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I tried to picture the swanky-dressed detective that I’d first met getting down and dirty as an undercover cop.
“A year into Operation Vivid, I became the personal driver for one of Australia’s most notorious criminal families. When I wasn’t driving Albert around, I drove his wife to her appointments and their boys to school and their other activities.” His hand draped over the cigar burn, and I braced for the gruesome story behind that brutal wound.
“The boys, Wesley and Owen, were twins. They were thirteen when I first met them. Man, those kids were brats.” Heaving a sigh, he shook his head. “But they were just trying to get attention. Their father . . . he?—”
Tyler’s face twisted, and I thought he was going to vomit.
He pulled his knees up to his chest as if silently telling me to keep my distance while he got this story out. “I witnessed seven murders by that man. Every one of them was cold and calculated.”
He stared at the ocean, but I knew it wasn’t the vast blue he was seeing.
Hopefully, revealing this story would help him in some way. I wanted to tell him that I knew exactly what it was like to re-live witnessing a murder over and over, but he didn’t need to hear that from me right now.
“I thought their mother was a cold and calculating bitch, but she wasn’t. Nikki was trapped in a world she could never escape from. She kept up a façade to keep herself and her sons alive, when, really, she was drowning in self-loathing . . . she was a functioning alcoholic.”
He swept his gaze to me and frowned like a piece in a puzzle slotted together.
Our puzzle. Our pieces.
I nodded. “Dad did the same.”
Tyler ran his palms up his thighs, and grains of sand caught on the hairs on his legs.
“It took me three years to get all the pieces of Operation Vivid together, and I finally had concrete evidence of a shipping container full of drugs and weapons coming in.” He closed his eyes and inhaled. “The showdown was at a giant warehouse. Every man we’d been tracking was there. A big raid was organized, but I was instructed to stay away to keep my undercover identity intact. Just in case there were some loose ends that needed tidying up. But I wanted to be there when those fucking bastards were taken down. I wanted to see their faces, you know.”
“Yeah, I do know.” I clenched my jaw. “I would have given anything to be there when Dad killed the bastards who murdered Mom.”
“I was supposed to take Wesley and Owen to boxing class and make everything seem normal, but I deviated to the warehouse instead. It was stupid, but I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to see an end to my years of work.”
He dug his thumb into the dimple in his chin then clenched his fist. “I parked the car in a side street and told the boys to stay put until I got back. I talked a police officer, Ebony, into letting me in on the action, and she gave me a police vest.”
He drove his hand through his hair. “It was madness, Indy. Bullets flying. Police yelling. Men dying. Then, Wesley appeared out of nowhere. I have no idea where he got his gun from, but he didn’t even flinch when he raised that Glock and shot me in my lower back.”
I winced as his hand brushed over the raised circular scar on his back.
“I rolled over and tried to reason with Wesley.” Tyler rubbed his hand over his second bullet wound on his chest. “He shot me here. I begged him to walk away. Begged him. When Wesley raised the gun again, I shot him in the stomach.”
Tyler put his hands over his eyes and puffed out his cheeks.
“Oh, Tyler. That’s awful.”
“I crawled to him and pulled him onto my lap, trying to stop the blood pouring out of him. Do you know what his last words to me were?” His blue eyes pierced me.
I shook my head.
“He said, you’re a cop. Like I was the worst vermin in the world. Then he tried to spit on me, but it oozed over his lip instead and he died.”
The sadness in his eyes crushed my heart.
“I loved that kid, but I couldn’t say that to him.”
I nodded. I couldn’t remember the last time I told Dad I loved him.
“The worst part was that Nikki saw me kill her son. I didn’t even know she was in the warehouse. Nikki got her arm around Ebony’s throat and used her body as a shield. I managed to get to my feet and aimed my gun at Nikki, begging her to let Ebony go. There was so much hatred in her eyes.”
He turned to me with his mouth ajar like there was something truly rotten he had to tell me, but it was chewing up his insides so much he couldn’t say it.
Tiny spider veins crept into the whites of his eyes, and I knew he was fighting his tears.
