“Was this close to it,” he continued.

“Chace –”

“Then you came back into town.”

I felt my head jerk in surprised confusion.

Chace kept speaking.

“Decided with one look at you, I’d put up with it, all the shit that was gettin’ worse at work ‘cause my end game would be you.”

Was he saying what I thought he was saying?

“The town’s sweet, cute, quiet, pretty librarian in my bed, my ring on her finger, enjoyin’ it as I taught her how to enjoy it, plantin’ my babies in her, building a family.”

Holy fraking frak!

He was saying what I thought he was saying!

No, he was saying more.

I stopped breathing.

He continued talking.

“One look, at the grocery store, you in the aisle, your nose in a book. Stared at you, so f**kin’ cute, but I had no clue how you could shop and keep your nose in a book. But there you were, doin’ it. You looked up, saw someone you knew, smiled at them and I knew eatin’ all that shit at work would be worth it when I was ready to make my play. That cute in my bed. That hair. Those eyes. That smile. Definitely worth it. So I ate it, bidin’ my time, gettin’ the wild out of me so all I’d give you was sweet. You’d move to Gnaw Bone, Chantelle, I knew you would so I could kiss that bullshit good-bye, get myself out of it without takin’ you away from the folks you loved when I claimed you.”

Holy frickity fraking frak, frak, frak!

I forced air in my lungs.

Chace moved toward me and kept talking.

“Waited too long.”

I watched him come to me, my heart beginning to beat harder and my feet no longer not moving because I was trying to be cool but because I was frozen solid with shock. He came to a halt one foot from me so I tipped my head back to look at him.

He lifted a hand, pulled the wineglass from mine and set it on the counter with an alarming-sounding clink.

I looked at the glass in a vague effort to ascertain that it wasn’t broken then I tilted my head back to look back at him, mouth open but I didn’t say a word.

He did.

“He touched you.”

I blinked because I didn’t understand his words.

“What?”

“He touched you,” Chace repeated.

“Who?” I asked.

“My father. He wasn’t only in your presence, you, my Faye, mine, cute and clean and sweet, he touched you. Took your hand, held it,” he stopped speaking abruptly, sucked breath in through his nose then bit out, “Put his mouth on you.”

Okay, now, what on earth?

“So?” I asked quietly when he said no more.

“He likes kink.”

I blinked again because these words were unexpected and also I didn’t know what they meant.

“What?”

“Kink,” he ground out then, “Sex, darlin’, can get adventurous and you don’t carry on with this bullshit play you got goin’ on, we’ll have time, I’ll show you how and we’ll explore that in good ways that we both like. But it can also get weird. To each their own. I don’t give a f**k what someone does to get off. What I do not need to know is that my Dad likes it weird and when I say weird I mean sick-fuck, turn your stomach,” he leaned into me for emphasis even though he put undeniable verbal emphasis on his final word, “weird.”

I didn’t want to know this. I didn’t want him to know this. I didn’t know why he was sharing this. And I didn’t want to know how he knew this.

But he told me.

“Misty and a girlfriend took an assignment from Arnie Fuller and they did that shit to my Dad. They also taped it. They also blackmailed him with it. And I’ve seen that tape.”

My mouth dropped open as my stomach clenched and bile filled my throat.

I closed my mouth to swallow it down.

Chace’s eyes moved over my face and when they locked on mine, he whispered, “Yeah. That unpleasant enough for you, Faye?”

It definitely was.

“I –” I started.

“Gets worse,” he cut me off and I blinked again.

Worse?

How could that possibly get worse?

Chace told me.

“Her play, soon’s you get over the shock of learning that jacked up shit, you’d figure out. But still, I’ll tell you. She used that tape to get money from my Dad. Arnie used it to get my Dad under his thumb and Misty used it more to get my ring on her finger. They played that tape for me and told me the way. Either I marry Misty and tow the dirty cop line or my Mom sees that tape. So I wind up with a f**kin’ wife who did my Dad dirty in more than one way. I got that shit burned in my brain and her slut ass sleepin’ in my f**kin’ bed. Top that, through that shit, I know what they’re doin’ to Ty, I know why and I can’t do one f**kin’ thing to stop it or my Mom pays. In the end for all I know, I got no shot at anything, Misty doesn’t let me go or shit doesn’t get cleaned up. No future. No family. No you. Nothin’ that I wanted, wanted all my life, important things like a woman I loved in my bed and kids we made under the roof I provided by doin’ good work I was proud of. Just a bitch in my bed and a Dad who cheats on my Mom and how he cheats a memory I will never, ever erase.”

Oh my fraking God.

“Chace –” I whispered.

“You want more?”

My heart seized.

“More?” I breathed.

“Yeah, Faye,” he leaned in deeper, “more.”

I didn’t but I would take it. Still, he didn’t give me the chance to accept or refuse.

He kept right on going.

“Before Misty, before she did that to my Dad, I was Frank. I did what I could for the citizens of this town knowin’ things were gettin’ ugly but keepin’ my nose clean. I worked my brothers, hopin’ they’d turn from the dark side. After they had me, after I saw that tape, I had no choice but to join their ranks. My mother saw that, tonight, she was good, tonight, you helped her keep it together but she saw that, Faye, trust me, she’d unravel. Hospital stay. My count since I could remember, she’s had four. One lasted six months. This would destroy her. If by some miracle she got better, she couldn’t live with him. Problem is, she can’t live without him. Knowin’ that, knowin’ she had nothin’ good to get out for, she might never recover. I don’t want my mother in a hospital the next thirty years. I got no choice. Keep my mouth shut, take my envelopes filled with dirty money, look the other way and step up when they gave me an assignment.”

“You returned the money,” I reminded him quietly. “It said so in the papers.”

“Yeah, but when my father’s cronies, The Elite, got their shit in another mess, this mess involving Arnie, a mess that had to be sorted with muscle behind a badge, they sent me. With no choice, I went.”

I didn’t understand.

“Chace, I don’t –”

“A man tried to horn in on Arnie’s blackmail and extortion business and they sent me to talk him down. Except, to talk him down, I had to use my fists and with that tape in an envelope ready to be couriered to my mother, I had no choice but to do it.”

I understood then and, involuntarily, my feet took me a step back and, not that he could, but still, Chace didn’t miss it.

“Yeah,” he whispered, his face as hard and harsh as his voice, “see that dark gathering now, don’t you, baby?”

“You went to Internal Affairs,” I whispered.

“Yeah, I did. I took as much of it as I could stomach then I swung my mother’s ass out there and went to IA. Fun choice, my mother’s mental health or my ass.”

“And the town,” I added.

“Yeah, and the town. Detective Chace Keaton, the courageous hero who brought down a band of dirty cops. They hid the fact I was one. They hid the fact that for years I did shit or didn’t do shit I should have when people were getting f**ked. Not just a little, like your Dad gettin’ pulled over, which, by the way, Faye, I knew was happening but couldn’t stop. But a lot, like Ty Walker losin’ five f**kin’ years of his f**kin’ life rotting in a prison states away, doin’ time for a crime he did not commit. Your Dad said when a wrong’s bein’ done, you’re no person he’d want to know if you don’t do what you can to make it right. You live by that too and I’m that person you don’t wanna know.”

“Chace, you did something,” I reminded him.

“And, before, I did other things, Faye. I was that wrong.”

“You were forced to be.”

He shook his head. “A stronger man would not have been forced to be.”

“Your mother –”

“I could have walked away,” he told me.

“I wouldn’t have,” I returned instantly.

At my words, his body jolted.

I kept talking.

“Someone intended to harm my Mom, Dad, Liza, the boys, any of my family or someone I loved, I’d do what I could to stop it. Anyone who loves someone would.”

“Even lie down with filth?” he asked, disbelief heavy in his tone.

“Whatever it took,” I answered.

He shook his head. “No, darlin’, easy to say, harder to do.”

“I don’t mean it was easy, I mean I would do it.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can. You were raised by Silas and Sondra Goodknight. You would make the right choice. I was raised by Trane and Valerie Keaton. I made the wrong one.”

“You made the only choice.”

“In hindsight, everything seems clear but at the time, it was not and I had choices. I just didn’t make the right ones.”

“You loved her and your hand was forced. It took you a while but you eventually saw your way clear and got the town clear and, incidentally, it’s debatable if that was the right choice since I can assume it made her more vulnerable than she already is.”

“And before that, Faye, I beat a man into givin’ me shit he was holdin’ over a bunch of men who didn’t deserve that effort.”

I felt my flinch and saw his face get harder when he caught it but I powered through.

“You did it for Valerie.”

“I did wrong.”

“You did what you had to do.”

“Yeah, and it… was… wrong.”

But I’d had enough.

And so had Chace.

It was time to break through.

“God!” I threw up my hands, losing it. “Do you not understand that the power behind the love of your actions for your mother and, what you don’t get, Chace, also for your father is a beautiful thing you should be proud of?”

His body locked.

I didn’t catch it. I was on a mission and was already too far gone.

“Do you not think that I don’t think that, if you loved me that much, if you turned your back on everything that was you in order to protect me, that I wouldn’t love you more? Love you more because you loved me so much you’d do everything you could to keep me safe? Even going so far as losing you? But what you don’t get, Chace, is that you never lost you. What they did was wrong. What you did was right.”