Page 230 of Tell Me Something True

But if they were charging him with two counts that meant…

His chest tingled. Grew tight, making it hard to breathe. “My mom…”

Jennings’s mouth flattened, but when he spoke, his voice was almost gentle. The fucker. “She was the one who called it in.”

The sense of betrayal hit him hard in the stomach. Made him want to howl from the pain of it. From the unfairness of it. Grinding his back teeth together, breathing through his nose so he didn’t puke his guts out, he did his best to keep it contained while the lady cop Mirandized him.

He couldn’t let anything show. Not weakness. Not how much it fucking tore him in two.

Not how scared he was.

Jennings was watching too closely.

Verity saw too much.

He stood there, his entire world crashing around him. Any slight hope he’d had for the future, any dreams that he could get a decent job and a place of his own, that he could be better than what he’d come from, were gone.

“Mr. Walsh,” the lady cop said in a way that told him it wasn’t the first time she’d said his name. “Do you understand these rights as I’ve given them to you?”

He blinked. Swallowed. “Yeah.”

Pulling a pair of gloves out of one of the compartments on her belt, she nodded at Titus. “I’m going to pat you down. Will your dog need to be restrained?”

Now he frowned. Glanced at his dog pressed against his leg, then laid his hand on Titus’s head.

Titus was the only good thing he had left.

“Titus,” he said, gesturing to the far corner of the room, away from the cops. “Go lay down.”

Titus glanced over to where Reed pointed, then up at him.

His dog knew something was wrong.

And he wasn’t moving from Reed’s side.

Panic spiked in Reed’s stomach. He didn’t think either of these cops wanted to hurt Titus, but if they felt he was a threat, they might.

And there’d be nothing Reed could do to stop them.

“Go lay down,” he tried again, but all his angry tone did was cause Titus to whine, his big body vibrating with unease.

“Titus,” Verity called, her own voice soft and sweet and coaxing as she dropped to a crouch. “Come here, baby.” She patted her leg. “Come on.”

Titus swung his head around toward her, his tail wagging, hitting the back of Reed’s shin with a thump, thump, thump. Then he looked up at Reed again.

Reed jerked his head in her direction. “Go.”

Titus raced over to Verity, knocking her onto her ass as he launched himself into her arms.

“Hold your arms out to your sides, please,” the lady cop said.

His stomach twisted, knowing what Verity was about to witness.

Knowing how it was going to change everything between them again.

For the last time.

Lips pressed together so tightly they went numb, he gazed at a spot out in the hall, then slowly lifted his arms.

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