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“What happened?”

“He left. Logan left me.”

River pulls me into her arms. She asks no more questions and just holds me. Her kindness breaks the last barrier and the tears come back unbidden. I cry until there’s nothing left. I cry until I’m numb inside and my eyes are swollen shut.

Crumpled tissues litter the floor around me like clumps of snow, a sad witness to my agony.

River pulls me to my feet and guides me back to my bed. Like a puppet, I comply with her ministrations. My body aches. My head is pounding. I don’t know how long I’ve been on the floor. It could have been minutes or hours.

My mind is trapped in a loop, a bad movie playing again and again. Logan’s pained face and hurtful words on repeat. I’m both the villain and the victim, stuck in a role I didn’t choose to play.

I’m vaguely aware of River pulling the covers around me. She turns the light off and the room drops into darkness. I curl myself into the smallest version of me possible, as if I could dispel the pain by hiding from it. The bed dips as she sits next to me, her fingers running through my hair like Mom did when we were kids and didn’t feel good. River rubs my back and tells me to sleep. Exhaustion takes over and I feel myself drifting off into welcoming nothingness.

Everything will be better when I wake up, she says.

She lied.

Chapter Fifty-Four

“Fuck.”

My head is ringing and pounding. I struggle to open my eyes. The first thing I’m aware of is the dry and bitter taste in my mouth. Then the memory of what happened this morning. The first thing I see when I actually manage to open my eyes is the nearly empty bottle of Brora. The twenty-six-year-old single malt whiskey I stole from my father when I saw him with Amanda. Stealing his prized fifteen-hundred-dollar bottle soothed some of the anger I felt then, even if it embarrassed me later on. It’s only fitting that I drain that bottle to celebrate the occasion. Stole it because of one cheater. Drank it because of another.

The ringing and pounding is outside my head now.What the fuck?

The banging on the door and the bell ringing shatters the contented numbness my friend Brora put me under. If there’s one positive thing I can say about my father, it’s that the bastard knows how to pick his whiskey. I drank enough to pass out and yet I suffer none of the side effects of a hangover. Maybe I’m still drunk. I get up and walk to the door.

“Calm the fuck down. If the house isn’t on fire, stop this fucking racket!”

The silence that follows my harsh words makes me hesitate. It had better not be Skye. Or that fucker, Bruno. I’m off the clock now, and this is my property. He won’t leave it in one piece.

I yank the door open and River is on the other side, arms crossed over her chest and a furious expression on her face. I look over her head, hoping to see Skye even though I just told myself I don’t want to see her. Anger at myself is renewed tenfold. Even after she cheated on me, I’m hoping to see her.What the fuck is wrong with me?

River walks right in and shoulders me out of the way. I stumble back a step.

“By all means, come in. It’s not like I’m pissed off or anything.”

Sarcasm does not faze River one bit. She invented the damn thing.

“What do you want?”

There are limits to my patience, and the excellent scotch I drank may have extended it, but my anger is burning through it at light speed.

“I want to know what happened.”

“What? Skye didn’t tell you?”

Saying her name hurts, and I raise my voice to cover the pain.

“Don’t you raise your voice at me! I’m not one of your perps or whatever the hell you call them. I want to know what happened.”

Her voice softens with the last few words.

I run a hand through my hair and realize I’m still in uniform. But no belt and no gun.Where the fuck is it?

I look around the room and find it on the floor next to the empty bottle.

“What happened is that your sister cheated on me with her fuck buddy, Bruno.”