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“Tell me one more time what I do and don’t mean,” I whispered. This was the right decision. I was more sure with every word he spoke. He refused to listen, refused to see things through my eyes. He didn’t even apologize. Lifting my chin, I added, “See how much good it does.”

He was trembling, his face red, his nostrils flared. “It’s not over,” he warned. “Nowhere close. I love you. I love Liam. That isn’t going to change.”

He loves me. Words I would have given anything to hear before now, with a man’s dried blood under my nails and my son’s well-being hanging in the balance. God, will this ever end? Like it didn’t hurt enough. Like I wasn’t suffering, body and soul. “Please, Jackson. Be decent and go before somebody else shows up and starts shooting.”

His jaw twitched, and his eyes darted in the direction of Liam’s room. “Running away again.”

“Don’t start with that,” I warned. My chest was beginning to heave, thanks to my quickened breathing.

“I only want to remind you of one thing.” He didn’t have to shout for his words to make an impact, thanks to the way he spat them out, so quietly. “You ran off the first time because you didn’t know whether I’d want to have anything to do with you or our child. That, I can understand. But now you know better. You should know I would stop at nothing to protect you both.”

“And yet my head is pounding where it hit the ground earlier while someone was firing at me.” The memory was still vivid, shocking, spreading ice through my system that made it possible for me to add, “We wouldn’t need protection if it weren’t for you.”

Hurting him was the last thing I wanted, but something had to get through to him.

That did it. My words jolted him a little before his spine stiffened, and he marched out of the house without another word. Not a moment too soon since my resolve was about ready to break. I closed the door behind him and touched my forehead to the cool wood, keeping Liam’s sweet face at the forefront of my mind.

Otherwise, I’d have to fling the door open and tell Jackson I loved him too.

And then I’d never be sure of our safety.

19

JACKSON

“Jackson Bennett, meet Detective Burrows,” Grayson concluded the short introduction before I exchanged a handshake with the man responsible for what had become an official investigation once real, tangible evidence had been uncovered and confirmed.

We stood together in the parking garage attached to Lawrence Casino, a couple of the detective’s officers waiting by the elevator door while we touched base.

Burrows gave me an appraising look. He was a veteran whose years of experience showed in the lines around his eyes and bracketing his mouth. “Your friend told me you threatened to kick his ass if I didn’t let you watch us serve this warrant.”

“Something like that.” There was humor in the man’s voice, but I couldn’t share it. There was too much riding on this. Sleepless nights spent wanting Winter, dreaming of her, lying in a cold sweat while imagining what might have happened if Luke hadn’t taken the bullet meant for her. He’d survived but wouldn’t regain the full use of his left arm.

Before heading in to serve the warrant to the person who’d paid a hundred thousand dollars to the shooter, I texted Winter. Will I get an answer this time? Probably not. Still, I wanted her to know, almost a week after she threw me out of her life, that we were about to put an end to this.

Jackson: I told you I’d make them pay, and they will. About to witness an arrest.

Aside from occasional updates via email that she was planning a move to New York, where she’d found a job at a dance academy, that she’d be moving in another few days, and taking our son with her—she might as well have been on the other side of the universe. There was nothing I could do to stop her. Revelation was running smoothly, and she trusted Michael enough to hand him the reins when it came to managing the dancers and keeping her abreast of any new developments. I couldn’t help driving past the house every day in the hope of seeing her or Liam, though there hadn’t been any success.

She hadn’t left yet, and there was still time to convince her to stay. If not for us, at least for Liam’s sake. He deserved a father, and I wanted to provide for him. Everything else would flow from that. She would see I meant it when I swore she’d be safe, and she’d remember what brought us together, no matter how we’d both fought against it.

The first step—witnessing for myself what was about to happen.

I needed to see it.

I needed to commit the moment to memory so I could tell her all about it.

When Burrows started for the elevator, I fell in step behind him. The pieces had fallen into place not long after Grayson started digging following the shooting. Traffic cameras trailed the progress of the shooter’s car through town until he finally stopped at a convenience store outside the city. He might as well have looked straight up into the camera and smiled. Maybe he could have held up his driver’s license for good measure. It took no time to locate him, bring him in with Burrows’ help, and get the information we were looking for—who had hired him, what the instructions were.

Now, armed with phone records, financial transactions, and a sworn statement from the son of a bitch who almost killed Luke while trying to murder the woman I loved, we took the elevator up to the offices where Christian Lawrence would be waiting for what he thought was a meeting with me after weeks of harassing me with no result.

There I was, telling myself he didn’t matter, that Isobel was my real concern. It didn’t occur to me how ruthless her father might be. I knew he was a stubborn son of a bitch after watching him try to make a deal with Sebastian, but going so far as to have someone killed in retaliation for ruining what was barely a half-assed idea in the first place? What, had I insulted his precious daughter when I turned her down? Or was it his pride that had been wounded? Maybe I should have gone straight to him to turn him down. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference, either way.

All I knew for sure was he’d made his fatal mistake by deciding to take vengeance.

The girl sitting at the desk in front of his office gasped out loud as the elevator doors opened, and I strode into the waiting area with a detective, a pair of uniformed officers, and a very angry Grayson. A friend of his almost died because of Christian Lawrence, and he was just as intent on watching the bastard get his due.

“Mr. Lawrence?” she squeaked, flying to his door and flinging it open a few seconds before I gently but firmly nudged her aside so we could enter the room.