Page 35

I need her to tell me. I need to know what happened. I need to help her, but in order to do that, she needs to tell us what’s going on.

Knowing that I can help her but she won’t let me? It’s agonizing.

“I just don’t know that I can trust you,” she says, her eyes on her hands that are in her lap.

“I understand,” I say.

“No,” she says firmly, looking up at me. “You don’t understand anything.”

“Okay,” I say carefully. “You’re right about that because I don’t know what happened. But if you told us, we could help you.”

“Or you’re working with them,” she hisses.

“With who?” Forge asks. “The person who killed Theodore?”

“The men who killed Tiger,” she says angrily.

She looks at her hands again, and Forge and I look at each other, silent understand passing between us. We’re slowly piecing this together with the little bits she’s giving us.

“I know you don't trust us, sweetheart. And I'm not asking you to change your mind right this second. I'm just asking you to give us a chance to prove that we're not the men you're afraid of.”

“It’s just hard,” she says quietly.

“I imagine it is,” I say. “But we’re open books. We will answer any question you have. Anything you want to know, we will tell you, and we will tell you the truth,” I say.

“We take pride in our honesty. In fact, sometimes I’m too honest and it pisses people off.”

She huffs a small laugh.

“I can see that.”

I chuckle, loving this side of Forge. This caring, understanding side that I rarely get to see.

“We've spent our careers putting the bad people behind bars,” I explain. “We take our jobs seriously. And all we want to do is find Theodore’s killer while keeping you safe.”

She looks between us, and I can see in her blue eyes that’s she’s fighting an internal war. Part of her wants to trust us, while the other part is guarded. I get that. Trust isn’t earned in a day, and that’s basically what we’re asking her to do. Problem is, trust isn’t earned just because we have badges, and it’s clear she knows this from experience.

Something changes in her eyes. They soften. Her shoulders deflate.

“Do you promise to keep me safe?”

“Yes,” we say at the same time. Firmly.

Trinity comes in with a large tray. On it are four floral tea cups, a sugar bowl and a small ceramic pitcher of milk.

“Could you move this over there for me, honey?” Trinity says, hers eyes on me.

I move the end table over so it’s between the couches and remove the tissue box, placing it on the other end table beside the couch. Trinity puts the tray on the table, and passes the cups out to each of us.

“Tell them, honey,” she says gently, sitting beside Raewyn.

Raewyn blinks a few times, then looks back up at us, her eyes flicking between us.

Finally, she says, “They were cops.”

Chapter Thirteen

Forge