Colton (Cerberus MC #14) - Marie James Page 0,81

in his hand is unsteady, but he’s close enough to hit his mark without much effort.

I plead with my eyes, but it’s clear he’s no longer seeing me. I’m not Sophia, Colton’s girlfriend. I’m Penny, the woman who broke his heart by making the wrong choice in brothers.

“You didn’t have to die. We would’ve been so happy together.” His words come out broken and filled with palpable pain, but I have no doubt Penny’s life would’ve been ruined with either one of them. She may not have been hit, although his actions tonight make me doubt that, but being in a relationship with an addict brings its own set of problems.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers, lowering the gun and cupping the side of my face with his free hand. “When the night is over, we’ll finally be together.”

Chapter 35

Colton

I feel like I’ve been struck with an invisible blow when the call ends. I tried to keep my cool, but the man is threatening my entire fucking world. Losing either of them would destroy me. Losing both of them is a tragedy I’ll never come back from.

For some reason, it’s in this moment that the many conversations I’ve had with Sophia while working come back to me. I told her compassion is fleeting. I explained that people are put in impossible situations. Sometimes, it’s because of a mental break. At other times, it’s because they’ve been struck so hard by loss that they see no other way out. It seldomly entails actual psycho or sociopathic reasons. There are mitigating circumstances that put Sophia and Rick in this man’s path tonight, but I can’t muster an ounce of that compassion. I can’t see being satisfied with any other outcome than this man being carried away from here in a fucking body bag.

“He closed the curtain,” Shadow says, his voice coming over the mic. “I no longer have a shot. Get with Max and tell him to get us ears inside.”

It’s mere minutes before the conversation inside is transmitting. Max, a guy I’m guessing that works for Cerberus, was able to tap into Landon’s phone. The muffled words are hard to hear because the phone is in his pocket, but the dangerousness of the situation comes across loud and clear.

“He’s insane,” Monahan says after hearing the way he’s talking to Sophia. “Like clinically. Did you know about the link between him and Penny?”

“We knew he had a twin. That came out in the investigation. Both brothers have spent a little time in jail. Roger, the man inside, has a few possession charges. He was picked up for a drunk and disorderly a couple months ago, but we didn’t dig enough into his life to find out he was in love with his brother’s girl,” I explain.

“Probably not something he talked to anyone about,” Dominic says, giving me a small concession.

“Obviously, we can’t give him what he wants,” Monahan says out loud even though we all know it.

Unintelligible garbles come through the tap in Landon’s phone followed by sobs. Dominic is slowly losing his cool. The ice-man stature he arrived with has been slowly melting away, and now I can see he’s just as worried as I’ve felt since I pulled up and noticed the front porch light out.

“I love her. My son is inside. Another young man I’m responsible for is sitting beside the both of them,” I tell anyone standing close enough to hear. “We have to fucking do something. He’s devolving and shit is going to go down sooner rather than later.”

Dominic’s jaw twitches at my confession, but he refuses to look in my direction. It’s clear he blames me. Hell, I blame me. If it weren’t for my involvement in the case, this wouldn’t be happening. No matter how much the reasonable part of my brain tries to tell me that this situation could happen at any point to any officer over the course of their career, this isn’t happening years ago to someone else. It’s happening to me.

I’m to blame.

“Peterson is an excellent shot. If we can get him in the hous—”

“Shadow is better,” Dominic interrupts. “Let my guys handle this, Chief.”

Monahan shakes his head. “This is Farmington jurisdiction.”

“You’re going to let that come into play here?” Dominic hisses, and I bet he’s seconds away from wrapping his hands around my boss’s throat. “We don’t have time to spend measuring our dicks out here. Shadow has decades of experience. He’s not some cowboy wanting a little piece of the glory.