Page 88 of Fracture

“You do? I didn’t realize that. I could have asked someone else to take me this morning if I knew you had to work.”

“Mark?” Vinnie spat.

Lorelei exhaled. “Mark isn’t important. Not anymore.”

“But he was.”

She nodded. Her cheeks warmed. Mark hurt her. A lot. More than she wanted to admit to anyone, but especially to Vinnie.

Mark was a jerk, but she was the reason things ended. She didn’t see him for who he was. She never made space for him in her life until she needed his help. And when he got mad and walked, she didn’t fight him on it. Just let him leave and went on with her life. She proved him right. She didn’t need him, or anyone, and that truth almost got Lorelei killed.

If she’d listened to Mark a year ago, if she’d been less independent, she might not have been alone the night she was kidnapped. She might have trusted someone else.

Mark was just the first person to call her on it. He was angry at her for it. Lorelei told herself being independent was a good thing. That it was a sign of strength. It wasn’t a weakness like Mark threw in her face. It wasn’t something she should change.

But one year, a broken ankle, amnesia, and five broken ribs later, Lorelei knew Mark was right. Not that she needed him, but she needed someone. She wasn’t an island. And pretending she was didn’t do her any favors.

“Are you okay if I drop you off?” Vinnie asked, interrupting Lorelei’s thoughts.

She nodded, feeling guilty for keeping him from work. Again. He’d taken weeks off to be there for her, and even after he was back to work, she was keeping him from doing his job.

She was no better than Mark, demanding Vinnie was there for her but not anyone else.

Vinnie slowed down in front of the building and pulled over behind a row of parked vehicles.

Lorelei put her hand on the door handle. “Do you know when you’ll be home?”

Vinnie didn’t look at her when he shook his head.

“Okay,” Lorelei said. She climbed out of his SUV and moved to the sidewalk to watch him drive away.

Once he was out of sight, she looked up Adam’s number on her phone and called him. “Can you come get me? I need some advice.”

“On my way.”

Vinnie slammed his fist into the body bag in the training room. It swung back, and he hit it again. And again. And again.

Beating the shit out of the bag was better than letting out the emotions racing through him and threatening to destroy his sanity.

“Whoa. What’s going on with you?” Arthur asked. Arthur was a SWAT member, but not on Vinnie’s team. They did not get along. They went through training together, and Arthur was on Vinnie’s heels for every exercise. Vinnie was his competition, the one he had to beat.

He never did, and the fighting never stopped.

“Move along, Arthur,” Vinnie growled.

Arthur laughed, drawing the attention of the others in the training room. “Is the hero having a bad day?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Vinnie asked.

Arthur smirked. “Even since you went and chased down that FBI Agent, everyone’s saying you’re a hero. You saved her life. And you’re fucking her into submission.”

Vinnie saw red and wanted nothing more than to watch it come out of Arthur’s body. He pinned the other man to the body bag, his forearm on Arthur’s throat.

Arthur’s eyes went wide. He tapped Vinnie’s forearm. He threw his hands wide, his gaze going past Vinnie to the others in the room.

“What the hell, Vin?” Hannah blurted. She and Molly pulled him off Arthur.

Arthur gasped for breath and held his throat like he was injured. “He could have killed me.”