Exposed : My Mountain Man Protector(34)

I stood up and started pacing. What I had to do was obvious. It was actually doing it that was hard. In my head, Angelo’s tan finger sliced across his neck over and over and over again. His message had been clear enough: Tell and you’re dead.



I stared miserably at the clear window. There was no one there—yet. I kept my gaze locked on the window.



Being in the mafia, Angelo probably had friends everywhere. He probably had a score of people he could ask for a “favor”—to take me out. Giving a statement to the police would be suicide. I paused and then sat back down.



And yet I had seen that look in Angelo’s eyes as he had advanced in the plaza parking lot. He was not going to stop until I was dead. Not giving a statement to the police would be suicide. I inhaled and then exhaled, clasping my hands on the desk.



I thought about it all, from the first moment I met Angelo to his last palm strike on the window, from the sleepless nights alone in Angelo’s bed to curled up in Blake’s arms. I thought of all my hopes and fears, the best- and worst-case scenarios, the outcomes of telling and not telling. I thought of life, my life, who the person I wanted to be was and what she would do now.



By the time Officer Sherpe returned, I had made my decision.



“Miss Bell?” he said, sitting down.



“Yes,” I said. “Yes. I’m ready to tell you everything.”



And I did. I stood up, and the words surged out of me. I told him about all of Angelo’s sketchy friends, how he was gone nights and slept days. I told him about following Angelo to the factory over a week ago, seeing him kill the man, the message he’d said, and the bullet he’d shot into his head. I told him about everything that had happened afterward: the fake police officer at the cabin, the car bomb, Angelo trying to shoot Blake and me.



When I was finished, I collapsed back into the chair. An exhausted lightness was fluttering through me. My head was clear and my breaths were deep and calm. Finally, finally, everything was all right.



Officer Sherpe put his bony hand on mine.



“Thank you, Claire. Your testimony will help us put Angelo away for good. You’ve been very brave.”



I nodded and smiled. I had been.



Officer Sherpe got up and opened the door, and we left. I sailed out of there on a cloud, not even glancing at the room Angelo was in as I passed it. I glided out to the lobby, where Blake rose at my return. We smiled at each other.



“My turn,” his grin said.



“Your turn,” mine said.



As he passed me, he handed me my phone and said, “It was ringing nonstop.”



I nodded, still smiling, keeping my gaze on him until he was gone. I was free, wonderfully, gloriously free. Who cared what the outside world wanted now?



After a few minutes had passed and boredom set in, I checked my phone. Three missed calls, all from my mother.



“We’re here” her text said. “Come have dinner with us.”



I sighed as I read the message over and over again. Was there any excuse that would be valid?



I typed out the “okay” before I could think better of it. After all, I did want to see my parents. I was just afraid.



“Six at Cache Cache. Bring Blake” was her reply.



I glared at the response. Just what I had expected. My parents were here to see me, sure, but also to meet Blake, to feel him out, to inspect him like the ticking time bomb he could potentially be. They didn’t trust me.



I started out the “actually we have plans, sorry, but” text before I deleted it altogether. I had just conquered my greatest fear, made public my failure of a marriage, my monster of a husband. What did I have to fear now?



It seemed ages before Blake returned. It didn’t help that I was in no mood to be on my phone and could only resort to gazing dully out the front-door window, which showed the dull and empty front lawn of the police station.



Finally, Blake was back, and he nodded and a gestured to the door.



“Time to go.”



As we walked out, this time I could only meet his wide smile with a thin one of my own.



“My parents want to meet us for dinner,” I said in a small voice.



Out of the corner of my eye, I watched his happiness switch to surprise before finally settling on a hard-to-read neutrality.



“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” I said.



He grabbed my hand. “I do.”



I tried to meet his smile. Would Blake be so sure if he knew that this dinner was going to resemble an interrogation more than anything? If he knew that if he was undecided about us before, now he was going to be forced into a choice?