Page 33 of Proof

“Because you read the papers, watched the news clips about my trial,” Cass interjected. “Tell me something. If you’d been assigned to investigate this case, would you have relied on the press to get to the truth of what happened? Would you condemn a man to spend the rest of his life in a cage, stripped of every right and freedom, based on whatsomeone elsetold you happened?”

“No,” I automatically responded because Cass knew it was the only answer a cop—an honest one—would say.

“So find the truth, JJ. Prove it was me beyond a reasonable doubt and I’ll go to the nearest police station and confess to committing the crimes I’m accused of. They’ll toss me back in a cell faster than you can blink.”

I shook my head, but no words came out. The idea of finding concrete proof, which I knew I would if all the evidence really was there, against Casswasn’ta relief. I hated the idea of him being cuffed and put behind bars, even though that was where he belonged.

Fuck.

I needed to think like a cop and not like someone who’d shared a couple of hot kisses with some guy who’d only been in my life for a few years when I’d been a kid and the occasional holiday whenever he’d been on leave from the Marines.

“Do I get to question you?” I asked.

“Yep. Just like I get to question you. Find me guilty, JJ, but do it the right way. Prove it was me that night.”

“I don’t remember that night,” I barked in frustration. “Everyone knows that. I don’t remember anything that happened weeks, months before that night.”

“Most victims don’t remember traumatic events.”

“It’s not because of trauma, you dick. My brain?—”

“May or may not be damaged in the way you think it is,” Cass easily cut in. “I’ve read the news stories, too, JJ—the ones that said you had no memory of what happened because of brain damage—but I’m not going to come to any conclusions until I prove it to myself. I’m not taking someone else’s word for it.”

“What if I say no?” I asked even though I already knew I wouldn’t…couldn’t. I was desperate to fill in the gaps of a time I had no memory of.

“Then we go back to the city. I’m a free man so I’ll go wherever the hell I want, and you, well, you’ll probably go back to trying to prove to your brother that you’re perfectly fine and then you’ll go to some club, drink however much alcohol it takes to start shutting your brain down, and then let any and every guy fuck you so you don’t have to think at all.”

My stomach dropped out at his words. He couldn’t know about any of that. Except he did, which meant…

“You were there. At Tank’s. Last night or the one before.” Humiliation buried itself beneath my skin until it felt like a living thing trying to escape my body in some other way.

Please, God, let me be wrong.

“It was last night,” Cass responded. “And yes, JJ, I was there. I saw everything.”

CHAPTER 11

Cass

Icould see the shame JJ was experiencing because his skin was turning red. His breathing had ticked up too, and he’d dropped his head so he could try to blink back the tears he desperately didn’t want me to see.

“Let them fall, JJ,” I said quietly. “I sure as fuck did.”

After all the chaos of figuring out my next move after getting JJ away from Tank’s had died down and I’d once again been sitting by his bedside, I’d been tormented by images of him throwing himself away in that alley like he was just more garbage that belonged in the dumpster. I’d finally broken down and wept for JJ… for the loss of the man he’d been and the pain he’d been experiencing from the moment that bullet had torn through his brain.

After the tears had all fallen, I’d steeled myself to follow through on my plan so JJ could put the past to rest once and for all. Even if he never remembered that night, I knew he was smart enough to discover that I wasn’t the one who’d shot him. He also deserved the opportunity to come to his own conclusions because he’d never had a choice in determining what had really happened to him and why.

I was banking my life on him being as good a cop as I believed he was because I’d meant what I’d said about admitting to all of the crimes I was accused of if he found something that he felt was proof of what I’d supposedly done. I’d finally come to the decision to turn myself in if JJ found me guilty because I knew I would never truly be free unless he believed me. I’d never outrun my feelings for him. I had no life left to live if JJ remained convinced that I’d done what everyone else was so certain of. Living with that knowledge every day for the rest of my life would be a thousand times worse than spending my remaining days behind bars.

“Tell me about Tank’s,” I murmured. “Tell me about last night and all the other nights. Tell me what drove you to… to let those men?—”

“Use me?” JJ questioned. Whatever despair he’d been dealing with was gone, tucked away somewhere in his mind where he didn’t need to deal with it. He was angry.

Hard.

Unforgiving.

“Yes,” I responded as evenly as I could. I didn’t want to hear any of what he was going to tell me. The idea of any man, any person, hurting JJ in any way had already gouged a wound so deep inside of me that I knew it would never truly heal.

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