength the way Clay did. His capacity for violence was evident in the way he moved, the way he silently watched his surroundings and the people in them. He wasn’t out to prove he was the most dangerous man in the room.
But Derek was dangerous; I felt it in the way he looked at me. Heard it in his voice when he spoke about my safety and Frankie’s while simultaneously warning me away from Zero.
Derek terrified me in a way Richard and Clay never did. A way that Zero couldn’t match. Because whenever he was near me, my skin sizzled with electricity, and my breath caught, telling me to stay away.
And yet, I wanted to run toward him.
My phone pinged in my pocket, and when I pulled it free, there was a text from Slyce. We hadn’t talked much since she left, but she checked in regularly. I didn’t know where she was or who she was helping, but she made sure I never felt alone. Reminding me that she was never far away.
That she was my friend.
One I could trust.
I clicked on the link she sent me, and it opened to a news article from Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. There was a picture of Richard with a headline.
Local man arrested for sexual assault of a minor.
I gasped quietly as I read the words. A fourteen-year-old girl assaulted by her stepfather. They didn’t give her name, but Iknew it was Hannah, Stacy’s oldest daughter. Richard was in the hospital, guarded by Marshalls until he was healed enough to go to trial.
A neighbor’s statement talked of an unidentified man who broke into the house in time to stop the assault. If only it had been the first time. The man described as an avenging angel had saved the girl from being assaulted and left Richard bloody and broken on the front lawn until officers arrived to arrest him.
Investigators removed the girl and her younger sisters from the home until they completed the investigation. Anonymous sources accused the girl’s mother of knowing who Richard was before they married and intentionally leaving him alone with her daughters.
My hand covered my mouth as a shadow fell over the walkway. When I looked up, Haizley quietly sat down beside me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders.
