Page 126 of A Taste like Sin

throat—the result of a hand clenching tight from behind.

“You little bitch.” Chief Harrison sounds more amused than angry—but fury leeches into his

fingertips. They dig into my skin so hard that the world goes black for a second. Gurgling noises die

in my throat as I claw at his grip. I succeed in loosening it only a fraction, peeling one of his fingers

from my windpipe. “How long have you known?” he wonders, eerily calm even as I resist. “How

much did that spineless little bastard tell you?”

His grip loosens enough for me to croak, “My father?”

He laughs. “How did he spin it?” he wonders, shoving me forward, toward the glass doors leading to

my balcony. “Him, the wonderful, doting father. You, the naïve innocent he had to protect from

herself. When, in reality, he was a fucking coward.”

“You told him about me,” I say hoarsely. “You gave him my name—”

“I gave him a chance at redemption.” He tightens his grip, drawing tears from my eyes. “A chance to

bring a monster to justice. The man who killed your little friend… Heyworth represented him. Took

his money and then helped him walk. And he went right across state lines and did it again.”

“So you gave Thorne my name,” I say, standing on tiptoe—the only position that loosens the pressure

on my throat enough to breathe. “Why?”

“So he could find the abandoned little victim,” Harrison says coldly. “Pump her damaged brain for

information. Feed her what she needed to know, enough to form convincing testimony. Then get her

into a foster home where the parents could be easily ‘convinced’ to force her to testify. If they lived in

my jurisdiction, I could claim credit for the collar, and Thorne would have his guilty conscience

wiped clean.”

I picture the plan as he relays it. That traumatized little girl would have been easily manipulated. But

forced to face Simon again, she would have shattered.

“He was too soft,” Harrison hisses, following the same thread of logic. “Too weak.”

“He adopted me instead,” I surmise. “As my guardian, he refused to let me testify without hard

evidence.”

And in some ways, he’s sheltered me ever since. Justice demanded a cruel solution, but he was too

selfish. Not out of pride, but because he loved me too much.

“The prick was terrified of Thorne,” Harrison says with a chilling laugh. “He taunted his other

victims, but never you. Not the precious Juliana.Youwere his special one—”