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He pulled me closer, sliding his arms around my waist.

“After they died, everyone kept asking what they could do for me. People from work wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone. Everyone suddenly wanted to check on me because they were worried about what Richard Kincaid might do now that both of his parents were dead.” His mouth tightened. “You were the only person I actually wanted around.”

I rested my hands against his chest.

“I would’ve been there no matter what.”

“I know.” He stared down at me for a moment before continuing. “That’s what I’m telling you. You were there. Every damn day. You stayed when I couldn’t sleep. You listened when I was angry. You let me talk about them when I needed to and didn’t force me when I didn’t.”

His thumb moved slowly against my side. I stared at him. He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles.

“Losing them did something to me. I don’t know what I would’ve done with all of that anger if I hadn’t had you.”

I wrapped my arms around him. Richard held me tightly, he whispered against my hair.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Then Richard pulled back enough to look at me.

The questions I’d been holding onto suddenly felt cruel. I’d watched Richard bury both of his parents. I’d seen him struggle to sleep afterward. I’d held him when grief hit him unexpectedly and listened when he talked about how strange the house felt without them. And now I was standing in his kitchen questioning him because a distraught woman had screamed something at us in public.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

Behind us, Jessica’s death was already gone from the television. Dinner was still sitting on the stove, and Richard’s arms were around me.

Maybe that woman knew something about the person Jessica had been seeing. Maybe she’d mistaken Richard for someone else. Maybe grief had made her desperate for somebody to blame.

Whatever the explanation was, I knew the man standing in front of me.

I’d been there when his entire world fell apart.

And I was the reason he’d survived it.

Chapter 12

Richard

Ipounded on Colin’s front door, until my knuckles were raw and stinging.

Marcy’s furious, accusatory face kept flashing through my mind, but I stayed focused. The house was dead quiet except for the muffled sobbing coming from one of the bedrooms. When Colin yanked the door open, he stood there shirtless in just black sweatpants, fresh red scratches raking across his chest and arms.

He jerked his head toward the living room, scanning the street behind me out of habit. “Get the fuck inside before some nosy neighbor sticks their nose in our business.”

I stepped in, the crying growing louder and more broken as we passed the bedroom. Colin paused at the bedroom door, cracking it just enough for me to glimpse the scene inside: a naked girl chained by her wrists to the headboard, face streaked with tears and ruined mascara, body trembling as she curled into herself on the sheets. She looked completely shattered.

Colin slammed the door shut with a casual shove. “As you can see I was busy. What the fuck crawled up your ass tonight?”

“Marcy ambushed me and Samantha at the farmer’s market,” I said evenly. “She came out of nowhere, screaming about Jessica, the whole situation, right there in public with people staring. It was a complete shitshow. She knows too much and she’s losing it fast. We need to shut this down now.”

Colin lit a cigarette, exhaling a long plume of smoke with a low chuckle. “I fucking told you this was gonna bite you in the ass. Loose ends always do.”

“Yeah, I assumed Thomas would bury it like he always does.”

He shrugged, leaning against the wall and flicking ash to the floor. “Well, Dad says it’s our problem now. More specifically your problem, Rich. You’re the one who fucked up by leaving that girl alive when you should’ve finished it clean, so…”