Page 131 of The Defiant Curse

“And she brought him in?”

Gabby stared at him, and she wasn’t saying anything to incriminate her friend, but that wasn’t what happened.

“Oh,” he said. “Gabby, I can’t condone that. We’re cops. We wear badges. She’s one of the United States ' highest-ranking cops. There’s only one above her.”

Well, yeah, no duh.

Oh, her sweet, dear Fineas. May he never be put in a decision where he had to make that choice. It was clear someone led a sheltered life here in Scotland.

That was probably for the best.

Only, Gabby knew what might put it into perspective.

She rested her chin in her hand and stared into his eyes. They were beautiful, and filled with so much love and strength, but he was thinking with his badge again.

The law wasn’t black and white.

There were shades of gray.

“So, I’m abducted, cut open, tortured, and I have my eyes cut out while I’m alive, and my body mutilated after he rapes me. What are you doing when you find out?”

The second she said it, he crossed himself.

The whole idea horrified him to no end. That was terrible, and he didn’t even want that put out into the universe.

“Jesus Christ.”

She wasn’t done.

“What do you do, Finn? You find me mutilated, and you’re standing in my blood. You have to make a choice, so again, what do you do?”

He closed his eyes.

Well, hell.

“I get justice for my wife no matter the cost. I find that piece of garbage, and I kill him.”

EXACTLY.

This was the gray area.

Gabby kept talking.

“And you see these deaths over and over, and you wear the brains of a man you call son the day before. You walk in that gore daily, and you see justice NOT prevail. Now, multiply that by twenty-five years of cases, of victims, of death. You chase one killer at a time, and let’s face it, mostly it’s vehicular homicides or domestics. She chases serial killers with ten victims at a time.”

He got it.

It was a different animal.

Truthfully, the things he saw weren’t nearly as traumatic. They had deaths, but nothing like what Gabby had just described.

“I didn’t mean to make her upset. I’m not judging her. I haven’t walked in her shoes. I’m just a cop who...”

She touched his cheek.

“She’s here because she had to cross that line, and she’s not sure she’s going back to do her job. Just give her grace. When I lost our baby, she called, and she comforted me. She got me through it and helped you. I’m not asking you to condone it. I’m asking you to see that she’s suffering because the weight of it is crushing her. We all make choices, and sometimes, they are easy to carry, and sometimes they’re not. Now, she’s here alone and struggling. Be kind.”

He kissed her knuckles.