Page 64 of Ciaran

I freeze mid-step, pivoting slowly. “What are you talking about?”

He points to the seat I’ve just vacated. “Sit,” he orders, like I’m a dog.

It isn’t that far from the truth. I’d let him treat me as such, and he’s still exerting control over me, this time using Ciaran as leverage.

Schooling my expression into one that says I’m not worried, I gracefully sit back down.

He jerks his chin at my half-empty latte. “Finish your drink.”

There’s a slight tremor to my fingers when I pick up the cup and gulp down the remaining contents. A little spills down my chin, and I wipe it with the back of my hand.

Tanner takes his time drinking his own coffee and polishing off both croissants. He excels at using silence as a weapon. He knows how nervous I get when he doesn't speak because it’s usually the prelude to something awful. Eventually, he stacks the two plates, places his coffee cup on top, and wipes his hands on a napkin. He sits back, one ankle crossed over the opposing knee, the casual stance belying the storm I know from experience is swimming beneath the surface.

He takes out his phone and sets it on the table. He taps the glass screen once. The wallpaper appears. It’s a photograph of the two of us on our wedding day. I avert my eyes. I don’t want to be reminded of that girl. She looks so happy in that picture, oblivious to the horrors that lay ahead.

“Interesting things, cell phones, don’t you think?”

My brows twitch inward. “Not really,” I say, feigning boredom, even though my heart races.

“Oh, they are, especially with the latest technology. The video capability on these things is amazing. The footage they capture is as clear as watching the news on TV.”

My agitation with Tanner morphs into a terrible unease that settles on my chest. He’s leading me somewhere, but I can’t follow yet. There’s no use in asking him to get to the point. The more questions I fire at him, the longer he’ll stretch out this torture.

“I’m sure,” I murmur, faking indifference and pulling at the skin around my nails as a distraction.

“Would you like to see what I filmed the night before last?”

I lift my eyes to his. “Do I have a choice?”

He belts out a one-note laugh. “Now you’re catching on, darling.”

He taps the screen a few times, then turns the phone landscape and holds it toward me. I go to take it from him, but he snatches it away and says in a pedantic tone, “No touching. Just watch.”

He thrusts the screen at me again. It’s catching the light from the window, so I lean forward. Tanner is right about the picture quality. Impressive. Where he found the money for an extravagance such as a top-of-the-range cell phone is another matter—one I don’t intend to get into with him.

It takes me a while to figure out what I’m looking at. I squint. It’s an altercation of some sort. Two cops are trying to subdue this guy who looks as if he’s resisting arrest. I can’t make head nor tail of the image. One of the cops who’s considerably bigger than the other one grips the perp by his coat, lifting him off the ground. The man’s feet kick out, and he catches the other cop in the stomach. The officer retaliates by punching him in the face. I want to look away—my stomach is lurching at the violence—but I can’t seem to tear my attention from the screen.

The camera zooms in as the victim is hauled backward into a side street, but not before I catch a glimpse of the face of the guy who did the punching.

Ciaran.

I suppress a horrified cry. An icy coldness sweeps through my veins, freezing me in place. No, it can’t be… It can’t. Ciaran isn’t the violent type, despite the demands of his job. He must have had good reason to hit that man. Maybe he saw a gun? That would justify Ciaran’s actions, surely? The big guy was definitely Draven, although I didn’t see his face.

There has to be a valid explanation. Cops get into altercations with people all the time, don’t they? Sometimes a little rough justice must be needed to stop a situation escalating. And that guy had kicked Ciaran in the stomach. His response was self-defense. Even if Ciaran’s superiors didn’t see it that way, surely the worst he’d get is a slap on the wrist?

I need to keep a clear head and not let Tanner know how shocked I am, so I fix him with a cool stare. “And? Ciaran’s a cop. He gets into fights all the time.” I don’t know whether that’s true or not because Ciaran and I rarely talk about his work. He prefers to keep that side of himself from me, probably because it has a whole lot of ugly attached to it. “It’s highly unlikely he’ll get kicked off the force for something like that. Anyway, there are procedures the guy can follow if he wants to make a formal complaint.”

Tanner’s smile inches across his face, and the wider it gets, the more uneasy I become. The conceited attitude on display means he’s far from finished. He tucks the phone away in his pocket.

“You’re right. I’m sure the police force isn’t beyond covering up brutal acts by their officers. The public, however...” He hitches a shoulder. “They take a pretty dim view of violence against the good citizens of this great nation of ours.”

Tanner’s intentions don’t come to me in a flash. They build slowly, inch by inch, making their way into my addled brain. But as the last jigsaw piece slots into place, and I figure out what he has planned, my world falls apart.

“You can’t,” I whisper. “Please, Tanner. Don’t.”

It doesn’t matter whether the guy was resisting arrest or not. If Tanner leaks that footage online, it will end Ciaran’s career. The ‘victim’ could be a pedophile, a rapist, a murderer, yet all the public will see is a cop hitting a guy, regardless of the fact he’d kicked out first. By the time the truth comes out, it will be too late.

“Oh, darling, I can, and I will. The only thing that will stop me uploading this to every news agency I can find, as well as every social media site, is if you come back to Chicago with me. And, as long as you play nice, and act like the dutiful wife, this will stay just between us.”

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