“You have a right,” Nina said, sniffing. “You have a right to what belongs to you. As have I, do I not?”
I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing even though my blood was boiling. Sure, there was a part of me that wanted to agree with her, say she belonged to me.
But it wasn’t quite right.
“I don’t make that choice, doll. You do.”
“Well, I did,” she said, her voice floating sweetly through the air. “Every day since I met you, my love.”
“And when you did fight him?” I asked, even though I already knew.
Every bruise I had ever seen on her beautiful body was flashing through my mind. The shadows on her delicate wrists. The fading marks on her thighs or neck.
I closed my eyes, not wanting her to see the strong urge to murder I knew must have been reflected in them. The anger I felt toward myself for not knowing, and yet somehow knowing. And never really acting on it.
It would be so easy. It scared me how easy it would be, and how attractive. Haul him out on the premise of a citizen’s arrest. Bring him into the park and shove him in the trunk of my car. Wait until it was dark, then take a drive out to East New York. Maybe to The Hole, where we had first found his fall-down properties. Or nearby Betts Creek, right behind the water processing plant.
A couple of cable ties at the wrists. Dunk his feet in a pair of concrete boots. Down he’d go, into the mud and sludge with the rest of the leeches to rot. One call to Derek, or even Eric, and the evidence would be swallowed forever. No one would ever fucking ask what happened to Károly Kertész or Calvin Gardner, because the world all knew it would exponentially be better off without this piece of slime in it.
But.
Nonno’s face flashed before my eyes. His bid for me to do him proud. To be better than the rest. Not to sink to the lowest denominator, give in to every one of my base instincts, even when they screamed at me to find vengeance.
Yeah, it would be easy, for sure. But that didn’t make it right.
So instead I prayed, harder than I had ever done in my life. I prayed for forgiveness. I prayed for grace. I prayed for the strength to keep my weapons in my pocket and not turn them on the enemy who deserved them more than any man I had ever known.
Holy father, grant me the strength to forgive. Grant me the strength to walk away. Grant me the strength to be worthy of the gifts you have given me. Especially the love of this woman in her hour of need…
“Matthew?”
Nina’s voice, clear as a birdsong, brought me out of my trance.
“Who else knows?” I asked.
She blinked. “N-no one.”
I shook my head. “Someone knows. Your staff, maybe? A cook, a nanny? Did anyone ever say anything?”
She looked incredibly uncomfortable. “I—well, perhaps my old assistant, Moira. And maybe our cook, Marguerite. But they never saw anything.”
“Anyone else?” I prodded. I needed more, for her sake.
Nina swallowed. “And…C-Caitlyn.”
That genuinely surprised me. “Caitlyn? Your best friend? The one who literally tried to be you for ten straight years?”
Sadly, she nodded, allowed me to pull her back into my chest. “Ironic, isn’t it? The one person I trusted with my secrets was the one who had the most to hide from me.”
“Nina,” I said as I stroked her hair. “Baby, why didn’t you tell me? Fuck, I could have helped.”
“I wanted to protect you,” she whispered. “You, Eric, Jane, Olivia. Oh God, but I couldn’t even do that, could I? You heard him, Matthew, he’s not going to stop. And he’ll take Olivia, and he’ll take her like he took all those girls, and he’ll s-sell her, I know he will, and—”
“Shhhhh,” I said, wrapping both arms around her now. “He’s going to do nothing of the sort.”
But she pushed me away, suddenly full of action. “I can do more. I must do more. I can’t keep these secrets—look at them, look at the way they hurt people! I don’t want to hide anymore. I’ll refile on grounds of abuse. The lawyers said if I did it that way, it will be messy, but would be maybe harder for him to fight in the end…even if it is just my word against his…”
As she babbled on about her divorce plans, I examined Gardner’s swollen carcass, which was now snoring.
“Nina,” I interrupted suddenly. “That’s not necessary. But did you mean what you said about not hiding anymore?”
Beautiful and tear soaked, she nodded. “Y-yes.”
My girl. So brave. So damn valiant in ways I was only starting to understand. Ways I’d spend the rest of my life trying to understand if she would let me.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled until I found the contact I wanted.
“Zola!” Derek answered at once. “What’s up, man, it’s been a minute. How are you?”
“Hey. You at work?”
“Yeah. Actually, I’m at the station right now catching up on some paperwork. What’s going on?”
“Two things. I’m at the Met with Nina. I’m sitting here on a citizen’s arrest of Calvin Gardner.”
“Zola…” I could hear the disappointment in his voice. The same kind of tone men took when they saw a friend go too far down the rabbit hole with a girl who was no good. I knew what they all thought. That I’d thrown away my life.
“This is different, King,” I said a little too sharply. “Look, we have evidence of sexual assault against his wife, all right? I need you to send a squad car here ASAP to pick him up.”
“Sexual assault? Zola, come on. He’s not breaking the law by going to a party, is he? And do you really even know that—”
“Yes, I fuckin’ do, Derek!” I broke out. “I saw it myself!”
Derek was quiet a minute.
