“I’m not interested in comparisons.” I open the glove compartment and search for an old pack of cigarettes. A lighter. A stick of gum, even. “I want silence, and tonotdestroy our friendship. For those two things to happen,” I whip the compartment closed again, furious at its lack of offerings, “you need to shut the fuck up.”
“Why are you doing this?” He brings us to the left and slings the cruiser into a tight alleyway, shadowed on every side, and about fifty degrees hotter because there’s no fucking breeze passing through. Skidding to a stop and twisting in his seat, he fries me with a glare. “You’re Arch and Minka. You’re the OG married couple.”
“No. You and Jada are the OG married couple.” I stare out the window and study a long trail of dried piss slashed across messy graffiti. “That didn’t work out so well, though, did it?”
Heat sizzles between us, metaphorically and real. Silencehangs, except for Fletch’s whistling breath and the groan of an old, not-well-maintained cop car.
“I’m gonna forgive you for being a prick,” he seethes, his voice husky and mean. “Because I can see you’re going through some things right now, and it’s not like I’m innocent when it comes to saying hurtful shit to the people I love when I’m feeling a certain way.”
Just drive, dude. Drive.
“You’re my best friend,” he growls. “You’re the closest thing my daughter has to an uncle. Your wife is someone I care about on a soul-deep fucking level. So we’re gonna duke this out till I figure out what the hell is happening inside your head.”
“Just drive the fuckin’ car!”
“This isn’t you.” He rests his arm on the steering wheel, his torso turned in my direction. “You and Mayet have had beef in the past, but you work it out, and you go back to being the only fucking glimmer of hope the rest of us have in a dark and painful world. If it were Delicious telling you not to come home, I could believe it. I wouldn’t like it, and I’d be pissed on your behalf, because I know your heart would hurt. But she’s prickly, and she talks shit when she’s mad, too. But you?” He claps his hand onto my shoulder, right over the spot a bullet pierced my skin last year. “You don’t tell her to go. You don’t break her heart. You don’t give up onwhat you have!”
“Drive. The. Car.” I toss his hand off and control my urge to snap the whole fucking thing backwards. “And stop calling her Delicious. I’m not gonna ask again.”
“Why not?” Sweat dribbles from his temples. Along his neck. Into his shirt. He peels his lips back, sneering, “You don’t wanther? Guess that makes her a single, available woman again, right?”
My temper flares into an inferno that burns me from the inside out. The Malone in me would break his neck. But the man I’ve become, independent of where I came from, is smarter. Less impulsive. So I flash a feral smile and counter, “Sure, bud. But if you’re busy chasing her, I guess that makes Fifi a free agent. You know us Malone men… We like pussy.”
The difference between me and him? He never did get his temper under control when it came to the women in his life. His fist moves faster than my brain, his knuckles crashing against my jaw and snapping my head around.
Blessed, blessed fucking pain. An improvement over the agony I’ve carried all day.
“You’re better than this!” He pounds on me, throwing hands restrained only by the cinch of his seatbelt. “You’re the best of us all!” he roars. “Better than your brothers. Better than me.” Still, he hits. Three strikes. Four. Five. “You’re better than what you’re doing to your marriage. Andshedeserves better than the shit you’re pulling.”
Knock me the fuck out. I beg you. Put me out of my misery.
MINKA
Iperch on the front edge of my desk, my feet crossed at the ankles and my hands resting on the hardwood beside my thighs. While my team noisily files into my office, I let them talk. To swallow time I’d normally scold them for wasting.
But this is how I get through today. Time. And if it’s taken up with afternoon rounds andnotmy own spinning, spiraling mind, the better I am for it.
“I’m just saying!” Raquel exclaims. “Being run over by a speeding car and having your spine twisted up as much as his washasto have been the best chiropractic release money can’t buy.”
Wildly inappropriate.
“There wasfor surea moment after the collision, before death, right when the pain hadn’t yet registered in his mind, that your DB thought,oh yeah, that’s the stuff.” She settles back on the leather sofa and smirks at a pale-faced Doctor Kirk. “I’mnot saying it’s ideal. Just that hunching over a desk comes with its pitfalls, and if I could get a realignment that feltthatgood, but without the torn-off leg and resulting death, I’m not sure I’d say no.”
“Doctor Kirk?” I look to the man, the boy, and rescue him from his own version of hell. “Would you like to report on your caseload today?”
“Yes.” He visibly deflates, relief washing through his psyche as he turns his attention my way.
Raquel merely snickers.
“Chief. Motor vehicle versus pedestrian. Forty-five-year-old male vic, identified as Morty Presley. Detectives Malone and Fletcher are primary.” He gulps, but he can’t possibly know the ache spearing through my belly at just hearing those names. “Autopsy is complete, pending tox. Rapid testing came back clear for drugs and alcohol. It doesn’t appear that the DB was doing anything except walking at the time of the collision. I have not received an update from the detectives, but I emailed them the results of my autopsy a little over an hour ago.”
Over his shoulder, the elevator doors open, and with them, my lungs collapse in on themselves. My knees shake. My entire fucking soul shrivels. Because the detectives in question step out. And worse, Archer’s hard, dark emerald eyes swing to mine.
So mean. So firm. So… bruised.
What the hell happened?
Unfortunately, I lost the right to ask questions the instant I walked out on him, the home, and the marriage I’d committed to.Fortunately, I have a team to lead, an entire building to maintain, and if I’m lucky, a dark hole to crawl into before I lose myshit and make an idiot of myself. So I bolster what little reserves I have after the world’s longest day, and straighten my back. “Doctor Kirk.” I tip my chin toward the detectives, quickly, before they start this way. “Looks like your update has arrived.” I flick my wrist toward the door. “Go.”
