Page 68 of Sinful Justice

Her despicable excuse for a father put that baby in danger. The one man on the planet who should protect his daughters with his life is the one who puts them at risk.

Now the onus of justice is on my desk. On Archer’s and Fletcher’s and Aubree’s. But at the end of the day, finding redemption for that little girl won’t bring her back anyway. It doesn’t erase the horror she experienced during her last moments alive, when she choked to death on snow, and the face looking down at her, the face that likely smiled while violating her, was a face she should have been able to trust.

Knowing that no matter what I do now, I cannot help her, an insurmountable ache settles in my heart and makes me wonder if vengeance has ever truly been worth it.

Has anyone who ever sought justice actually felt a sense of ‘this has now been avenged’ and moved on with their lives? Or is Archer right in that avigilantewalking the streets at night, picking off murderers and violators of the innocent, can never be acceptable?

“Minka!”

A booming voice at my door makes me jump. It startles me out of my meditative state with a violent jerk that pushes too much solution into my veins too quickly, causing enough pain to make me cry out and drop the syringe to the counter.

I pick it up again—I’m too practiced at this not to—but my heart thunders in my chest. My stomach whooshes for an entirely different reason now, and my eyes flip to the rattling door handle.

“Minka Mayet. I’m coming in there in three… two…”

“Stop!” I’m stuck in place, a victim of my circumstances, to watch the door helplessly as the handle rattles again. “Archer Malone, you do not have my permission to enter my home!”

“Are you naked?” he shouts back, loud enough that Steve on the bottom floor is probably listening.

“No!” I push the remaining solution just a little faster into my vein. Not too fast, or I risk blowing out. But going slow means he’ll let himself into my apartment before I finish.

“Are you with someone?” Archer asks next. “Mayet? Are you with another man? Because if you’re with the fucker who—”

“No, I—”

“Are you wielding a weapon and pointing it at the door?”

“Archer, just g—”

The door swings open, though I know for a damn fact I locked it on my way in. Nothing breaks; the timber remains as one, the locks unharmed. Which means this asshole picked his way in.

But then his eyes come to me, his body in fight mode, his chest and shoulders jacked up on adrenaline.

What was that thing I said about nothing breaking? Because it was a lie.

Something inside Archer breaks. Something in his beautiful eyes and his too-large heart shatters as he stands in my doorway the way a gunslinger might’ve in the old wild west.

He tilts his head to the side,tryingto understand what’s happening right in front of him. Then his jaw hardens, his cheeks flexing with anger that pulses in his veins the way factor VIII pulses in mine.

“What the fuck?” He steps in, slower than I might’ve expected, more deliberate, then he closes the door and comes closer to study my arm.

Not my face, and not my eyes. But the part of my body currently stabbed with a needle.

“No way you’re a junkie.” He continues closer. Slowly. Dangerously. “No way you hide track marks and a drug dependency and still maintain the job you do.”

“I said you couldn’t come in here.” I push the last of my solution from the syringe, faster than usual and just painful enough to lend extra aggression to my words. “I said no, Archer.”

“I said yes anyway.”

Before I can sweep away my things, he reaches out with a lightning-fast swipe of his hand and snatches the empty bottle of what was once the factor powder. He studies it with eyes firing with rage, reading the label and sniffing the stopper.

While he’s busy, I unhook my empty syringe and cap the tube. Grabbing a cotton ball, I peel back the tape holding the butterfly down, then in a move I’ve practiced a million times, I slide the needle out and replace it with the cotton.

After setting the needle on the counter, I swap the cotton with a tiny Band-Aid, though on a normal day, I’d keep the ball in place for several minutes more to ensure the bleeding slows.

“I don’t…” Archer turns the bottle around and around in his hands. “I don’t know what this is.”

“I do,” I quip. “It’s called break and enter. It’s called harassment. It’s called an invasion of privacy, and since everyone has the right to medical discretion, you’ve violated that too.”

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