Page 86 of Virtue & Vengeance

EPILOGUE

“WHAT’S THIS?” Zander asked when I dropped the newspaper articles I’d printed out at the library on top of his desk.

“Read them,” I said, sitting across from him.

He eyed me suspiciously before picking up the papers and starting on the first one.

His expression shifted, letting me know the precise moment he realized what was he was reading. He peered over the article at me, the tension traveling through his body and pouring off of him in waves.

“Where did you find these?” he asked, glancing at the second and third paper.

“In the library. I spent some time searching through the database and found an article. From there I knew what to search to find the rest of the articles.”

His brow furrowed as he read the rest of the piece, flipping from the second to third paper before he finally put them down.

I waited while he took a minute to himself so he could gather his thoughts.

“It was suicide?” he asked, looking up at me.

A tiny hint of hope and relief filled his eyes.

“It was suicide, Zander. You didn’t kill anyone that night.”

And it was the truth.

Weeks after everything that happened with Allen, Zander had opened up to me about his addiction to sex and the night he had woke up next to a dead woman covered in blood.

He had been torturing himself ever since, thinking he had been the one to kill her. He assumed his addiction had pushed him to do the unthinkable.

That wasn’t the case.

According to the news articles I’d dug up, the woman in question, who I found out was named Lacey Mills, had suffered from depression. She had her own addiction to alcohol and pills.

Since Zander had left the woman, calling the police anonymously once he was a few blocks away, there was no mention of him in the articles.

But apparently, Lacey’s blood alcohol level had been way over the limit. Not only that, the medical examiner had found countless amounts of narcotics in her system.

They concluded that Lacey Mills had spent the night drinking and taking drugs before finally slitting her wrists and taking her own life.

“She must have woke up after you passed out and did it,” I said, with a grim smile.

I was happy that Zander was being freed from his burden, but I was still sad that a woman had felt there was no other way out but death.

Zander stared into space as if he were remembering that night. Then he said, “When I woke up, there was so much blood. I panicked. I shouldn’t have ran, but I did. I’d never been so scared in my life. I should’ve checked her. Maybe if I’d stuck around to…”

I went around his desk, and sat in his lap, palming his cheek and pulling his face toward me.

“You found yourself in an impossible situation, Zander. You’re human.”

He buried his face into my chest, holding me tightly against him. I held him for a few minutes before he pulled back and looked up at me.

“You have no idea how relieved I am. I mean, I feel bad that she took her own life. I had no idea there was something wrong with her, but you don’t know how happy I am to find out I’m not a cold-blooded murderer.”

I ran my hand down his back, feeling his hard muscles release their tension beneath my touch.

“You’re a good man, Zander. You’re not perfect by any means, but I didn’t fall in love with you because I expected you to be.”

He looked into my eyes, capturing me in the moment. The rough pads of his fingertips moved over my bottom lip.

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