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“We were young when we first met,” she continued. “Just kids, really. I know it was a stupid decision to get married, but I thought he was the one.” She shook her head. “We were happy in the beginning. Kyle, he was sweet, made me feel special. But, after a while, he became . . . aggressive. He would yell at me, break things. He even shoved me a few times when he stormed out of the house. Half the time I didn’t even know what we were fighting about. He got drunk—a lot.”
More tears slid silently down Lexie’s cheeks and Nico found it harder and harder to stay calm, his brain thinking up all kinds of ways to make the prick pay for the way he’d treated her. It was all he could do to keep his touch gentle as he thumbed away the moisture on her face. “Keep going.”
“After I left him, I naturally thought that would be the end of it. That I could just close that chapter of my life and move on, but . . . Kyle didn’t let go so easily. He’d call at all hours of the night, come by the house, beg me to give him another chance. Other times he’d come in and harass me at work, make a scene, call me a lying, cheating slut, even though I never cheated on him. It only got worse after my dad died. My brother wanted to stay and keep an eye on things, keep me safe, but that would have meant sacrificing his career that he worked so hard for. I couldn’t let him do that. I wouldn’t. So, I told him to go, then I—”
“You what?” Nico prompted when it was clear she wasn’t going to continue.
She leaned back in her chair. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s long done.”
“Lexie.” His tone, though gentle, held warning.
When she returned his gaze, Nico folded his arms on the table. “Honesty, remember?”
She gave a long exhale. “I reported him to Chief West. Well, he was Lieutenant West back then.”
Pleased to hear it, Nico resisted the urge to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I know that must have been difficult for you.”
She averted her gaze.
“So, what happened?”
“He spoke to him, told him to stop.” She shrugged. “It didn’t help.”
“That’s it?”
“Listen,” she said, her voice so low it might as well have been a whisper. “It’s complicated. Small-town stuff. That’s why I wanted to speak to the chief personally.”
Nico’s eyes narrowed. “Small-town stuff?”
Lexie licked her lips and sighed in exasperation. “Adam and Kyle are old high school friends. They grew up together. Adam . . . looks out for him. Downplays his behavior.”
Nico couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Fighting to keep his composure, he rubbed his jaw in agitation. “Are you telling me you went to him with all of this, and he did nothing?”
“I’m taking care of it,” she said firmly. “I’ve known for a long time that I’d need to be more forceful about my complaints. I had planned to threaten Adam with a visit to another police station on the mainland during our meet today if he didn’t get me a restraining order. I’m handling this.”
“Jesus Christ,” Nico muttered.
“I told you, I’m not your problem,” Lexie said. “God, this is so humiliating.”
Nico got up from his chair, unable to sit still any longer. Pacing the room, he opened the door and walked the hall to grab a box of Kleenex from Cora’s desk—noting her empathetic stare—then returned and set it down in front of Lexie. While she cleaned herself up, he turned the situation over in his mind, trying to make sense of it all, weighing up whether he should even involve himself in such a shitstorm beyond his professional boundaries.
Was she worth it?
He watched her dab at her reddened eyes and wet cheeks, imagined telling her he was sorry, processing her paperwork without emotion, then leaving her alone and going on with his life as if they’d never met before, but he couldn’t fathom actually doing it.
Yeah, she was worth it. And whether he liked it or not, he was in this now too.
Pisser.
Nico sat back down, ran soft fingers over her bruised neck. “Tell me about this.”
Lexie gave him a pained look. “I like you, Nico, and I wanted to see you again. I really did. But I have a lot of baggage; baggage that’s not yours to carry. The last time I tried to date someone—tried being the accurate word—Kyle beat him to within an inch of his life. He told him he’d kill him if he went to the cops or ever showed his face in town again. That’s the last I saw of him.”
“Fuck me.” Nico was about at the end of his tether for how much more of this he could handle.
“I agreed to go out with you, because I felt strong enough to handle things if they escalated again,” she said. “I’ve spent months trying to get my head straight, telling myself that no matter what, I would not allow him to hurt or control me again. That that part of my life is over, and I don’t have to be afraid of him anymore.”
She’d started crying again while Nico sat there helpless. Useless. He’d attended countless domestic violence calls as a beat cop, some of them pretty bad. He’d seen the bloodied women, the crying children, the raging addicts, and not one of them unsettled him the way Lexie’s story was right now. The sight of her sobbing beside him, the knowledge that some piece of shit still had a hold on her, it was fucking with his head in a big way.
