Chapter 46
N ora
I wake up to my phone buzzing on the nightstand.
Normally, I’d ignore it, but the persistent vibration tells me it’s not just a text.
I carefully extricate myself from Jericho’s arm, which is draped heavily across my waist. He doesn’t stir—the man sleeps like the dead once he finally lets himself drift off.
Curiosity wins. I slip out of bed and into the hallway before answering.
“Hello?” I keep my voice low.
“Nora.” His tone is clipped, professional. “We need to talk.”
“About what?” I lean against the wall, glancing back at the bedroom door.
“Not over the phone. Meet me in the Moons’ parking lot in thirty minutes.”
I almost laugh. “No. I’m not meeting you anywhere, especially not at this hour. ”
“It’s about your contractor boyfriend. You’ll want to know this if you want to help him.” There’s something in his voice—satisfaction maybe. Like he’s been waiting to say this.
“What about him?”
“Thirty minutes. Your diner. Or he’s on his own.” He hangs up.
I stare at my phone, irritation and unease churning in my stomach. Dick has always been manipulative, but this feels different. There’s something calculated about it; he knew what to say to drag me out at this ungodly hour.
I slip back into the bedroom. Jericho is still sleeping, one arm flung across his face. The light is on, as always. I’ve never asked him why, and he’s never offered an explanation. Just another piece of the puzzle that is this man.
I dress quietly, scribbling a note about running to the diner to check on something. It’s not exactly a lie—I’ll stop there after whatever this meeting with Dick is about.
The morning air is sharp with cold as I push the door of my car open in the diner parking lot. Dick is already there, leaning on his truck, looking like he’s posing for a small-town politician’s campaign photo.
“This better be important,” I say, not bothering with pleasantries as I walk up to him.
He turns to face me, and there’s something triumphant in his expression that makes my skin crawl.
“Did you know your boyfriend is an ex-con?”
I exhale a nervous laugh. “What?”
“Jericho Landell. Served several years for aggravated assault. Nearly beat a man to death.”
The world seems to tilt slightly. “You’re lying.”
He pulls out his phone, swipes a few times, and hands it to me. On the screen is a news article with Jericho’s mugshot—younger, harder, eyes flat and cold in a way I’ve never seen them. The headline reads: “Local Man Sentenced in Brutal Attack. ”
My hands feel numb as I scroll through the article, feeling like I’m reading about a stranger.
“He attacked a man outside a bar in Boston,” Dick says, watching my face carefully. “Beat him so badly the guy was in a coma for three days. Multiple facial fractures, internal bleeding. The works.”
I hand the phone back, my fingers trembling slightly. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Thought you should know who you’re sleeping with.” His voice is casual, but there’s an undercurrent of satisfaction that makes me want to slap him. “A violent criminal with a history of losing control.”
“People change,” I say automatically, though my mind is racing, trying to reconcile the man I know—the man who fixes things and kisses me like I’m precious—with this mugshot of a man with cold eyes.
“Do they?” Dick leans closer. “Some people are just wired wrong, Nora. Some people are just violent at their core.”
My father’s face flashes in my mind—the way he looked in that hospital bed after the attack. The way his skull had been fractured by someone who’d just ‘lost control.’
“I need to go.”
“There’s more,” Dick says. “He’s been lying to you about everything. His job, his past?—”
“I said I need to go.” I back away from him, needing space, needing air.
“Nora.” His voice softens, and he reaches for my arm. “I’m just looking out for you.”
I jerk away from his touch. “No, you’re not. You’re enjoying this.”
His expression hardens. “Fine. Go back to him. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when he shows you who he really is.”
I turn and walk away. My thoughts jab at each other inside my mind as I move faster, almost running by the time I reach my car, mentally berating myself for how stupid I was for coming here to meet Dick.
Did I really think he had Jericho’s best interest at heart when he called me?
Do I have Jericho’s best interest at heart after what I’ve learned?
My father died because of a man’s violence. Because some stranger couldn’t control his temper and left him with a traumatic brain injury that eventually killed him. I swore I’d never let violence touch my life again.
And now I’m sharing my bed with a man who nearly beat someone to death.
I don’t start the car or go into the diner.
I can’t face anyone right now, can’t pretend everything is normal when it feels like the ground is shifting beneath my feet.
Instead, I get back out of the truck and head into the streets of town, walking aimlessly until the cold air clears my head, and I’m ready to drive back home.
By the time I make it back to Jericho’s house, I’ve composed myself enough to confront him. I need to hear his side. I need to know if the man I’m falling for is the same one from that mugshot.
He’s in the kitchen when I walk in, coffee mug in hand, hair still rumpled from sleep. He smiles happily when he sees me, but it fades quickly when he reads my expression.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself. “Did you serve time in prison?”
The question hangs in the air between us. Something shifts in his expression—a shuttering, like windows closing one by one. He doesn’t look surprised. Just resigned.
“Yes.” The single word falls like a stone.
My chest tightens. “For beating someone nearly to death?”
He sets the mug down carefully, precisely. “Who told you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Was it Cheryl?” His voice is unsteady.
“No,” I say, trying to cut off future questioning. “Surprisingly, my sister from law enforcement failed to report it to me.”
“It was Dick, wasn’t it?” Now it turns flat.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite being indoors. “Answer the question, Jericho.”
He runs a hand through his hair, his movements deliberate, controlled. “Yes. I served four years for aggravated assault.”
Despite having seen the article, his confirmation hits me like a physical blow. I take a step back.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When should I have mentioned it?” There’s no defensiveness in his tone, just a hollow sort of acceptance. “First time I met you, naked, in my backyard? ‘Hi, I’m Jericho, I’ve done time’?”
“You had plenty of opportunities after that,” I say, my voice rising. “You let me get close to you—let me trust you—without telling me something this important.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
He looks away. “When I was sure you wouldn’t look at me the way you’re looking at me now.”
And how am I looking at him? Like he’s suddenly a stranger. Like I’m afraid. And I am. Not of him, exactly, but of what this means. Of what he represents.
“I hate this situation you’ve put me into, Jericho,” I say, shaking my head in frustration and disappointment.
My voice is brittle, barely holding together under the weight of what I feel.
“Maybe as much as I hate violence.” My father’s face flickers through my mind again, and I have to fight to keep my voice steady, to keep the memories from overwhelming me.
I thought I could let someone in without the past creeping in too, but now everything feels tainted, bruised.
He stands up, moving toward me with an urgency I’ve never seen in him before. “Let me explain,” he says. There’s a rawness in his voice that might have reached me if I wasn’t feeling so cornered, so betrayed.
“No.” I stop him with a raised, shaking hand.
My whole body feels like it’s quivering with anger, or maybe it’s fear—fear of the person I’ve allowed into my life, fear of my own judgment that failed so miserably once again.
“You had plenty of time to explain,” I say, the accusation hanging between us like a bitter, unspoken truth.
He had time, and still he kept this part of himself hidden, letting me walk into this unprepared and find out the truth from no one other than Dick.
I turn, forcing myself not to look back, not to be swayed by the softness I’ve seen in him, the gentleness that might have been real but now feels like just another risk I shouldn’t have taken. I walk away, wanting to leave this place and him behind, hoping the distance will make this hurt less.
“Nora.” He follows, calling my name, his footsteps unhurried but determined, like he knows where I’m going and that I won’t be coming back.
“No, Jericho. Just no.” I don’t slow down, my exit a frantic escape, pushing through the door and into the cold that’ll cleanse me of this. Of him.
I knew it was too good to be true.