Page 74 of Things We Hide from the Light

Bertle and Winslow stepped up behind her, smirking.

Dilton raised a finger, shoved it in her face. “Fuck you.” He glared down the other officers and pointed at them. “Fuck you too.”

With that, he stormed out of the station.

“‘Not anymore, asshole?’ Bannerjee, that’s someG.I. Jane–level shit there,” Winslow said, slapping her on the shoulder.

She beamed like the teacher had just handed over a gold star. Even I couldn’t help but smile.

“Guess I’ll be on my way,” the union rep said with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

“Good luck,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “Thanks.”

“Good to have you back, Chief,” Grave said to me before following her out of my office.

Piper scrabbled at my legs. I leaned down and put her in my lap. “Well, that went well,” I said to the dog.

She gave me an enthusiastic slurp with her tongue before hopping down onto the floor again.

I picked up my nameplate and ran my fingers over the letters. Chief of Police Nash Morgan.

I wasn’t back. Not all the way yet. But it felt like I’d finally taken a step in the right direction.

Maybe it was time to take another.

FIFTEEN

SATAN IN A SUIT

Lina

Naomi: Don’t forget! We shop for bridesmaid dresses Wednesday. I’m thinking all the fs. Fall, fun, and flattering!

Sloane: Lina, I think this means she’s going to dress us up like pumpkins.

Me: Pumpkin is not my color…or shape.

I didn’t enjoy wastingmy entire morning fruitlessly checking potential properties off my list. Not when it felt like there was a ticking clock hanging over my head. I needed progress. I needed a break. I needed to stop thinking about Nash Morgan.

That meant banishing all thoughts of his offer, his confessions, and his hot, hard cock. Okay, that last one had already taken up permanent residency in my head. But the rest needed to vacate my brain immediately.

I was mechanically chewing my way through a Cobb salad at a diner forty minutes outside Knockemout when six feet four inches of sin in a suit slid into the booth opposite me.

Lucian Rollins wore danger like it was custom tailored for him.

“Lucian.”

“Lina.” That low timbre, those piercing eyes. Everything about the man was vaguely threatening…and therefore a reasonable distraction from my obsessing over all things Nash.

“What brings you to my booth?”

He stretched one arm across the back of the vinyl cushion, taking up even more space. “You do.”

The perky twentysomething server who’d brought me my food and chatted about my leather biker jacket for five straight minutes hustled up to the table holding a coffeepot at a precarious angle. Her eyes and mouth were wide. “C-coffee?”

“Yes. Thank you,” he said, looping a finger through the handle of the upside-down mug in front of him and flipping it over.