Chapter 12 Violet #2
One glimpse at their faces, and it was clear they knew something was wrong. Levi glanced over his shoulder, following my line of sight, but I wasn’t sure whether he saw Travis sitting behind them like I did from my higher-up vantage point on the altar steps.
My fingers trembled, but I managed to keep the shake out of my voice. I wanted to say the truth. That he’d died protecting me. But nobody knew I had been there that night. Nobody knew the horrors of what had gone down in that empty warehouse.
They were secrets I’d have to keep until I met him again one day.
All I could do was brokenly whisper that I loved him and missed him.
And then set him free.
I slunk back to my seat, and Nyah gripped my hand once more. “That was perfect. Well done.”
I didn’t feel like I deserved praise. I stared blankly at the wall for the rest of the ceremony, Travis’s gaze burning a hole in my back. I leaned in and whispered to Whip that he was there.
He nodded and whispered back that they’d take care of it after the service.
But by the time the priest invited everyone to attend a celebration of life and people began to file out, Travis was nowhere to be seen.
I didn’t even have a chance to be relieved about that. Devin walked away toward the parking lot, and I chased after him, not wanting him to go until we’d had a chance to speak.
I caught up with him at the edge of the lot. “Devin.”
He turned around and gave me a sad smile and a half shrug. “Violet. Hey. Sorry, I just can’t hang around and do this. Your words were beautiful, but I don’t want to mourn him like this. This wasn’t him.”
I knew what he meant. Toby didn’t do stuffy, formal events. He would have wanted glitter and music and laughing.
But as Nyah had said, funerals weren’t for the dead. They were for those left behind. And if this is what Toby’s parents needed, then that was okay.
I grabbed Devin’s hand so he couldn’t leave. “I know. This wasn’t him. They didn’t know him like we did.” I let out a shaky breath. “But I think even I didn’t know the real him.” I watched his expression carefully. “Did you?”
I saw the flash in Devin’s eyes. Something that looked a whole lot like guilt.
My breath caught. “What do you know?”
Devin glanced over my shoulder, making sure no one was listening. “You found his photos, then?”
I nodded.
He mirrored the action. “I figured you would. I should have taken them all. I was going to that night you let me into your apartment. But in the end I just sat there, surrounded by them, and couldn’t do it.
His whole room just felt like something I didn’t have the right to touch.
And I convinced myself it didn’t matter now anyway. ”
“Why did he have those photos? You knew enough to know you should get them from him, even though you didn’t.”
He ran his hand through his closely cropped hair. “I’m a cop.”
I was pretty sure my heart stopped. At the very least, it skipped several beats, finally picking up again in a speeding rhythm that echoed horses’ hooves thundering down a racetrack.
“What do you mean?” I whispered, even though I’d heard his words perfectly and there had been no room for misinterpretation.
“It’s how Toby and I met. He brought his photos to the department, and I was the one assigned to go over them. I’m a low-level nothing. I get all the grunt jobs, and the sergeants assumed Toby’s photos weren’t important.”
“But they were, weren’t they?”
He nodded. “It was an accident the first time. He said he’d been out night shooting, practicing something to do with the lights. But he brought us the photos because he thought he’d inadvertently caught a drug deal on camera.
“Had he?” I whispered.
Devin nodded. “I suspected so, but the people above me didn’t care.
They dismissed it, citing that minor drug deals weren’t of interest to them.
I told Toby to keep it confidential in case the gangs found out they’d been photographed.
I didn’t want anyone to be able to tie anything back to an innocent guy, who’d just been out taking photos in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But my sister died from a drug overdose, and I couldn’t just let it go.
It’s the salt in the wound, you know? That one thing I got into policing to protect others from, and it fucking grated that they didn’t care. ”
He sighed heavily. “So I took my own camera out to the streets, trying to get proof of more.” He smiled ruefully. “And found Toby hiding out, doing exactly the same thing.”
I shook my head. “Sounds like my stubborn best friend. Tell him not to do something, and he’ll do it just to spite you.”
Devin smiled fondly. “Yeah, I learned that lesson the hard way. I tried to keep him out of it for longer than I should have.” He sniffed.
“I tried to keep him out of my bed for longer than I should have too.” He lifted a watery gaze to meet mine.
“I regret that so much now. If I’d known I would only get such a short amount of time with him, I would have kissed him that first night I found him in the shadows.
The chemistry was there from the get-go. If I’d known…”
I stepped in and hugged him. “No one could have known.”
He squeezed me back but stepped away, clearly needing to finish the conversation.
“He was just trying to help. He knew where the gangs hung out. He had the equipment to watch them from afar. But I owe you an apology. I owe all of his family and friends an apology. I lied to you all about what I did for a living, and I shouldn’t have let him get so close.
I should have locked him up or something, but I was selfish.
I liked that I kept running into him out on the streets.
I’d only just moved here, and I was lonely, and sitting in the dark with steaming cups of coffee and whispered conversations while we waited for something to go down was the highlight of my days.
I should have pushed him away, but instead I drew him in.
Made him a part of it. Made him lie to you all about who I was.
” His voice cracked. “And I got him killed.”
I folded the man into my arms, and he sank in against me, holding me tight as grief poured out of him in guilt-racked waves I knew all too well.
I tried to make my mouth move. Tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault. That everything had happened because of me, not because of Toby.
But I didn’t know that either.
I couldn’t forget Lynx’s snakelike eyes, staring at me from that black-and-white photo. He wasn’t the only man in them. The photos dated back to before he’d been released, but it was clear to me he was deeply involved. That as soon as he’d been released, he’d taken up the position he’d left behind.
And he’d been staring right at the camera.
I’d been so convinced this entire thing was about me, but I just didn’t know anymore.
I wanted to pour out every thought in my head, every theory, every worry.
But my eye caught on the three men I loved standing to my left, watching on from a distance.
And I pressed my lips together, knowing that my only job now was protecting them, the way I hadn’t protected Toby.