Rules in Defiance

by Nichole Severn

  “I was wrong.” His fingertips traced the vein leading from the oversensitized skin of her wrist upward and a shiver, one that had nothing to do with the dropping temperature, chased down her spine. “About all of it. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry.” Waylynn pried her wrist out of his hand, severing contact between them. “You took my biggest fear I believed about myself and you used it against me, Elliot. You hurt me deeper than anyone ever has before, deeper than when my father turned on me and my mother. I trusted you. You were my best friend, the only person I counted on to keep me safe. I... I loved you. But that wasn’t enough, was it?” The cold that’d taken residence in her muscles reached her heart.

  It took everything in her to turn around and head for Officer Ramsey waiting by her police cruiser. Her apartment wouldn’t be the same, wouldn’t give her solace like it did before she’d found Alexis Jacobs in her bathtub, but she couldn’t stay here. Couldn’t face him again—

  “I’m not done with you, Doc.” His fingers slipped around her arm, twisting her into him. Flecks of ice speckled his hair and beard from his dive into the ocean after her. Tension strained the cords between his shoulders and neck, and the memories of their twenty-four hours spent in passion flashed before her eyes.

  She’d hired Blackhawk Security—hired him—to protect her. She owed him her life. She would’ve died in that coffin if he and his team hadn’t intervened, but that had been their job. And none of that changed the fact he’d accused her of murder. Her. The woman he’d contemplated a future with, the woman he’d said he’d take a bullet for. Waylynn set her hand against his chest and closed her eyes to count off his heart rate.

  One year. That was all it’d taken to fall in love with him. The beers after work, the ’90s country battles, the slow sway of his body against hers outside her assistant’s apartment after they’d searched it for evidence Anchorage PD might’ve missed. Each and every single one of them shredded through her now. She’d given him everything, risked telling him her deepest, darkest secret for the glimpse of a normal life. With him. And he’d thrown it in her face.

  “Thank you for saving my life. Three times.” Somehow, even after all the tears she’d shed over the past few hours, her lower lash line burned. But she wouldn’t let them fall this time. She was stronger than that. Her heart lurched in her chest. He might not be done with her, but she’d made her decision. She opened her eyes, pressed him away. She was done with him. “I warned you about the people you push away, Elliot. Not all of them come back. Have Sullivan send me the invoice for your services. Then you can be free of me.”

  Turning her back to him was one of the hardest things she’d ever done in her life. It’d be so easy to forgive him. So easy to bury herself in his muscled arms. So easy to forget everything that’d happened the last five days. But what they’d had together had been a fantasy. Because no matter how close she’d come to death, she was the same person. And so was he.

  She’d kept Officer Ramsey waiting long enough. Waylynn forced one foot in front of the other, heading toward the officer’s cruiser.

  “I don’t care if you killed your father,” he said.

  Panic flared as she studied the crime scene techs and officers around them. “Why don’t you say that louder? I don’t think the entire police department heard you.”

  “I had Vincent run the prints on the gun, but I don’t care what the report says. I don’t care if you turn into a completely different person down the line because of your genetic makeup or if you don’t want to leave Anchorage.” Warmth slid down her spine as he closed the distance between them. She stepped back, but he only countered her move until her back hit the side of the ambulance. Elliot leveraged one arm above her head and leaned in, his mouth mere centimeters from hers. “I want to wake up to your face every morning and go to bed with you every night. I want to binge-eat peanut-butter Oreos until we’re both sick to our stomachs and greet you with a beer after you come home from work. I want to see how much you know about country after the ’90s. I want you, Doc. Since the moment I laid eyes on you that day I moved next door, I’ve wanted you. And I will do anything to make you mine.”

  His mouth crashed down on hers, his tongue sweeping past her lips to claim her. And she let him. Just like that first time he’d kissed her outside her apartment. One brush of his teeth against her bottom lip and she tumbled head over heels into intoxication. And she could almost forget the fact he’d called her a monster, or that he’d been collecting files on everyone he claimed he cared about.

  The pain in her hand intensified as her fingers constricted around the fishing knife. Reality barged through her system and Waylynn ripped away. Escaping from the feel of him pressed against her, she gulped freezing oxygen to clear her head. “I can’t do this.”

  “Here? Because I’m happy to do it somewhere else,” he said. “My SUV’s over—”

  “No. This. Us.” She motioned between them. “It’s not that you called me a monster, Elliot. I’ve known what I am—what I might become—for years and have come to terms with it. It’s that you said it right after we started talking about a future together. You needed a way out.”

  The sarcasm in his gaze disappeared. “A way out?”

  “You keep blackmail files on the people you rely on to have your back. You’re so determined to keep everyone at a distance with your jokes, you never let anyone in because you’re afraid they might turn on you.” And he had good reason. She shook her head, folding her arms across her midsection in an effort to keep the tremors at bay. “It couldn’t have been easy growing up the way you did or easy behind bars after you were arrested in Iraq, but you’re not in prison anymore. You’re not supposed to look for a way out of the relationships you claim you care about, and I don’t want to wake up one morning and find your side of the bed empty, Elliot. And until you realize some people—like the ones on your team—are worth hanging on to... I can’t be part of your life anymore. So here it is. Here’s your way out.”

  Elliot ran his palms down his face, the bloodstains on his clothing shifting in the newness of morning light. Tears welled in his eyes, but he refused to look at her. “Who’s going to drink all my beer after work every night?”

  “I don’t know.” Her insides shattered. She couldn’t swallow around the lump in her throat. Couldn’t breathe. Waylynn headed for Officer Ramsey’s patrol car, determined more than ever not to look back. Tossing the fisherman’s knife across the marina parking lot, she curled her hand around the thin cut across her palm as she walked. “But it can’t be me.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three days later...

  An ear-piercing scream had Elliot reaching for the gun stashed under his pillow. He threw back the sheets and shoved out of bed, not bothering to check the time as the apartment blurred in his vision. He’d made it halfway to the front door before he slowed.

  Damn it. Third night in the last three days.

  Setting his forehead against the nearest wall, he forced his pulse rate to slow. He dropped the gun to his side. No matter how much he wanted to bust down her front door and chase back the nightmares she suffered from since Blake Henson had tried to drown her in the ocean, Waylynn had made herself perfectly clear. They weren’t friends anymore.

  He slammed the butt of the gun into the wall. Once. Twice. A growl ripped from his throat, but he forced himself to hide the gun back under his pillow. He might as well start the investigation for his new client. There was no way he’d be getting back to sleep. Not when he knew she was on the other side of the wall, scared, suffering. Alone.

  “Hell.” What he wouldn’t give to drag her back to the cabin, make her forget everything that’d happened. Take back what he’d said, prove he didn’t have a backup plan when it came to her. Swiping his hand down his face, he hauled his stupid ass to the kitchen and started the coffeemaker. He opened his laptop and took a seat at the bar, the glow f
rom the screen lighting the rest of the kitchen and living room.

  His attention immediately went to the only file folder on the desktop, the one Waylynn had broken into somehow. He entered in his password, the title of her favorite ’90s country song, and hit Enter. The file exploded into separate documents, photos and research. Jane Reise, Sullivan’s army prosecutor. Anthony Harris. Elizabeth Dawson. Kate Monroe and the intel he’d gathered from the attack on her and her husband last year. The rest of the Blackhawk Security team and then some. Every secret, every lie, every trace of his targets’ existence was in these files. He scrubbed his hands down his face. “I hate it when she’s right.”

  Which was often.

  Every piece of intel he’d gathered over the last year and stored in this file had been leverage. A reason to distance himself from the people he claimed to care about, just as she’d said. His fingers brushed the small black-and-red thumb drive Kate had recovered from the side of the road. As far as he knew, Waylynn’s father’s police report was still stored on the device. Along with the research she’d tried to recover before her Genism access had been cut off.

  He plugged the drive into the side of his laptop and waited as it loaded. There. At the bottom of the search window. He positioned the mouse over the Nathan Hargraves police report and dragged it into the virtual trash bin. Then he did the same with every single file he’d collected on his team, on his neighbors, on anyone whom he hadn’t been assigned to investigate. Except one.

  No, he’d keep that one. Because Kate Monroe deserved to know the truth about what happened to her husband. Printing off the pages from that particular file, he dressed quickly, then ejected the storage drive and grabbed the overnight bag he’d hung on to since the night he’d pulled Waylynn from the bottom of the ocean.

  The sudden glow of his phone from the couch where he’d tossed it ripped him back. The team had been trying to reach him for three days. Amazing the thing still had a charge after so many damn calls. Scooping the device from the cushion, he answered. “Make it fast.”

  “Answer the door, Dunham,” Vincent demanded.

  Three knocks twisted him toward the front door. He disconnected and discarded the phone, rolling back his injured shoulder as he unlocked the dead bolt. Vincent Kalani stood on the other side. Falling back against the door, Elliot ushered the forensics expert inside, but the rigidity and tension in the man’s body language announced his intentions before Vincent opened his mouth.

  “I didn’t steal your lunch if that’s why you’re here.” Elliot closed the door, then set Waylynn’s overnight bag onto the couch. He’d been about to break her door down if she didn’t answer. This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

  “Ugh. You sound so depressed it makes me cringe. I wish you would’ve answered your phone so I didn’t have to see your face.” The massive former cop handed him a manila file folder. “Thought you might want to see this.”

  Elliot took the folder with the single sheet of paper inside. Black smudges and a hell of a lot of technical terms stared up at him, but it wasn’t hard to understand what was inside. “The fingerprints on the gun aren’t Waylynn’s.”

  “Your girl didn’t kill her father after all. Fingerprints came back as Nora Hargraves. Her mother.” Vincent Kalani studied the small apartment. “You know, some color would really brighten up this dark, sad cave of an existence you’ve decided to live.”

  He couldn’t focus on the forensic expert’s usual insults. He stared at the report. Read it again. And again. Waylynn had been protecting her mother all these years. “Where’s the gun?”

  “The blood on the woman’s shirt belonged to the father. Wife must’ve been wearing it when she pulled the trigger.” Vincent dived into his leather jacket pocket and pulled an evidence bag free, handing the gun that’d killed Nathan Hargraves over. “Case is officially closed.”

  The weight of the gun kept him grounded. Wouldn’t have mattered what the report said either way but knowing Waylynn had been protecting her ill mother all this time only made him love her more. “Will Waylynn be charged with tampering with the evidence?”

  “Not unless someone turns her in.” Vincent circled around him toward the door. The former NYPD officer reached for the door but turned back. “Back at the docks, you said something about using files against us if something happened to her. You got one on me?”

  “Not anymore,” he said.

  “Good.” Vincent swung the door open. “I was afraid I’d have to kill you.”

  A short scoff escaped his mouth as his teammate closed the door behind him. Elliot had no doubt the forensics expert would follow through, too. As a former cop, Vincent Kalani had embedded himself with some of the evilest kinds of people in New York City. People who could destroy lives if they discovered Vincent had been a cop the whole time. But, the man’s secrets were safe with Elliot. Always would be.

  And so would Waylynn’s.

  Because he cared, damn it. About her. She was the person worth risking his own happiness for, the one he couldn’t spend the rest of his life without. He grabbed her overnight bag and shoved the flash drive she’d stored her research on and the gun inside. Cool morning air slammed into him as he nearly ripped the front door off its hinges and pivoted in front of her door. Her apartment had been cleared as a crime scene, but pieces of police tape fluttered in the small breeze. He knocked, ready to face his future.

  With her.

  The door opened, the sight on the other side more than his lungs could bear.

  She answered the door and all the reasons he’d thought of to keep his distance from her disappeared. A wavy waterfall of blond hair framed the healing bruises along one side of her jaw and skimmed across her collarbones. Those ocean-blue eyes narrowed on him, the same color as the sling wrapping her left arm. She was everything he’d dreamed of and more. Intelligent, sexy, defiant and strong. And, hell, he wasn’t good enough for her.

  “Elliot? What are you doing here?” Waylynn tried folding her uninjured arm across her chest, gaze locking on the bag in his hand as she shifted her weight onto one foot. Surprise smoothed the edges of her full mouth, but she didn’t move to take her stuff from him. “If you came here to apologize—”

  “I wanted to bring back your stuff. The flash drive’s in there, along with my MIT shirt you like so much. Kate collected all your things from the side of the highway after...” He offered her the bag to distract himself from the rage burning through him at the thought of that night. “After you’d disappeared. The gun, too.”

  “Oh.” Her mouth parted, hand relaxing down to her side right before she reached out to take the bag from him. “I thought Vincent was running prints on it.”

  “He did.” But the results didn’t matter. He knew the truth. The woman standing in front of him wasn’t a killer, wasn’t a monster.

  “So you know who killed my father, then.” Dropping the bag beside the door, she rested her weight against it but didn’t move to slam the door in his face. Progress. “Are you going to turn me in for keeping the evidence all these years?”

  “No.” The statute of limitations was still in effect, but he wouldn’t have said a damn word even if it wasn’t. “I know you were protecting your mom so she didn’t have to spend her last days behind bars. I don’t blame you. If you can believe it, it only made me fall harder for you. What I don’t understand is why you couldn’t tell me the truth. Why keep protecting her after she’s gone?”

  Her shoulders rose on a strong inhale.

  “My mother was a good woman. I wanted her to be remembered that way. Not as a killer. And... I was afraid you’d have me arrested for tampering with the murder weapon.” A weak smile played across her mouth, homing his focus to her lips. “Thank you for bringing back my things. But if the police do find out, I don’t expect you to lie for me—”

  “I deleted all the files I had on my team and your father’s
police report.” He pushed his hands into his jeans. Silence stretched between them for a moment. “You were right. I’ve been looking for a way out of a lot of situations in my life. My debt to Sullivan, the relationships I have with my team. What I had with you.” Rolling an invisible rock on the cement with his boot, he lowered his attention to her perfectly painted red toenails and smiled. “I thought my twisted sense of freedom was the most important contributor to my happiness, but I was wrong.” He raised his gaze to hers. “You make me happy, Doc, and if nothing else, I want things to go back the way they were. The thought of losing you completely guts me from the inside, but I’ll be happy just to be your friend again. If you’ll let me.”

  Her hand slipped down the edge of the door. “It’s not like you to give up.”

  “I’m not giving up.” It was the truth. He’d fight to stay in her life, even if he couldn’t have her for himself, and he’d spend the rest of his life trying to make her happy in return. “You’re selfless, you’re kind, you put others first and will go out of your way to protect the ones you care about, even if you’re the one to take the fall. You deserve someone worthy of all those things, Doc. You deserve someone as good as you. You deserve someone better than me and I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah.” She fisted her fingers in his T-shirt and pulled him over the threshold of her apartment. Notching her head higher, she leveled her mouth with his. Her geranium scent filled his lungs with every breath as his heart threatened to beat out of his chest. “You’re probably right, but where’s the fun in that?”

  * * *

  EVERYBODY HAD AN ADDICTION. Hers just happened to be him.

  Need bubbled beneath her skin, moving and flowing as thick as molten lava. And if she wasn’t careful, she’d erupt all over the damn place. Hot. Destructive. Unforgiving.

  Waylynn kissed him—hard, fast, trying to quench the desire for him she’d ignored for the last three days. Every second without him had been agony. Every night waking up alone from her nightmares had torn her apart a little bit more. She dragged him inside and used her foot to close the door behind them, all the while never taking her mouth off his. Happiness throttled through her unlike anything she’d experienced before. Her hand shook as she framed his jawline and pulled back to catch her breath.