“Going after Evans is the mistake? You think I can’t take him down? My mistake the first time was pure arrogance, Ian. Trust me. I was humbled. I’m not looking for glory this time.” He’d been trying to make a life for himself and Eve and fucking everything up because he didn’t believe he could be wrong. He’d been on a fast track, but now he knew how fast the worm turned.
“No, this time you’re looking for revenge.”
Yes. He wanted revenge. He felt his jaw tighten, his vision focus in. “For Eve.”
Ian’s eyes narrowed. “Really? Are you sure about that?”
He was sure, and he fucking well deserved revenge. Evans had torn them apart. “How can you say that? You’ve known me for twenty-five freaking years. How can you question me like this? You don’t have to help me. I’ll take a leave of absence. Maybe that’ll make it easier on everyone.”
It would be for the best anyway. He’d only let Ian know because they were family. They had a deal, him and Ian. They’d had it since they were kids growing up in the same low-rent trailer park with exactly two ways out—prison or the US military. Ian had stayed in the Army and Alex had gotten out the minute they would pay for his college. The friendship had survived years and distance.
The deal was simple. They didn’t go off half-cocked until the other knew what kind of shit was going down. Ian would watch out for Eve. Hell, if anything happened, Ian would watch out for her for the rest of her life. They had that deal, too. Ian watched Eve and Alex took care of Sean and now Grace and Carys. God, Sean had a kid.
How was he almost forty and single, with no prospect of a family on the horizon?
A ghostly image on the wall answered the question. The lights were on, but he could still see Michael Evans grinning at the camera.
He couldn’t fix his problems with Eve. He’d ruined her life. He’d been directly responsible for all that pain. Days. She’d spent days with that monster, and Alex would spend a lifetime trying to make it up to her.
Ian’s voice broke through his thoughts. “I wasn’t talking about going after Evans. I was talking about leaving Eve out of it.”
Alex felt his eyes go wide. “You can’t possibly expect that I would bring Eve into this. You of all people should know how dangerous it is to have your wife involved in a case.”
He wanted to take the words back the instant he said them. Ian didn’t move an inch. There was nothing in his stance that let Alex know he’d hit him hard except his skin paled. They never talked about the woman Ian had married and lost five years before.
“Charlotte has nothing to do with this. And she was always involved in that particular case. Hell, I was her case, and she did a spectacular fucking job. I laugh a little at the irony since her job was to fuck me. Charlotte married me knowing exactly how dangerous the job was, and she got burned. Eve, on the other hand, was perfectly innocent. If anyone deserves revenge, it’s Eve, and you want to take that from her now, too.”
Alex placed his hands on the conference table, palms down, just trying to hold on. “How can you say that? I was her husband. It was my job to protect her.”
“And you couldn’t possibly have known that the man you were tracking would come after your wife.” Logic. Ian loved to come after him with logic, but Alex knew the truth.
He should have fucking known. He should have read Eve’s damn case study, but he’d been so sure that he was right, that he couldn’t possibly be wrong. “Yeah, well, if I’d paid any attention to Eve’s profile, I would have. She knew. But I was far too smart. I thought I had the fucker down.”
“And you didn’t,” Ian agreed. “And Eve paid the price and she continues to pay it every single day because neither one of you can let go for a second.”
“If putting Michael Evans back where he belongs gives her a minute of peace, I’m going to do it. I’m her husband. I have to do this for her.”
Ian shook his head, his eyes grim. “You’re not her husband anymore, Alex.”
“Fine, then I’m her Dom.”
“Are you? You don’t act like it.”
Alex felt his back get tight, like a dog that just figured out he was about to get kicked. “Wow. Do you have something to say to me? Don’t fucking pussyfoot around, brother. You want to call my rights into question? You want to take a look at my contract?”
He hated the fact that all he had left with Eve was a cold contract between them, one they’d renewed every year for five years now. Ian knew damn well what was in that contract because he was the one Eve had turned to when she’d asked for it. A contract that delineated everything he was allowed to do, everything he couldn’t do, everything that sat between them. A contract that allowed sex but not love, discipline but no compassion.
Life without the possibility of parole.
“That contract is everything that’s wrong between you and yet you just keep signing it, man.”
Because if he didn’t, he was pretty sure Eve would drift away from him, perhaps even find another Dom. He couldn’t handle it. Just fucking couldn’t. He would very likely sign that contract for the rest of his life because no matter how angry he got, how alone he felt, he couldn’t live without her. “She needs to scene. It’s the only way she can cry. Do you think I haven’t been over this with her? Do you think she hasn’t been to therapy?”
His wife—ex-wife—was a brilliant psychologist. She’d done her time on a couch.
Guilt plagued him. He hadn’t taken the same time. Before the divorce, he’d cut out on counseling sessions, skipped on her dinners, spent nights away from home, and all in the name of catching Michael Evans.
“I know she’s been, but it hasn’t helped. Oh, Eve looks fine on the outside, but she hasn’t gotten back to her old self. She laughs, but it never reaches her eyes. She’ll let people hug her, but she doesn’t hug back. God, Alex, I remember when Eve was the touchiest, feeliest sub I’d ever met.”
“He raped her. He abused her. She can’t go back,” Alex said. “We can’t go back.”
“Then Evans wins. He did his job, and you should just hang it the fuck up. Why bother hunting the man down? You’re already dead. You just forgot to tell us to bury the fucking body, man.”
He thought seriously about putting his hands around his best friend’s throat, but he backed off. Ian couldn’t understand. None of them could. He should have done what he’d thought was best in the first place and just handled it on his own. “Whatever. I’m going to get ready to meet the contact.”