Page 89 of Fatal Pattern

Tori sank onto the couch beside him. “I spent my whole life trying not to feel like a victim, but you . . . you spent your whole life trying to be the antidote. For me.”

She inhaled like she was preparing to release something.

“That night at the pier . . . I remember everything. The way you didn’t hesitate. You heard me scream and you ran toward the danger, not away from it.”

Blade kept his eyes fixed on his hands, but her words pulled at his memory.

“You were just a kid yourself. And you killed that guy. To save me.” She paused, letting that settle. “You were a hero, but no one saw it that way. You were forced to pay the price, and that was more than just six months in juvie. You lost your entire family. You saved my life, but it cost you everything. And I never thanked you properly. Not just for saving my life, but for what it cost you.”

The gratitude blindsided him.

“No.” He looked at her, meeting those dark eyes that he’d memorized all these years. “I didn’t lose everything. I found my purpose.”

Tori’s expression softened. “You found me.”

The simple truth of it hit him. She wasn’t just right, she was completely, devastatingly right. Every choice he’d made since that night had been about her. Not consciously, but with the kind of bone-deep certainty that guided a man’s life without him even realizing it.

He studied her face in the lamplight. Really looked at her.

Not the terrified fourteen-year-old from the pier. Not his colleague or his friend or the woman who could make him laugh when things got too dark. He saw Tori. The woman who had been the one constant in his life. The person who understood his silences and matched his intensity and never asked him to be anything other than exactly who he was.

The truth hadn’t shifted. He had. What once blurred sat sharp now, stripped of fog, undeniable in its clarity. Kiara hadn’t been his future. She’d been his hiding place. A safe harbor where he could pretend he wanted the life everyone said he should want. But his heart had made its choice eighteen years ago under a dark pier.

Blade stared at his hands, shame crawling up his throat like acid. Maybe he hadn’t technically been unfaithful to Kiara, but something inside him had been divided all along.

“Kiara must be convinced I’m like every other man I despise. A no-good cheater and liar.” He rubbed his face. “No wonder she dumped me.”

“Anyone who’s met you knows you’re not that guy.” Tori nudged his knee with hers. “Your name might sound big and tough, but deep down you’re a softy.”

“I can hold my own.” But even as he said it, he thought about how close he’d come to dying on the beach tonight. The stalker’s thumbs digging into his eye sockets, the knife slicing through skin. Without Tori’s intervention, he’d be fish food by now. “Thanks for saving my life, by the way. I owe you.”

“Nah. We’re even. Just stop being mushy.”

“Mushy? I’m expressing gratitude.”

“Exactly.” She grinned. “Next you’ll be writing me a thank-you card with little hearts on it.”

“Hearts are Corbin’s thing. I’d use skulls.”

“Much more dramatic.”

Tori shifted closer, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw. “I think we’re finally starting to see what everyone else has been seeing for years.”

The words should have required some kind of response, but his brain had gone blank. All he could manage was, “Yeah.”

She leaned in, and when their lips met, something dormant in his chest ignited. The kiss was soft, tentative, but it felt like his soul had been holding its breath his entire life and could finally exhale.

When they broke apart, reality crashed back. The case. The evidence bag. The killer still out there.

“I wish I could stay here with you,” he said, brushing her hair back behind her ear. “For the rest of my life.” He pressed his lips to hers and pulled back just enough to whisper, “Your five minutes are up.”

She smiled as they kissed again, then she nodded. “There will be time for more talking, but first—the job.”

Blade closed his eyes. He needed a minute to gather his thoughts. Sort through Damien’s cryptic words. The bag from the first fight.

“Damien must’ve hidden his blackmail notebook in the evidence from my case.”

Tori tilted her head. “How would he have access?”