Page 6 of Girl, Reborn

'So,' Luca said, dragging the word out.'You gonna spill, or do I have to work for it?'

‘You want the list? Pull up a chair.’

Luca glanced down. ‘I’m on a chair.’

‘It was a figure of speech.’

‘Start with the greatest hits. I can fillthe rest in from there.’

Ella sighed, set the mug aside before shecracked the ceramic from clenching too hard. ‘Mia's still pissed about thewhole Martin thing. Won't return my calls, won't drop the ice queen act.’

Luca made a noise halfway between a coughand a grunt, the universal dude sound for 'that sucks'. ‘Can you blame her? Youaccused her boyfriend of being a murderer.’

‘He is,’ Ella bit out. ‘But apparentlyeighteen months of keeping each other alive is no match for Vitamin D.’

‘You'd think she'd at least hear you out,what with you two being the wonder twins and all.’

'You'd think.' Ella couldn't keep thebitterness out of her voice. It stung like a bitch, the cold shoulder, thesilent accusation. She and Mia had been through hell and back, stitched eachother up and dragged each other through the shit more times than she couldcount. They were each other's bulletproof vests, each other's ride or die. Tohave that questioned, thrown in her face over some silver fox with a herocomplex, was a punch to the teeth.

Luca shifted, bumping her knee with his.Ella tried not to glance at the point of contact for fear he might retreat. Shestayed put, soaking in his heat, his solidity. Stupid. Reckless. But it settledsomething inside her.

Luca, because he had some kind of sixthsense for knowing when to poke a bear, pried further. ‘Look, I’m on your sidehere, but are you certain that this Martin guy is guilty? I mean, there arerumors all around HQ about Carter’s death. Some people are saying it was apolitical thing.’

Ella's molars creaked from how hard sheclenched. ‘That or I've lost my mind.’

He shrugged. ‘Well…’

Ella shot him a look. ‘I have not lostmy mind. We caught Carter’s attacker on CCTV footage. Hell, I saw theguy with my own eyes. It was Martin freaking Godfrey, one-hundred percent.’

Luca made another one of those man noises,all constipated concern. ‘So, why don’t we tell the director? Drum up somemanpower and get this guy found?’

Ella shook her head. ‘The director won’ttake it seriously, plus what evidence do I have? Some grainy CCTV footage? Myown word? Edis already had me in the office last week and told me to stay awayfrom this.’

‘This Martin guy, maybe he’s… you know.Working through some stuff.’

‘Like?’

‘I don’t know him, never met the man, butyou said he was a military man and a field agent at one point?’

‘Yeah. That’s how Mia met him.’

‘Two types of frontlines. That’s gonnaleave a mark on the psyche.’

Ella didn’t know where Luca was going withthis. Truth be told, she hadn’t stopped to consider the why of Martin’sactions, because she’d stopped understanding psychos’ motivations ten casesago.

‘So you think Martin might be doing thisfor what, redemption?’

‘I’m just spit balling here, but I reckonMartin’s lost a few people along the way. Comrades, colleagues. He’s gonna havethat survival instinct, that protective instinct. Call me crazy, but he mightbe doing this to… protect you. To show you how much he cares.’

‘Which means he’s messed up in the head.What happens when the objects of his affection don’t return his love? What ifhe and Mia broke up? Then what would he do?’

Luca scratched his jaw and said, ‘He’dturn on her.’

‘Exactly. Plus, Martin killed threepeople. We can argue for hours whether they deserved it or not, but we can’tsay murder is wrong in one breath and then say praise them in another.’

Ella didn’t go into the story about LoganNash, the man who assassinated her father. When Ella found his body slumped ina storage cupboard, she felt like the rug of justice had been pulled from underher feet.

Luca went quiet, drumming blunt fingersagainst his own mug. She waited, watching his profile out of the corner of hereye. That blade of a nose, the stubborn set of his jaw under a dusting ofstubble. Those pretty boy lines that Ella prayed wouldn’t fall prey to thestress of the job.

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