His sigh holds a hint of annoyance that doesn’t come through in his voice. “I’m aware.”

“But you did it anyway?” My temper begins to spiral, an uncomfortable pressure in my chest that climbs up my throat like some clawed animal. I know at least part of what I’m feeling is because I’m sleep deprived and frustrated with my case. But the bigger part of me is angry because this man I love doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that his actions no longer affect just him.

Taking a deep breath, I reel myself in, focus on keeping my voice level. “Tomasetti, I know this thing with Ferguson is difficult. And I know you’ve suffered. I get that. But you have to let this go.”

“In a perfect world—” He cuts off the rest of the statement, but the words hover between us, so tangible I could reach out and snatch them from the air with my fist.

In a perfect world, my wife and children would still be alive.

While I hate it that he was hurt so horribly, that three people he loved were stolen from him by violence, another part of me wants to remind him that he has me now. My heart. My love. And that if his family were here now, he and I would never have met.

After setting the plate in the sink, I go back to the table and sit across from him. “Tomasetti, if something happens to Ferguson—”

“If anything happens to Ferguson, it’ll be his own doing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I stare at him, refusing to acknowledge the pinpricks of unease on the back of my neck.

“It doesn’t mean anything.” He picks up the tumbler of whiskey sitting beside his laptop and sips. “I’m not going to do anything, so you can stop worrying. All right?”

“You’re going to his house. You’re talking to him. What do you call that?”

He doesn’t look up from his laptop. I see his eyes moving and I realize he’s reading, and that only pisses me off more. “I mean it, Tomasetti. This isn’t just about you anymore. The things you do affect me, too. It’s incredibly selfish of you not to consider that.”

He closes the laptop and looks at me. “Joey Ferguson is a piece of shit. He’s a murderer and a rapist and he’s going to continue fucking up people’s lives until someone stops him.”

“It doesn’t have to be you.”

“Who else is there, Kate? The Cleveland PD? BCI? A jury of his peers? Here’s a newsflash for you: They didn’t get the job done. The law failed me. It failed my family. My children.” Up until this point, he hasn’t raised his voice, but that final word is fraught with emotion, and I know that’s the heart of the matter here. That he lost his children. That they’d suffered before they died, and he hadn’t been there to protect them.…

“Your kids loved you,” I tell him. “They wouldn’t want you to sacrifice yourself in the name of revenge.”