Really I wanted to plead with him to love me the way I loved him. I wanted to beg him to forgive me for being desperate and rash. I wanted him to see me for who I always would be, a woman that had a good heart but often made bad choices. I was human. Flawed and broken, but so was this place I called home and so was he. I wanted him to see that we fit right in as a couple on these damaged streets.

He stiffened under me and I bit my already trashed lip because I thought he was going to push me away. He didn’t. His fingers raked through my messy hair and massaged the back of my neck.

“I figured all that out when you lied to the cop about the gun. And just so you know: Booker is the one who let Zero into the building.”

It was my turn to stiffen. “What?”

He sighed and moved his head so he could kiss my forehead. “Booker let the guy in and disabled the security cameras so no one could see him coming up to the loft. None of it makes any sense.”

I was dumbfounded. I knew Booker was a thug and an ex-con, but I also thought he was my friend. We understood one another.

“What about the rest of it, Titus? I screwed up again.” I was giving him proof that I was never going to be as good as he was even if he came from a place that was as dirty and tarnished as I was.

He blew out a deep breath and curled the arm that wasn’t holding me up around the back of his head. “You can’t be the judge, jury, and executioner if we’re going to be together, Reeve. You have to understand the difference between a bad choice and a choice that has consequences that are undoable and forever. If Dovie had died, if you had succeeded in killing Conner . . . where would you be at the end of all of that? Buried under guilt and remorse just like you have been since you asked Novak to take care of your sister’s boyfriend. I need you to trust me to do my job, and you have to trust the process. I know Roark was a dirty cop, I know there are more of them in this city than there are good ones, but I’m not one of them. You have to give me the opportunity to do what needs to be done.”

I nodded slowly. “I know that.”

“Now.”

It was my turn to sigh. “We didn’t start out as a united front, Detective. I was on the outside looking in. I was trying to do what was best for everyone. And just so you know, Race thought I was trying to set you up to kill Conner for me. He never trusted my motives.”

I saw his teeth flash in a grin. “Race is smart but that doesn’t mean he knows everything. I knew from the beginning you would never expect me to compromise myself no matter how vicious and violent Roark made this fight. You told me too many times how much you admired and appreciated my dedication to doing the right thing. I kind of figured you had a plan. I just didn’t put it together until you lied about the gun.”

“I don’t want you to regret being with me, Titus.” I could hear everything my heart felt for him in my voice.

“There is no regret, Reeve, and there is no choice. Right or wrong, you are it for me. You get all the parts of me. You make me feel like I can just be me, not a cop, not a big brother, not a hero, not a savior . . . just a man. A man that has his good and bad parts. I’ll never be perfect but for you I will always be real, and you can always be just who you are with me. Even if that is a girl that thinks she can solve her problems with a bullet. I just need to keep reminding you there are always other options and that we have too much to lose if we don’t think things through. We’re both a freaking mess, so who else would want to bother with us anyway.” He kissed me to show me he was teasing with the last part. “I’ve wanted you from the beginning. I should’ve known from the start this is where we would end up.”

It wasn’t a declaration of love. He didn’t even ask me to be his girlfriend, but him saying I would always be the one that got all of him, all of who he really was, felt just as important as those three little words.

I was going to thank him and smother him with my relief and with more kisses and definitely more sex, but his eyes got flinty and he suddenly bolted up in the bed and pulled at his hair.

“Son of a bitch!” He didn’t apologize for the interruption to our intimate moment; instead he swung his long legs over the edge of the bed and reached for his pants. I saw his shoulders tense, which made me sit up and ask him,“What’s wrong?”

He looked pissed off and extra wild as he started pulling on his clothes.

“It’s the beginning. All of it has been about the beginning. It started with Novak.”

“So what?” I didn’t understand what he was talking about but he was making me nervous. This was the first time I had seen both the cop and the beast loose at the same time. He was frightening in his ferocity.

“I didn’t see the connection when Roark started messing with Nassir and Race. I totally blew the relationship between him and my brother. It took a bomb threat and too many dead kids for me to see the way he was hitting at me where it hurt me the most, but now I see it all. It’s been about paying us back by using our weakness against us, and the only weakness Roark has shown is his bizarre obsession with his old man. I looked everywhere in this damn city for him except for the one place where he would feel closest to his father.” He swore some more and I shivered as he clipped his gun on his belt.

His train of thought sounded ominous and I had a really bad feeling about it. “You think Conner is at Novak’s old warehouse?”

He just grunted and dug a card out of his wallet that he tossed in my direction.

“I don’t know if he’s there or not but I need to go check it out.”

I picked up the card with the marshals’ logo on it and curled my fingers around it. “Don’t go alone.” My voice was barely a whisper. I couldn’t stand the thought of him in danger even though I knew it was his job.

Titus bent over to kiss me hard on the mouth and told me to trust him and to believe that he could do his job. He told me he would call for backup and that if I didn’t hear from him in an hour to call the marshals. I knew exactly where Novak’s old spot was located. If he didn’t call me in an hour I was going after him myself; I just didn’t tell him that. So I kissed him back with everything I had and told him I would do exactly what he had asked me to do. As I watched his broad back disappear out the door I asked any higher entity that might be listening to keep this man that held this world up safe. I didn’t want to live in this place without him.