Better When He's Brave (Welcome to the Point #3)(9)
Brysen made a noise of distress and bit down on her lip. “How are they handling the news?”
I answered as truthfully as I could. “Dovie is a sweetheart, so I think she’s mostly worried about Race since he hasn’t said too much. Her * father tried to have Novak kill her, so I think she’s just relieved that that’s one threat she’ll never have to worry about again. Race just kind of zoned out; I’ve never seen him like that before. That’s not all, though.” I rocked back on my heels and put a hand on the butt end of the pistol attached to my belt. “With Hartman being so insulated, we know the hit had to come from the inside. It had to be someone handling his move and relocation.” I didn’t want to admit that part even to myself, but it was clear there was no other explanation.
Bax swore. “A fed?”
I nodded solemnly. “Probably.”
Bax dropped every dirty word he had in his vocabulary. “Not enough we have to worry about the bad guys, now we gotta worry about the good guys too?”
“That’s about the shape of it.”
“Why was Reeve here, Titus?” It was a sharp change in subject but I knew it was coming. Bax wouldn’t be happy that Reeve was back no matter what the reasons for her sudden reappearance were.
“Because she has information I’m going to need if I have any chance of flushing out our dirty fed.”
“What kind of info?”
I had to shake my head and I rubbed my hands over my crop of short hair. I told Bax in a flat tone that left no room for any kind of argument, “That’s the line where brother and cop cross, Shane. Leave her alone, I need her so I can do my job and I will be seriously pissed if you get in my way.” I used his real name so that he knew I wasn’t f*cking around.
Brysen had obviously gown tired of the two of us trying to out-badass each other and demanded, “Where is Race?”
“In my office with Dovie.” I stopped Bax with a hand on the center of his chest as he went to maneuver around me. My brother was big, but I had always been bigger, and I had no qualms about throwing around my weight when I needed to. “Look, I need this girl to stop what is happening in the Point . . . the fires, the beatings, the destruction . . . it’s all tied together. She is absolutely necessary. I told Dovie all of this and she gets it, so you need to use your brains and not go off half-cocked, because I will shut you down so fast it’ll make your head spin. You got me, Bax?”
Bax didn’t say anything, just shoved around me and stomped his way across the precinct house toward a glass door that had my rank and last name stenciled on it in black letters. Brysen went to follow him but I reached out to stop her. I felt like I had to give her a heads-up that her man was having a tough time with the news about his dad but doing his best to try and hide it.
“Race is a good man. He’s in a tough spot right now and making some really difficult choices, but he’s always been a lot softer at his center than Bax. His dad was a piece of shit, a murderer and a goddamn oily son of a bitch, but when it hits him, when it really settles, he’s gonna need a hand working through his old man being gone.”
She told me in a haughty tone that she was never going anywhere, as her man, my brother, and his lady all made their way towards us in a somber huddle. I stepped to the side as both the couples embraced, muttered soft words to one another like they weren’t in the middle of a very active police station as they made their way to the front door and acted very much like handling things such as murder, betrayal, and deep personal loss was old hat. It made my chest tight because in a place like the Point those things were indeed an everyday occurrence and all of those young adults were far too familiar with them. At least they had all found someone to lean on, someone else to share the burden of all the constant bad news.
Bonds created in the worst circumstances, love forged in the fire, was bound to shine brighter and last longer than feelings that weren’t put to the test. Regular people got to love with ease and without thought. People that fell in love in the Point had to do so knowing it was a battle to stay in love. Everything here was a fight, and in a dangerous place full of dangerous people, love was often the only thing people were willing to do the right thing for. My brother was a prime example of that.
Bax’s entire life had been one big house of cards waiting to come toppling down. He spent his youth doing one illegal deed after the other, just bidding his time until he got caught. He wasn’t a good guy, and he never would be, but the fact that he cared about Dovie, that he loved her, forced him to make smarter choices. He knew that if he went back to jail or if he eventually ran up against someone that was just a little bit tougher or a little more ruthless than he was, it would kill her to have to put him in the ground. Bax had always been dangerous, but now, with the sassy redhead in his life, he was also cautious. I never thought I would see it happen, but the day had arrived when my brother actually thought before he acted.
I went back to my office and settled in. I kicked back in my rickety chair that I was sure was going to give out and dump me on my ass before the year was over and turned on the cell phone Reeve had left with me. I was both curious and slightly sick to see what was on it. I had faced every variety of bad guy there was since I started as a patrol officer in the Point eight years ago. There wasn’t much that shocked me, wasn’t much that made my skin crawl anymore. Hell, I was the one that snapped the cuffs on Bax and threw his ass in the joint for five years when his luck had finally run out, and I did it without guilt or regret. The idea of a fellow cop, a fellow officer of the law, being the one behind all the destruction and the bodies piling up in the morgue had fury boiling so hot in my blood I was surprised it wasn’t burning through my skin. You didn’t sign up to serve and protect only to decide that oath was just too hard to keep.