Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(118)

He didn’t even pause. “Yeah, I did. The fucker had been abusing that poor woman—and I knew she was in trouble. I also knew, if I could get to her and she was still alive—and I saved her? He’d just go after her again. So yeah, I had him point the gun at himself and pull the trigger.” There was another pause and then he shook his head. “I know you’ve heard it before, but I’m not sorry. Not at all. He took a life he had no right to take, and he ruined that woman before he murdered her.”

Lowering her head, Erika closed her eyes for a second time. And all she saw on the backs of them was that fetid apartment and all that blood. And Connie, a woman she herself had tried to help.

“If that changes your opinion of me,” he said, “I totally understand. I guess I just want you to know all the parts that matter about me. And killing one of your species two nights ago is pretty material.”

Turning her head, she looked at him. The light in the bathroom had been left on, but the door was mostly shut, so there was only a soft glow. In the near-darkness, he was a sprawl of muscle beside her, his chin and hard jawline cutting an angle up from his throat, one of his arms lying on his stomach.

She thought of the damage a male like him could do to a female.

Then thought of that drug dealer.

And after that? An image of Connie in intensive care, a machine breathing for her, homicide already summoned to the bedside, ramping up because it was clear that she was not going to make it.

Then Erika recalled the last time she saw the woman alive, when she’d gone to that apartment to try to get Connie to leave her abuser. Connie had been so terrified, she’d been shaking as she’d begged Erika to leave.

Just leave. Please leave, oh God, if he finds you here, he’s going to kill me.

“I’m not sorry, either,” Erika said after a long silence.



* * *



Balz had not been aware of holding his breath, but as Erika’s words hit the tense air between them, the relief was tremendous. It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d been keeping anything from her, but when he’d thought about what he was going to do tonight, and where he was going to go, he was worried he might not be back.

And that made a male extra scrupulous with things like conscience.

“I just wanted you to know,” he said. “And also, I don’t go around doing that, just so we’re clear. I’m not a vigilante killer who’s pulling a Dexter on all kinds of people, even if they deserve it. What happened down by that river was a one-off that started because the asshole put a gun in my face.”

Erika released a deep breath. Then nodded. “If I had your powers with the mind, who knows what I would have done to the guy. I’d worked with her before, you see. When he’d nearly killed her a while ago. And though I understand what you did in this particular case… I’m glad you’re not walking over that line all the time. Let’s keep it that way, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As he went quiet, she said, “Okay, spill the second one.”

“What?”

“What else do you have to get off your chest?”

“There isn’t—”

“Yup, there is. Tell me.” She looked him square in the face. “G’head. Let’s hear it.”

Balz frowned. And then wondered if humans could read minds. Because… there was something else, but he certainly hadn’t thought of bringing it up now.

Then again, if not now, when? “Erika. You may not want to talk about it.”

“Too late. And God, just say it. My mind is torturing me with all kinds of things—”

“It’s about the night your family was killed.” With the way she went so still, he regretted giving in. But if he honestly thought he might not come out of where he was going alive, he had to tell her now. “And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“What.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Look, sometimes we read minds when we don’t mean to. It can happen when there’s a connection that’s deep. Things open up, things are seen.”

“What did you see.”

Balz rubbed his face. “Your mother, the night she was killed… when you came into the kitchen and your boyfriend had her and the knife. When he… did what he did to her—your mother wasn’t yelling at you to save her. She was screaming at you to go. Erika, you’ve had it wrong all these years. What you saw, that fucking horrible night, and what you’ve convinced yourself she said, are two different things. Your memory recorded the facts. Your emotions have turned what transpired into an experience.” The rain-scent of tears bloomed up in the space between them and he took her hands urgently. “Listen to me. Your mom wanted you to save yourself, not her, and you stood there because you were trapped between what you heard her yelling and what your good heart wanted you to do, which was to fight to save her. This blame you’ve carried around with you? It’s a false burden. Let it go. Really hear, in your conscious mind, what your mother wanted you to do, and stop blaming yourself by letting that lie you’ve turned into a cudgel go.”

Erika covered her face with her hands. “You’re not making this up, are you?”

“No, that would be beyond cruel. I’m just telling you what your memory is—the foundational memory, not the one you edited because you felt responsible for it all. Because you were the one who brought him into that house, into your family, as your boyfriend.”