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“Is this true?” Rodriguez asks, turning to me and I nod with tears in my eyes as images of that night flick through my mind.
“Yes.”
Rodriguez drops his pen on the table and blows out a breath. “Shit… I’m, uh…” he sighs. “I’m going to need you to go over the statement you gave two years ago again and then we’ll get him in here for a formal line-up.”
I nod. “Okay.”
“You can take my DNA, too. For a familial match,” Lucas adds and I gasp as my gaze flicks between the detective and the man I love. Rodriguez stares at him for a second before shaking his head.
“Are you sure about that, man? Are you sure about all of this?”
He nods. “Yeah, I am. All this time, I’ve been trying to save my brother and turns out, I’ve just been enabling him. And now he’s not just hurting himself but hurting other people as well. This is what has to be done. Who the hell knows, maybe going to jail will be just the thing he needs to turn his life around.”
A feeling of unease settles over me as Rodriguez nods but I push it down, focused on finally getting justice after all this time. Rodriguez nods.
“All right, then. Let’s do this.”
* * * *
“You okay?” Lucas asks as we pull into the driveway and I nod, avoiding his gaze. I’ve been quiet ever since we left the station because I know as soon as I open my mouth, the floodgates are going to burst free. All through the interview, as I told my story again and answered all the detective’s questions, my heart felt heavy for reasons that I couldn’t understand and as Lucas offered up his DNA to match the sample in my rape kit, my stomach was uneasy but it wasn’t until we were leaving and Lucas told Rodriguez that he hoped his brother would get the help he needed that I realized why. Lucas may have decided to turn his brother in and accompany me to the police station but our problems are far from solved and it hit me that, as much as I wish it wasn’t, this relationship may be past saving. Which is especially hard since neither one of us did anything to deserve this.
Things would be so much easier if either one of us was to blame for our demise.
“Where’s Alice and Brooklyn?” Lucas asks as we climb out of the truck and he scans the driveway.
“Alice took her to the park.”
On our way home, I texted Alice and told her I needed the house to myself for a little while. She was all too eager to comply. No doubt, her mind went right to the gutter. God, I wish that were the case instead of the conversation I have to initiate right now.
“What’s going on with you, Quinn? You’ve been weird since we left the station.”
I glance up at him. “We should talk inside.”
“Hey,” he urges, pulling me into his body at the base of the stairs. Just like every other time, his touch makes me melt but I have to fight it. “Just tell me what’s going on? Is it just going over everything again that’s got you so upset?”
Tears fill my eyes as I look up at him and shake my head. “Can we please go inside?”
He nods and wraps his arm around my shoulders as we walk up the steps. I soak up his touch. I wish I could bottle the feeling so that, after today, when he’s gone and the nights feel impossibly long, I can open it up and let my heart not feel so damn broken for a moment.
“All right, we’re inside now. Tell me what’s going on,” he says as he closes the door behind us and I shake my head, butterflies flapping around in my belly.
“We should go sit down.”
He pulls me into his arms, a scowl twisting his handsome face. “I don’t want to sit down, Quinn. I want to know what’s going on with you.”
“Please,” I plead, barely holding the tears at bay. He searches my eyes for a second before he sighs and nods. Releasing me, he follows me as I walk into the kitchen. Glancing at the barstools, I know I’m too antsy to sit so I position myself on one side of the island and suck in a breath.
“I… don’t think this is going to work,” I whisper, my chest aching like nothing I’ve ever felt before and my eyes burn with tears. He stops in his tracks, studying my face.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
A tear falls down my cheek and I quickly wipe it away. “I think the…issues with your brother are too big for us to overcome.”
“No, they’re fucking not. Do you not remember me standing out on that porch only a few hours ago and telling you that I have no future without you?”
“I wish that was enough, Lucas.”
His brows furrow. “What do you mean it’s not enough? It’s everything.”
