Darkest Sins (Perfectly Imperfect #9)

Pushing through the lookie-loos formed into a half circle around the couple, I approach the guy and take out my gun.

“Get back over to this side.” I press the barrel to his temple. “Or I’m going to blow your brains out.”

The future ex-wife and a few other people scream, their cries blending with the thumping of several dozen feet. It would be easier to just push the guy off, but that would mean cops, maybe even road closures or whatnot, and I’m in a hurry.

“Now, Jeremiah,” I say.

The would-be jumper gapes at me, his body shaking. He’s going to slip.

“I-I can’t,” he stutters. “I’m scared.”

Of course he’s scared. He doesn’t want to die. If he truly wanted to kill himself, he would have jumped by now. And he wouldn’t have brought his wife along to bear witness. Fucking manipulator. I put my gun away, then grab the idiot by the scruff of his jacket and haul him over the railing. He lands on his ass next to my feet.

“Get in your car and out of my sight,” I snap.

The wife rushes toward the guy as he scrambles to his feet, and they both run to a green pickup truck abandoned in the middle of the road. A few moments later, the truck peels out at high speed, followed by the rest of the cars that were blocking my way. Good. I throw a glance at my watch and head back to my car.

I make it to the intersection near the vet clinic just in the nick of time, catching my tiger cub leaving the building. She throws her purse onto the back seat of her Volkswagen and then gets behind the wheel. Staying at a distance, keeping at least one car between us, I follow her toward the east side of the city. As we approach one of the traffic lights, my curiosity gets the better of me and I switch lanes, pulling up right next to her vehicle. The tinted window on the passenger side won’t allow her to peek into my car, but I can see her clearly.

Think more clearly, too.

My brain was a bit scrambled due to the blood loss when we met, but I did notice that she was pretty. Moron. She’s more than “pretty.” Delicate facial features, with a small nose and big almond-shaped eyes. Rounded, soft cheeks. I could look at her for hours. Honey-blonde locks gathered at the top of her head, with a few stray strands falling around her face. I remember the smell of her hair, so near to me while she leaned closer to extract the bullet. Flowers. She smelled like flowers.

A rock song is blaring from her car speakers, and she’s tapping her dainty fingers on the steering wheel, following the rhythm and singing along. It doesn’t come out right because she misses almost every note.

See? The girl is fine,I tell myself.Now, turn around, and get the hell out of here.

I can’t.

I thought that seeing her one more time, making sure with my own eyes that she’s all right, would be enough.

But, it’s not.

Why? Because she was “nice” to me?

The last time anyone did something nice for me was nearly fifteen years ago. It was when that old bastard, Felix, snuck into my room at the Z.E.R.O. base and pointed his gun at my head, saying he would shoot me if I wouldn’t let him treat the knife cuts Kruger gave me earlier in the day. I probably would have killed him on the spot, but I was still groggy from whatever cocktail was pumped into me before Captain Kruger got busy with his little torture session. My dear boss had very distinctive ways of punishing his recruits.

And now, this girl.

I told her I never thanked anyone in my life. It’s not only because I never actually had something to be thankful for, but because “thanks” is just a word. One syllable without a true meaning. Likelove. Orcare. Empty words people use but don’t mean. Likeforgiveness.

But I want to give her something. More than a kiss on her hand. I’ve actually never kissed anyone or anything before. I don’t have much to offer, so that night, I gave her what I had. A kiss for the hand that treated my wound with such care.

But, I can also give her safety.

The traffic light changes to green, and I follow her to a nice residential neighborhood where she parks in front of a three-story building. I wait for her to get inside, then take two spins around the block to make sure the neighborhood is as safe as it seems. Once that’s done, I pull up in front of a closed store and grab my laptop out of the bag I left on the passenger seat.

The shortcut to access the confidential database is at the upper left corner of the screen. I breeze through the four-factor authentication to log on and enter the street name into a search query. The list of all known offenders and their addresses fills the page. I narrow the search down to a ten-block radius aroundmy cub’s building and scrutinize the results. It takes me almost an hour to scan over the three bios that come up. The first one is a woman who was sentenced twice for financial fraud, so I rule her out as a potential threat. The other two, however, are men with histories of assault and battery, and one of them was convicted of attempted rape. I check both of their addresses through the nav app, then take my gun and get out of the car.

The whole idea of second chances is one big illusion. People very rarely change, if ever.

And I will not allow a potential threat to live anywhere near my tiger cub.

Chapter 3

26 years ago from the present day

Psychiatric residential treatment facility