need for answers razored through her. Her tone slashed, a straight edge to the throat without mercy. “Did you kill him?”
Atcliff flinched at her eviscerating demand but didn’t balk. “I knew it had to be done to protect all of us, especially you. Brady arranged it. He wanted to take you out, too, but I wouldn’t allow it. You were the only true innocent in the whole mess.”
That vague admission failed to soften her features. “Why?”
“You, Lottie.” She took that punch of truth without flinching. “He wanted to live up to what he saw in your eyes when you looked at him. He was no hero. He was in as deep as I was, but when your mother left you with him, she made him promise to become what you believed him to be. He’d tried taking a stand once before. It didn’t end well.”
“With Legere kidnapping me and Mary Kate.” Her firmly set mouth twitched, but the hollow-point stare didn’t flicker.
“He was a different man after that.” His sad sigh of regret rolled through shoulders that had carried the entire department without the slightest bend. “I tried to protect you when he started to fall apart. You didn’t deserve it. He was always so proud of you.”
Dark eyes flashed. “I don’t need you to tell me that. And your sad stories don’t make you into any less of a criminal. You betrayed him and me, and everything we devoted our lives to.”
“I did.” He leaned back in his chair, calm in his acceptance of her knowledge.
“For what?” Compressed fury shuddered through her tense form. Fingers curled into palms to control the urge to shred him the way his actions had his decency. “What was your price?”
Her demand fired with unerring accuracy. He flinched upon impact. “I had a family, too, Charlotte. I had plans for our future. And I wasn’t about to let a conscience-ridden alcoholic rip that away from me.” He took a deep breath and expelled it angrily in the face of her shock and quickly hidden pain. “Someone had to take care of you and this house. He couldn’t. He didn’t. He was no hero.”
“And you are?” Her emotional demand hung between them.
Finally, he broke the tense standoff. “Yes, I am. I did what needed to be done for our city, for its survival.”
“By dealing with criminals. By allowing corruption and padding your pockets from it. Is that how the press will see you? How the courts will see you?” She gestured behind her. “How those men and women out there will see you? As a hero, just doing what had to be done?”
He inhaled, letting it out in a weary huff. “How can you make that argument, Lottie, considering what you and your partner married and the creatures you defend? You think they’d see either of you any differently than they’d see me?”
Cee Cee winced as those stinging pellets of emotional buckshot peppered her stance. But she stayed strong for all those she defended. “I have faith in our system.”
Atcliff studied her for a long moment then shook his head. “What good will it do if all their trusted defenders fall? Is it better they know the truth or continue to believe in the law? How would exposing my deeds and undercutting all my genuine accomplishments serve them?”
She fell silent, considering his arguments before stating, “You wasted that argument on Brady. I couldn’t accept it then, and I won’t now.”
He knew her well enough to know she’d stand by her answer, so he circumvented it with his own solution.
“I’ll put in for early retirement. I’ll start the paperwork today. I have some long overdue vacation time coming. I’ll take it immediately. A family emergency. I’ll also suggest fast-tracking your advancement. I’ll be out of the equation for good. This is not a bribe. It’s a solution that will protect everyone—our department, our city, and our loved ones. Is that something you can live with, Lottie?”
What he offered made a disagreeable amount of sense. The idea of him escaping justice brought acid to the back of her throat from his sucker punch to the gut. She swallowed it down.
“I don’t like lying and I don’t like playing games.” Her lips twisted into a grim parody of a smile. “But better you’re gone than to have to pretend. And in case I befall some convenient accident, I’ve already taken steps to protect my information. You don’t want to become Karen Crawford’s next interview.”