Love to Hate You (Hope Valley #9) - Jessica Prince Page 0,47

them started going at each other. “Enough!” I bellowed, shooting up and slamming my hands down on the table. She clamped her mouth shut instantly, giving me wide eyes. “Sit the fuck down and listen, Charlie.”

To my complete and utter shock, she yanked out a chair and plopped down in it with a huff, crossing her arms over her chest and sulking petulantly.

Leo spoke while I took a few much-needed seconds to calm the hell down. “Some shit went down tonight and it’s changed the state of play.”

“What happened?”

“Evan Webb was shot at point blank range in the back of his head while he was down on his knees,” I growled. “That’s what happened.”

Her whole frame jerked back while the color slowly leeched from her face and her chest heaved with rapid breaths. “What?”

“I take it you didn’t know.”

“Of course I didn’t know!” she cried. “Oh my God. He was asking questions. I didn’t know what he was doing, and I wasn’t gonna ask. I’ve been keeping my head down, trying not to draw too much attention, but I wondered what the hell he was up to.”

“So it’s like we suspected,” Leo said on a low grunt. “The kid showed his hand and got himself caught. Now he’s dead.”

“You’re out, starting now,” I demanded.

“What? You can’t do that,” she cried, slapping her palm onto the table.

I sat back down and leaned back in my chair, faking a calm I most certainly wasn’t feeling. “It’s already done.”

“This is bullshit!” she argued. “Now that Evan’s dead, I’m the only eyes you have on the inside. I’m not quitting now.”

“That’s not your call,” I replied flatly. “As of an hour and a half ago, it stopped being your decision to make, mainly because you were making all the wrong ones by not getting yourself safe.”

Giving up on me, she looked to Leo imploringly. “Leo, please. You can’t—”

“You’re out,” Dalton snarled. “Don’t fuckin’ test me on this. If I have to tie you up and lock you in my basement, I will.”

She ignored him and shifted her focus back to me. “Micah, come on. I can do this. I know I can.”

“People are dying, Charlie,” I stressed. “This motherfucker didn’t just kill a fellow police officer, he murdered his partner. You think he’d hesitate for even a moment to squeeze the trigger if he thought you were a threat to him? Not a chance. He’d put a bullet in your head without losing any sleep. I can’t let that happen. You might not care what happens to you, but I sure as fuck do. And so does Leo. We can’t sit back and watch you put yourself at risk like this. Not anymore.”

She surprised me again, and not in a good way, when she lowered her head on a sniffle.

“Sweetheart—” Leo started.

Then she looked back up at us, her chin trembling and her eyes glassy with unshed tears. I’d never seen this kind of emotion from Charlie before. I’d always pictured her too hard, too tough to cry, but clearly, I’d been very wrong.

“I haven’t done a lot of good in my life,” she said in a wobbly voice. “I put my trust in the wrong people over and over, and when they finally showed their true colors, instead of doing the hard thing or the right thing, I ran. I always ran.”

“Darlin’ this isn’t—” I tried, but she wasn’t finished.

“As long as I wasn’t the one being hurt, it wasn’t my problem these assholes were out there, breathing free and clear, able to do whatever the hell they wanted. It didn’t affect me, so it wasn’t my business, right?” She let out a self-deprecating laugh and shook her head in disgust. “The only person I’ve ever looked out for my whole life was me. Then I saw Darrin Callo’s girls.” All the air whooshed from my lungs, but she kept going. “If they’d had a mom as worthless as the one I’d been born to, more than likely, they’d end up on the very same path I’ve spent most of my life on. I saw them and I decided I was done running. I was done looking out for only myself. Greg Cormack took a good and decent man from this earth. He doesn’t get to breathe free and clear.”

Jesus, she was killing me. “You’ve done enough,” I told her, my voice low and gentle. “You don’t need to risk your life for anything else.”

“Better my life than someone who’d leave people behind,”