71. Renee

My face is sticky with tears and the heat blowing on me in the backseat of this LAPD cruiser is stifling. My shoulders alternate between numb and painful, although I assume that is part of the punishment for offenders. No matter how many times I say I didn’t do this, Starsky and Hutch up front don’t give a fuck.

Weston is working from a place of hurt, from memories of what happened to him. I get it. He thought he loved Eva and he ended up with a bullet in the leg because of it. Now, it’s happening again. That must seem like a nightmare. So instead of working to find the real crook, he decided I was a good scapegoat.

Part of me hates him for it.

Part of me still loves him.

I’m not sure which part hurts more right now.

After I’m fingerprinted and photographed at the police station, a grim-faced sergeant brings me to a quiet hallway and puts me into an interrogation room. It’s not much bigger than Sutton’s closet. There’s a metal table and two chairs, a mirror that we all know from TV is a window on the other side, and a video camera set up in the corner.

He flicks on the video camera and a red light pops on the front. “Sergeant David Shorz, badge number 7497. The time is 8:33 P.M. and the date is October 27. I am interviewing Renee DuBois in connection to the robbery at…” He searches his paperwork and reads out Weston’s address, then speed-reads through a litany of legalese I don’t bother trying to understand. “Do you understand your rights as I’ve read them?”

“Sure.”

“And you want to give this interview freely?”

“Yes,” I say softly.

He steeples his fingers on the table. “Ms. DuBois, Mr. Scott told us that he spent the night with you at Sutton Medina’s apartment on October 17. There was a power outage that night.”

I nod. “Yeah. He came to check on me. I was… panicking.”

“He stated that when he woke up, you were in the hallway. There’s a witness that heard you speaking to a man.” He cocks his head and waits for me to confirm.

“I was talking to Jackson, our … I mean, Weston’s neighbor.” I blow out a breath. “I didn’t want to tell Weston that because he has a bad relationship with Jackson and he asked me not to talk to him anymore.”

The cop is looking down at me like I’m lying. “Will this Jackson verify?”

“I have no idea.” Now that I think of it, I also have no idea what Jackson was doing in the hallway. He said he was coming back from a night out, but he didn’t seem drunk at all. He seemed… calculated.

Immediately, I feel awful. I’m doing to Jackson what Weston did to me and it’s wrong. It even feels wrong in my stomach.

Which begs the question: why doesn’t it feel wrong to Weston?

The answer comes quickly and with a shot straight through my heart: because he thinks he’s right. He believes I would steal from him. Whatever we had, whatever I thought it was…

If it was real, there’s no way he would believe I would do this to him.

“Why didn’t you just tell Mr. Scott about it?”

“Because he’s asked me not to talk to Jackson before and I didn’t want to fight over it. I helped Jackson into his place and then I went back to Sutton’s.”

He nods and scribbles something down on a pad of paper. “Mr. Scott says that you know the code to his unit lock.”

“Yes, but I didn’t use it.” I sigh. “His friend was in the apartment, and Hunter is—look, I wouldn’t steal from Weston. I just didn’t want to ruin the good night that we’d had.”

“He doesn’t seem to agree.”

“That’s because some woman in his past…” I stop myself. It isn’t my story to tell. “You can ask him, but I didn’t—I wouldn’t steal from him.”

He nods and hums noncommittally. “Ms. DuBois, I’m going to step out, do some paperwork, and give you some time to think about the statement you want to make.” He stands and walks to the door, then looks at me pointedly. “You’re going to need to tell the truth at some point. The sooner, the better.”

I think back to when I was a kid. I had a nanny who said that lies always come back to bite and the bite always leaves a mark.

This mark is a felony theft on my record. False as it is, it’s there. I’m going to need a lawyer. And I’m going to have to pray that whoever stole Weston’s stuff isn’t trying to set me up for something worse.

Immediately, I think of Hunter, and then I feel bad again. He’s never been anything but nice to me. It had to be random. What if someone ran through the door and came upstairs and?—

Shit. Even as I try to concoct a scenario in my head, it sounds implausible. And none of it matters because I’m well and truly fucked. I can’t get a job with this on my record. I have no home. Enough money left to get me through a few weeks, maybe, but after that? Who knows?

Part of me knows I have a solution in my back pocket. Part of me knows I can make a call and be free and not have to worry about any of this.

I want that part of me to shut the fuck up. It isn’t a real option.

But, God help me… it’s the only one I have.

I sigh. When Shorz comes back, I ask for my phone call.

He shrugs and hands me a cellphone. “Okay. Here you go.”

I take it from him with shaking fingers. My hands continue to tremble as I dial the number and wait.

“Hello?”

I recognize his voice. It hasn’t been so long that I wouldn’t, but it’s odd to me still how familiar it is. I clear my throat. “Dad, it’s Renee. I need your help.”

I hear him exhale haughtily. “I knew you would come crawling back to us.”

“Yes.” I explain the situation as quickly and with as few details as possible.

“Ah. Hm. Mm-hmm.” I can picture him—nodding, smug, smiling. “Alright, Renee. I will help you. But there will be a price.”

I brace myself. Whatever he’s about to say is going to hurt worse than I could possibly imagine. But I’m stuck. Sutton is half a world away, Weston hates me, Danni and Michelle have their hands tied. This is the only way. It’s going to hurt, but it’s all I have left.

“Okay,” I rasp.

“You will come home. You will marry Deacon. You will be a good wife to him and a dutiful daughter to me while he runs my businesses.”

I close my eyes as tears fall unchecked. I didn’t know my heart could hurt this much.

But there’s only one thing I can say. I have a baby to think about now, and even though I would rather cut my heart out than marry Deacon, I can’t think about just me anymore. I have to think about my child.

“Okay.”

He clicks his tongue. “I’ll call the chief and get you released.”

Knowing my dad, I’ll be married within a few weeks. Maybe it won’t be so bad. A marriage without love is certainly better than the alternatives.

Because love makes a girl weak, and I’m so, so tired of being weak.

Love can ruin you.

And I’m so, so tired of being ruined.

TO BE CONTINUED

Weston and Renee’s story concludes in Book 2, RED LINE RIOT.