Sweet Seduction Shield(71)

My breath caught in my throat and I lifted my head to look at Ryan over my shoulder.

"It's still here," I whispered.

Ryan held my gaze, deep autumnal browns mesmerising me, anchoring me to the ground.

"Do you want to do this, Marie?" he asked, although the question was really moot now, because he could just reach forward and take it himself. But still he asked, giving me one last chance at controlling the outcome.

This time pictures of my daughter did not compete for attention in my mind. It was all Rick. And not just the end, where his lifeless body, so pale, yet covered in red, lay crumpled on a bed of grass. But the beginning, the promise, the fun and laughter and love. Through the struggles and the still determined hope that we'd make a decent life together. Until finally the moment he told me who his new job was actually for.

I had loved Richard Costello. I had loved him so much that I stayed, with the stupid, idiotic hope of saving him from himself. But Roan McLaren was more than I'd ever bargained for. And in the end it wasn't himself that I had to save Rick from, but a drug lord with no morals and the means to destroy people's worlds.

It was a war I couldn't win then. But now?

I turned back to look at the dark hole, then dropped the file on the ground and reached in with my bare hand to clasp the ledger. It took a couple of tugs to free it from its resting spot, and in places the plastic covering I'd wrapped it in for protection tore as I pulled it free. But after a few heart palpitating seconds I had the heavy, leather bound tome in my quaking hands.

We both stared at it. So innocuous looking. A blank dark brown, worn leather cover, with curling, faded cream sheets of paper in between. The edges were rubbed and bent slightly, the book a little out of shape due to the copious photos Rick had been instructed to glue into certain pages. I didn't unwrap it, or open it. I'd seen what was inside this book. I'd forced myself to face what my husband had done.

It wasn't pretty. It was the stuff of nightmares. If I'd questioned the treacherous danger we'd been in before, once I read that book I knew our lives were over.

I slowly stood to my full height, Ryan rising with me, his hand still branding a hot mark on my hip. My eyes were on the ledger, so I didn't see his face when I took a step away. Placing space between us that felt cold and alien, and so very much unwanted. But I needed to do this properly. I needed to do this for Daisy and me.

I lifted my eyes to the detective's. His were cautious and wary, and full of a pain that I think was all for me. For what I was doing. For what I was facing hauling this dark, disgusting piece of work out into the light. It wasn't for the distance I'd placed between us, it was clear he understood why I'd done it. The pain I saw etched on his face, so openly on his heart, was for what I was feeling right then.

I realised I'd fallen for this man. Somewhere along the way, between meeting him in my office and being caught off guard when he brought my world tumbling down around my ears, to here in the darkened, busy courtyard of a Police bar where my life was again being torn apart, I'd fallen in love with Ryan Pierce.

And I think, somewhere along the way he'd fallen for me.

It was easier than I thought it would be, handing over the ledger, placing the book in his hands. I saw a flash of surprise in his eyes when the weight of the book registered, or maybe he was a little shocked I'd simply given it to him without hesitation in the end. Either way, his eyes widened and then flicked down to what pressed into his palms.

"Make him pay, Ryan," I said, my throat a little tight with too many emotions right then. "Make my sacrifice worth it, so no one else has to go through what Daisy and I did."

Ryan pulled the book against his chest, as though it was a treasure and not the abomination that it truly represented.

"This will save lives, Marie," he promised. "This will end his."

He couldn't have chosen better words, but with him holding that... thing I couldn't crumble, I couldn't show relief or let my shield down. I just nodded my head, wrapped the knowledge that this man had fallen for me as much as I had fallen for him around myself, and turned to join Nick's group.

Both Ben and Nick's eyes lifted to Ryan's over my shoulder, but the women all looked at me. Kelly wrapping her arm around my waist on one side, Eva on the other, and Abi offering what could only be a proud smile, serene in its understanding of what I'd been through. A solidarity shared with just one look.

"Now if this isn't a tequila time, I don't know what is," Kelly declared, starting to head us in the direction of the main building, so we could work our way toward the exit.

"Don't mind if I do," Abi answered for all of us, I think.

"You still got enough or do we need to do a liquor run?" Eva asked at my side.