Page 9 of Proof

The fearless man who’d stood in front of my car with a gun aimed at my head less than sixty seconds ago was now an uncertain former cop who knew he’d started a fight he wouldn’t win.

JJ’s hand wavered even as he kept his finger on the trigger. The closer I got, the more desperate his tone became.

“Iwillshoot you!”

I didn’t stop until I had my chest plastered against the barrel of his gun. I should have been worried that even though I knew JJ wouldn’t intentionally shoot me, his shaking hand could easily cause the gun to fire.

Iwasn’tworried. I was too caught up in taking in every part of his face. Coal-black hair with matching arched eyebrows. Long, lush ebony lashes that brushed his skin whenever he blinked, straight nose with the tiny scar on one side from when he’d fallen off his bike at the age of nine, and full, sumptuous lips just begging to be kissed. But it was his eyes that had always mesmerized me the most. One was a striking shade of dark green while the other was hazel with flecks of gold scattered around the iris.

He still looked as young as he had the night that had changed everything. God, that night wassupposedto have changed everything but not like it had.

We shouldn’t have been standing on a quiet stretch of road high in the Hollywood Hills withhisgun aimed atmyheart.

But wewerethere.He’dput us there.

The fury returned, making it easy for me to take the gun from him, release the clip and eject the bullet from the chamber before dropping the useless weapon to the ground. JJ hadn’t even registered that his gun was in pieces on the ground when I grabbed him by the lapels of his suit jacket and practically threw him onto the trunk of my car.

“I think you and I need to have a little chat,” I growled as JJ struggled to catch his breath.

“Fuck you,” he managed to choke out.

“I think you can do better than that, sweetheart,” I drawled.

“Fuck you, you murdering piece of shit!” JJ snapped. He took a half-hearted swing at me, but I was heavier than him and had been trained by the best when it came to subduing people, not to mention maiming and killing them.

The United States Marine Corps.

“That little girl was only ten years old!” JJ continued. “Did you make her watch while you put a bullet in her mother’s brain or was it the other way around? Did her mother have to watch her child?—”

That was all I let him get out. I brought down my right fist hard on the trunk right next to JJ’s head. Pain radiated from my hand outward to my arm.

“You of all people,” I snarled before snapping my mouth shut. I let the sting of his words drown beneath the sharp pain in my hand.

“Leave no witnesses, right, Cass? The Marines teach you that? Did they teach you how to toy with your victims first or was that just you?” JJ continued, seemingly uncaring of the danger he was in. His breathing had improved since I’d eased some of my weight off him.

“What the fuck do you know about anything?” I yelled. My emotions were all over the place. I wanted to feel more physical pain because JJ’s emotional hits were worse. To hear him actually say the words after everything that had happened…

JJ shoved me hard enough that I was forced to release him. This time, he was on the attack.

“I know that they’re going to put you back where you belong. I know it tore my brother apart to find out his best friend tried to kill his little brother. I know… I know…” His voice cracked.

“You know what?” I shouted because if he was going to come at me with everything he had then I wanted it done because I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. I’d spent two years planning for this very moment but the sight of JJ, actually putting my hands on him, hearing his vicious words, only served to remind me of the things that had happened before that night. I wanted to laugh because I’d been feeding off the taste of betrayal for so long that I’d forgotten what I’d really been hanging on to… what had kept me going every day of a life that had no longer been my own.

Hope.

Hope that JJ would admit the truth. Hope that we could go back to what we’d been. Hope that maybe this time he’d fight for me, forus.

JJ didn’t miss a beat. “I know you took something from me that night. Something you had no right to take. I know that I wish you’d had better aim because leaving me this way…”

My anger flatlined as I watched JJ coming apart at the same time that he was desperately clinging to control. To know he wished the bullet had hit its mark made me physically ill. What the fuck did his last words mean, anyway? I’d never seen him more physically fit or known him to be so bold, not mincing his words at all.

“What way?” I asked.

JJ remained quiet for several beats. He seemed to deflate like a tire that had picked up a nail.

“I trusted you,” he finally said in a whisper. “As much as I trusted my brother.”

The despair in his voice broke something inside of me.

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