Cora insisted on coming.

I tried to talk her out of it. Nothing good will come of her being there, and she might hear some things that will make her upset. I don’t want to make what happened to her any worse.

I hate myself for what happened. I hate myself for letting Jaxson get so close to her. I’m going to catch that fucking scumbag, and I’m going to make sure he rots in prison. I know he killed Atticus, I believe it beyond the shadow of a doubt, and all I need to do is get my hands on him. I know I can make him confess, just given the opportunity.

That rat got away though. Now our only lead is Reggie, and Mitch was good enough to agree to let me talk to him.

“Just try not to let him get to you,” I say to Cora as we approach the station.

She shrugs. “I’ll be okay.”

“You won’t be in the room, just watching through the mirror. But he might say some things you won’t like.”

“I’ll be strong.”

I grin at her. “Good.” I pull her against me and briefly kiss her lips before letting her go. “It’s game time.”

We walk together through the front doors. Mitch meets us out front, looking somber.

“How are you guys holding up?” he asks.

“We’re good,” I say.

“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” he says to Cora. “To both of you.”

“We’re okay,” she says. “Just anxious to get some answers.”

He nods and motions for us to follow. “We all are,” he says. “I wish I had talked to you sooner, Wyatt. Reggie took a turn for the worse after school, fell in with a bunch of rough guys, turned into a real bastard.”

“He got huge, too,” I say.

Mitch chuckles. “Yeah, that helped him.”

“I have to admit,” I say softly. “I never would have pegged Reggie as the type.”

We move through the back halls of the station. People don’t look at us twice, and I know Mitch is doing this as a favor. His superiors probably don’t even know, and everyone’s pretending like they don’t see us.

He stops outside of an interrogation room. The door’s marked as “INTERROGATION 2” with another, unmarked door a few feet further on.

“He wasn’t,” Mitch says. “But then his dad died, and his mom died not long later, and I think he just turned to drugs. Plus, he got big, and people started to respect him in a way they never did before.”

“That can go to a guy’s head,” I say, nodding.

Cora makes a face. “Are you two really making excuses for him?”

“Not at all,” I say, turning to her. “But it’s better to understand who you’re talking to before going in.”

“Right,” Mitch says. “Interrogation techniques all say you should try and get inside the head of your subject. Got to know him if you’re going to do that.”

I nod at Mitch. He appears to know what he’s talking about, which surprises me. I pegged him for just another small-town uniformed lifer, but maybe he’s smarter than that.

“It’ll be okay,” I say to Cora. “Just trust me, okay?”

“Okay,” she says.

“You’re down this way,” Mitch says, leading Cora to the next door. “Just go in, don’t turn on the light, and don’t make a sound. Got it?”

“Got it,” she says.

Mitch opens the door and she shoots me a look before stepping inside. He shuts the door softly behind her.

I stretch a little, rolling my neck. “Ready?” I ask him.

“Ready,” he says.

I’m about to walk in, but before I do, I turn and head back over to a nearby desk. I grab a stack of papers and shove them into a blank manila folder before nodding at Mitch. He grins at me but doesn’t say anything. This is the oldest trick in the book, but it often works.

Mitch opens the door and we step inside. Reggie’s in there already, chained to the table, wearing a brown jumpsuit. He looks up as we come in and he grins at me.

“Hey, Wyatt,” he says. “How’s it going?”

I don’t react. I sit down across from him and I put the folder down between us. His eyes flick toward it and back to me, but I don’t smile. I know that the folder’s empty, but he thinks we have a whole stack of papers on him, and that’ll make him uneasy.

Mitch leans up against the wall behind me, crossing his arms. Cora’s watching us through the mirror on the far wall, but I put that out of my mind.

“The way I see it, you don’t have a lot of options here,” I say to Reggie finally.

“How’s that, bud?” he asks, grinning.

“You tried to kill a police officer.” I open the folder and look at a blank paper. “Far as I can tell, that’ll put you on death row.” I close the folder and look at Mitch. “Isn’t that right?”

He just shrugs and I turn back to Reggie.

His smile falters. “We don’t have the death penalty.”

“You sure about that?” I smile and change tack. “Truth is, you’re screwed, Reggie. I thought we were cool, but that shit back there…” I shake my head.

“High school was a long time ago. I’m not some prop to keep around anymore.”

I laugh softly. “Thing is, you weren’t a prop to me. I actually liked you. I probably was the only one, to be honest.” I meet his gaze and lean back in my chair.

“What do you want?” he snaps. “If you guys have me dead already, why bother with this shit?”

“I want to know something. If you tell me, I might make your life easier.”

He sighs. “I won’t roll over on my own people.”

“No, of course not,” I say. “Not you, not Reggie. Right, Mitch?”

“Right,” Mitch says.

“Thing is, Reg, I remember the skinny little dweeb you used to be.” He flinches and I keep going. “I remember how dorky and pathetic you were. Oh true, you got big, but back then? Nobody gave a shit about you at all. You were a nothing.” I lean forward and meet his gaze. “Except to me, you were a friend. And you tried to kill me.”

He looks away. “I did what I had to do.”

“Sure,” I say. “I get that. We all have hard choices to make. But typically mine don’t involve killing someone that befriended me back in the day.”

“What the fuck do you want?” he snaps.

“Where’s Jaxson?”

“Probably with that dumb bitch Kristi.” He instantly looks like he regrets that.

I cock my head. “Atticus’s ex-girlfriend?”

“They never liked each other,” he mutters.

I lean back and cross my arms. I almost want to laugh, it’s so fucking simple. “You’re in love with her.”

“Fuck no,” he says. “She’s a goddamn slut.”

“You want to fuck her, make babies with her, but instead she’s fucking a bunch of other scumbags. So you, what, you’re still willing to kill for her? Holy shit, Reggie. That’s pathetic.”

“Fuck you,” he growls.

“No, actually, Kristi’s the one getting fucked right now. She’s taking a big meaty cock between her legs, and she’s not thinking about poor Reggie, locked up because of her.”

“Fuck you,” he growls again.

“She’s gonna let you rot while she sucks Jaxson’s dick, isn’t she? I bet she’ll never even bother to visit.”

“You don’t know shit about this,” he says, but I can tell. I hit a nerve, and I’m not backing off it.

“Where are they, Reggie? You want me to stop Jaxson from stretching out her tight little cunt before you get a ride? Tell me where they are.”

“Holed up at that fucking shack. Jaxson brags about fucking whores there all the time, that fucking prick.” He strains against his chains suddenly. “I want to strangle that fucking cunt,” he whispers, eyes bulging.

“Where’s the shack?” I ask him softly.

“Near that casino. I’ll give you an address if you promise me something.”

“What’s that, Reggie?”

“Make sure you put her away for a long fucking time.”

I smile at him. “Sure, Reggie.” I stand up. “Tell Mitch here where we gotta go. I’ll see you around.”

He looks away as I leave the room. I stand in the hallway, breathing deeply. Cora comes out a second later and walks right up to me.

“Jaxson and Kristi,” she says, eyes wide.

“I know.”

“Shit.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “We had her. We tried to help her.”

“I know,” I say softly.

“And she was a part of it, wasn’t she?”

“Probably.”

She looks so angry, it’s honestly surprising. She clenches her fists, and I think she might scream. Instead, she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“Let’s fucking get her,” she says finally. “She was there when Atticus died. She was a part of what happened.”

I take her hand in my mind. “We’ll get her,” I promise. “But let me ask you something first.”

She cocks her head. “Okay.”

“Do you think it’s going to make you feel better?”

She bites her lip. “Yeah,” she says finally. “I do.”

“It won’t bring Atticus back. Just remember that. You’ll feel better that they’re locked up, but Atticus will still be gone.”

She nods and looks away. “I know. I think… I think I’ve been ready for him to disappear for a long time.”

“He hasn’t been your brother for years,” I say.

“He hasn’t,” she agrees.

“What will you do, once this is over?”

“I don’t know. Go back to work, go on with my life.”

I nod and let her hand drop. I was just thinking the same thing.

But that means I’d go back to the city, go back to my old job and old life and leave her here alone. She won’t be in danger anymore, but that’s not the only thing I’m concerned about.

The truth is, I don’t want to leave Mason anymore. Really, I don’t want to leave her. I feel like whatever’s happening between us is just starting, and I need to find out where it’s going.

I can feel something inside of me starting to click into place. I didn’t know I was missing something, but now that I’m with Cora, it’s so obvious. I’ve been spending my life sleeping around, fucking whatever attractive woman is in front of me that night, but I was just going through the motions. It was the same thing, night after night, and although the girls were all different, the feelings were the same. It was just lust, empty and simple and worthless.

This last week though, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I think I’ve grown more than I could have guessed, and a lot of that’s all thanks to Cora. She’s been slowly showing me how to be a better man, a little bit at a time.

She’s strong, beautiful, smart, and I’d be stupid to walk away from that.

So I want to catch Jaxson and Kristi, but I also don’t, because I don’t want this to end.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s go get ready.”

She grins at me. “I was born ready.”

I roll my eyes. “You’d make such a good detective.”

We wait for Mitch to come back out before we leave, the address tucked into my pocket, a promise from Mitch to hold off for at least a day before they raid the place. I’m nervous, and I know I’m going about this all wrong, but we have to see it through.