Page 107 of The Way We Are

Savannah tries her hardest to hold in her tears. Her attempts are borderline. “If you wanted to move on, you could have just said so. You didn’t have to cheat on me,” she snarls through gritted teeth. “I trusted you, Ryan. I believed every promise you spoke because I truly believe you'renothinglike your father.”

Anger lines her face when I once again fail to respond to her assumptions.

The pain in her eyes shifts to fury, announcing her next words will cut me raw. “Clearly, I was wrong. But you don’t use your fists to cause harm. You use your charm.”

As I was anticipating, her words cut through me like a knife. They have me wanting to renege on every promise I’ve made thus far tonight. Before I get the chance, Savannah steals the opportunity.

“Goodbye, Ryan. I hope she makes you happier than I ever could.” She nudges her head to my bedroom window. Because only the bathroom light is on, its weak flicker makes it seem as if my room is lit by candlelight. “I’m not sorry I trusted you. I’m just sorry I fell for the same mistake twice.”

Cracks fracture my heart when she spins on her heels and charges to her car parked three spots up from my truck. She throws open her driver’s side door with so much force, I wouldn’t be shocked to discover she warped the hinges. The frantic speed she uses to evade me matches the speed of the police cruisers entering from the other end of the street to incarcerate me.

42

Ryan

“Don’t say another word.”

Regina pokes her finger at the chest of the officer who has been interrogating me the past two hours before hooking her thumb to the door. “Get out.”

When Corporal James attempts to refute Regina’s request, she cuts off any reply he is planning to give with a glare. “I’m sorry, did that sound like a suggestion to you? If it did, I’ll be sure to ask Lieutenant Dan for some pointers on the proper etiquette required to herd cattle.”

Failing to hear the menace in Regina’s tone, the officer laughs. It's a foolish move on his behalf. Jokes fire off Regina’s tongue like the crack of a whip, but she doesn’t handle them anywhere near as well.

“Get out!” she screams at the top of her lungs, alerting not just Corporal James to her annoyance, but the entire Ravenshoe Police Department.

The blond-haired officer scampers off his seat before making a beeline for the door. His pace is so frantic, his government-issued shoes fail to gain traction on the slippery tiled floor.

Regina waits for him to shut the door behind him before shifting her nearly black eyes to me. “Glad to see you found some pants,” she mutters with a wiggle of her dark brows.

See, a regular jokester when she’s the one dishing it out.

She places a freshly laundered shirt onto the table in front of me before filling the seat opposite me. “Put that on. You need to look presentable.”

A whizz of air parts her lips when I gesture my head to the cuffs circling my wrists. “You were arrested on scene for the murder of a fellow officer. How far do they think you're going to get if you decide to run?”

My brows stitch, confused by her statement. I’m not puzzled by her first comment; the officers who arrested me ensured there was no question what I was being accused of. It's her comment on me running that has me baffled. I pled guilty to my crime. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.

“They didn’t need to cuff you,” Regina explains to my baffled expression. “Because there are over a dozen cops standing in the hallway, praying to get five minutes alone with you. You wouldn’t have made it three steps out of this room without smelling lead.”

My face screws up, peeved by her comment. Up until two hours ago, I was one of them.

“Don’t worry, Ryan. I’m taking names. Anyone whotrulyknew your father isn’t standing in that corridor. They are striving to work out whatreallyhappened tonight, because they know as well as I do that you didn’t do what you’re pleading guilty to.”

When she leans over to undo my cuffs with a skeleton key, she whispers, “Why didn’t you answer my calls? I tried to warn you he was close to detonating. Your father failed his psych exam. He was put on unpaid leave earlier today.”

Her confession adds an unnatural beat to my heart. “That was you calling? I thought it was Savannah.”

Regina shakes her head, answering my question without words. “I instructed IA to call me the instant there was a change in his case, but I didn’t get the call until three hours after he was placed on leave.”

I’d like to act shocked by her mention of the Internal Affairs department, but that would be fraudulent. IA was called in to investigate my dad after his new partner raised suspicion over an incident he witnessed with businesses on the other side of the tracks. It appears as if my dad’s drinking habit was funded by bribes from shady business owners happy for him to run the more reputable businesses out of town. Although Regina instructed me to stay away from the case, I know of at least two corporations his scheming took down. The most notable, a venture capitalist company that was a subsidiary of Savannah’s father’s primary corporation.

“Speaking of Savannah, where is she?” Regina questions as she frees me from being cuffed to the table I’m sitting at.

I rotate my wrists, acting like my heart isn’t racing a million miles an hour. “We’re...uh... taking a break.”

Regina’s brows furrow, certain she heard me wrong. “A break?” she double-checks, her voice loaded with suspicion. “Or are you forcing her off the team against her will?”

She sighs heavily when she reads the truth in my eyes. “That’s not fair, Ryan. She has the right to choose whose side she’s on.”

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