“It’s exactly like that,” I say softly, suddenly completely defeated and feeling wiped out.
“No,” he says harshly as his hands come to my shoulders. He holds me tightly in place and puts his face near mine. “I care for you too, Jane. More than you could ever even imagine. I was leaving tonight because my partner had alerted me that my location may have been compromised, and I didn’t want you in danger. But what I’ve just told you… about me being undercover? That doesn’t even scratch the surface of my story, and if you knew the things that I had to do to achieve my objectives in this operation, you’d be disgusted by me. You’d despise me.
“I despise you for not being honest with me,” I rasp out through the tears clogging my throat.
“You’d despise me more if you ever knew the real me,” he tells me flatly. “All of this that happened tonight… what I’ve told you so far? That’s not me. It’s got nothing to do with the reasons I held myself back from you. Why I never fully gave in to you. There are things that your beautiful soul could never comprehend about me, and be it cowardly or not, I could never bear to see the look of hate you’d have for me if you really knew it all.”
For the first time since I arrived here at the police station, my anger toward Kyle vanishes. It’s simply gone. In its place is an apprehension that feels almost ominous in nature. Kyle’s still keeping deep secrets from me, but he talks about them as if they’re so horrific that they will change everything. It will mar completely the way I feel about Kyle, and while I know it’s over, and I know I’ve been betrayed, there were some very beautiful moments with this man. I don’t want those to turn ugly. I can’t stand it if they were to be tarnished.
And suddenly, I don’t want to know anymore. I want Kyle to keep his secrets, and I want to leave this room, go to my parents, and let them take me home where I know they’ll baby me. Miranda will come over, and she’ll hold me while I cry for my losses. I don’t want to know the deep, ugly truths about Kyle. Instead, I want to hold onto my anger for his deception. I truly believe if I do that, I might just be able to heal my broken heart with time.
My eyes focus in on Kyle’s, and I lock them there tight. I take one last look at him, trying to be strong so I don’t dissolve in front of him, and I tell him from the bottom of my heart. “Good luck to you, Kyle. I wish you the best.”
Kyle’s face crumbles, but I can’t let it deter me. I turn and walk away from him without a backward glance.
CHAPTER 26
Kyle
Two months later…
The gravel crunches under the tires of my rented sedan as I pull into the driveway to my sister’s house. She has no idea I’m coming, but she won’t be overly astonished at seeing me alive. After I was pulled out of Misty Harbor that night Jane got attacked, I insisted Andrea be told what had happened. The trial wasn’t very far away and, after fucking things up with Jane so bad, I just couldn’t go another goddamned day with my sister thinking I was dead. It was one lie I simply had to rectify. So I had Joe visit her, because telling her I was alive after she’d mourned me was not something that could be done over the phone.
From that point and until the trial started, I was seriously sequestered away, but Joe arranged for me to talk to Andrea and we’ve had a few conversations. They’ve been short and have focused on nothing but good stuff, which includes mostly her joy I’m alive and my joy that she has a baby on the way.
That all changes as of today, for I am now a free man.
The trials did not go all the way as expected. I was called as the first witness and my testimony lasted four full days. It was solid enough that attorneys representing defendants asked the judge for a half-day recess so they could “discuss things”. Within just a few hours though, Zeke Powell, the president of Mayhem’s Mission, was accepting a plea deal that would give him a shot at parole in thirty years versus life in prison with no possibility of parole. For that deal, he gave up Senator Latner, and from there, all the dominoes started to crumble.
The only thing left unresolved was proving who put the hit out on me. The man who broke into Jane’s house who I subsequently killed wasn’t any known killer for hire. There had been a cash deposit into his bank account for five thousand dollars two days before he showed up in Misty Harbor, but it couldn’t be traced anywhere. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind it was Senator Latner who was behind it, and it was a pitiful attempt to snuff me out. But none of it matters because Latner will be spending the rest of his days behind bars.