Chapter 15

Before coffee: Hates everybody.

After coffee: Feels good about hating everybody.

Evander

“So, are you ever going to tell me what you did to get a prison sentence?” she asked quietly.

I didn’t want to talk about it.

But this was the first time she was talking in well over an hour without breaking out in a crying jag, and I’d do damn near anything to get her to stop doing that.

“Do you want to hear what they say happened, or what really happened?” I questioned.

She turned her head to stare at me, and I let my eyes roam over her face.

Her eyes were puffy from crying, and her cheeks were still wet from the most recent bout of tears that’d wracked her small body.

How someone as small as her could hold that many tears, and cry that hard, was beyond me.

I wanted nothing more than to throw my arms around her shoulders and pull her securely in to my chest, but I knew that she didn’t need what followed me around like a black cloud.

I had the worst luck ever—hence, my prison sentence.

“Tell me what happened,” she ordered.

I sighed, knowing that this was going to hurt, seeing the look on her face when she heard what I did to get a prison sentence, but I chose to tell her anyway.

It was better to get this out of the way now so I didn’t get even more attached to her than I already was.

“I was driving home one night after work when I saw a woman walking down the side of the road.”

She raised her brows at me.

“That sounds familiar.”

I snorted out a gruff laugh.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Except, what I didn’t know, was that she was a prostitute.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“You…you picked up a prostitute?” she screeched.

I nodded.

“Saw a girl on the side of the road. Picked her up because she was in fucking heels, and I felt sorry for her,” I mumbled. “It was dark, and she was on the main road that didn’t even have a shoulder for her to walk safely on. Then, I realized that she was pregnant. So, I picked her up, and immediately got her to a shelter. I dropped her off and didn’t think another thing of it until I arrived at work the next day to find the police there waiting for me.”

“And what happened then?” she pushed, turning on the step to face me.

“I was arrested for the kidnapping and assault of the prostitute that I tried and failed to pick up the night before.”

“But…wouldn’t admitting that she was a prostitute send her to jail, too?”

I nodded. “Yes, and she got herself beat up while she was at it, too, so it could look all official and shit.”

“And what? Did she have any witnesses?”

I nodded my head.

“One.”

“And who was that?”

“The police chief.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“Hostel’s police chief?”

I grunted in reply. “The one and only.”

“So the man in charge of all the police in our town is dirty?”

I nodded again.

“What about all the other police officers?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know, and honestly, don’t care.”

“Why are you back?” she asked. “If they got you once, they can get you again.”

I grinned then, showing my straight white teeth to her.

“I wasn’t going to run and hide,” I admitted. “Doing that would show the dirty bastard that he’d won, and I’ll be damned if I give him that out.”

She grumbled under her breath. “Did you figure out why she accused you of all that?”

I grimaced.

“There was a drug dealer down the street from here that always did his deals right outside my house. Him and another guy would pull onto my property and do their business at the end of my drive. I was pissed off that the little fucker kept doing his shit on my street, let alone in front of my house, so I beat the shit out of him and told him to move along,” I murmured. “He didn’t take too kindly to it, so he got one of his girls to play the damsel in distress card.”

“And you fell for it, hook, line and sinker,” she guessed.

I nodded. “I sure the fuck did.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” she murmured. “There are checks and balances in the system to prevent this from happening.”

“The so called ‘system’ failed me,” I told her bluntly. “A cop could’ve done a little more digging and gotten to the bottom of it, but since what the detective found out fit me, and my background seemed to fit the situation, he didn’t bother to look any further,” I groaned. “I also couldn’t afford a fucking lawyer, so I had one appointed to me. The only problem was that his wife was pregnant, and he didn’t want to find a way for me to get off, because he kept comparing the prostitute to her—whether I did it or not, so he chose to slack off. I fired him and tried to represent myself, but that didn’t go all that well either.”

“So you served time for assault, robbery and kidnapping?”

I nodded. “Assaulting the pimp was never one of the charges against me. Apparently, he allowed me to go to jail as a punishment for beating the shit out of him since he knew that he couldn’t take me in a fight. One that he knew I’d be willing to give him if he’d wanted it.”

“So you beat the shit out of her pimp, two other guys that were with him, and were punished by going to jail for assault, kidnapping, and what…murder?”

“Not murder,” he disagreed. “The detective did do something right. Found out that the prostitute had lost her baby the previous night in the ER. She was scheduled to have a D&C the next day.”

All Kennedy could do was shake her head.

“And where was your brother during all of this?”

I grimaced. “That detective I was talking about?”

Her mouth dropped open in anger.

“He did not.”

I shook my head. “No, the detective wasn’t him. But he’s best friends with him. You know that guy whose truck I recovered from Lowe’s?”

She nodded, eyes wide.

“That’s him.”

“What a douche,” she grumbled, still shaking her head. “You should find a better lawyer. You could get compensation. You could get money from the state for wrongfully convicting you and sending you to jail!”

I grunted. “Takes money, darlin’.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “But that’s not fair!”

I laughed humorlessly. “Didn’t anyone tell you that life wasn’t fair?”

Plus, I was doing something about it…just not through the legal system.

“Well, if I had money, I’d hire a lawyer for you. A private investigator, too.”

I dropped my hand to her head and curled it around her neck before I pulled her to me.

“Don’t get yourself caught up in this,” I told her, mouth only inches away from her, making us eye to eye.

She narrowed her eyes, and I squeezed the back of her neck lightly.

“Trust me on this. With the chief of police, Fowler, being dirty, and that shitty Detective Mueller, you really won’t get anywhere with this. Dumbass number one will fuck you over for a pretty penny, and Detective Mueller already dislikes you for having anything to do with me over him.”

“Not to mention he’s obviously a shit detective.”

I shrugged at her words.

She wasn’t wrong.

“Leave it be,” I ordered her.

She looked away, but I turned her back to face me with my hand that was still on her neck.

“Promise me that you won’t get involved in this,” I said. “When I leave here…you need to leave it that way. You need to stay the fuck away from me and not look back.”

Her face became thunderous.

“I’m not staying away from you just because there are dumb people in this town who don’t know their assholes from their elbows.”

I squeezed her neck and got up, grabbing my jeans from the floor.

After shrugging them on, I reached down to the floor for my socks and sat on the bed before putting them on.

“You’re leaving?”

I didn’t bother to look at her.

If I did something stupid like that, I might very well decide that I wanted to stay.

And I couldn’t stay.

It was already bad enough that I’d fucked her—without a condom I might add.

Something so fuckin’ stupid I couldn’t even begin to count the ways.

“Yeah, I’m leaving,” I told her. “Better for you if I’m not here.”

She touched my back. “Will you come to me tomorrow?”

I finished putting on my socks and reached for my boots, dislodging her hand.

“I don’t know that that is a good idea,” I told her bluntly. “The more we’re seen together, the worse things will get for you. If you need me, you can call. But no, I won’t be here.”

Which made me feel like utter shit.

But this was her life we were talking about. Her sister was dying, yes, but she had to go on living. And she had to keep doing it in this very town that was as corrupt as fuck.

So no, I wouldn’t be putting her in any more danger than I already was.

My plans were already set into place.

And she wasn’t a part of them.

Once I slipped my second boot on, I got up and walked out without another word.

I did stop once I made it out of her drive to call a contractor to come fix her roof, though. It wouldn’t do to have her living in a place that was dangerous. I couldn’t keep her safe from me by staying away and fix her house at the same time.

Time for plan B.