“Yes, it was, baby,” I whispered. “So you decided to do something about it and moved to the DEA?” I ventured cautiously.

He closed his eyes and drew a breath in his nose.

I waited.

Then he opened his eyes.

“She was my first,” he said quietly, his voice thick and I pressed closer. “I still loved her, Tess. Not the same as when we started but she was a big part of my life. Does somethin’ to a man to have that kind of person in his life, to be able to laugh with her about shit that went down when you were fifteen and have her end like that.”

His fingers tensed deeper and his voice dipped lower.

“She was the first to go down on me, to take my cock, and to think she sold the beauty she had to give for dope burned out my insides. She was the first woman to tell me she loved me. She shared her dreams with me, Tess. What she wanted to do, where she wanted to go, how many kids she wanted to have. At one time in our lives, we talked about those things in a way we thought we’d be sharin’ them. So, yeah, I was driven to do something about it. But Levi was wrong. He didn’t see her in a holding cell. He didn’t see all she turned out to be. I knew she was gone before she was gone. I let her go way before that and I did that for my own peace of mind because I already nearly lost my career and fucked over four other girls who needed justice gettin’ too tied to what happened to her and not makin’ smart decisions.”

His fingers in my hair twisted gently but the clouds in his eyes didn’t part as he went on.

“I didn’t do what I did on a crusade to bring her back. I did what I did because Bree isn’t the only girl out there with family who loves them and old boyfriends who give a shit facin’ that life and someone had to help them. So I decided that someone would be me.”

At that, it swelled inside me, so huge and so fast, I couldn’t stop myself from blurting, “I love you.”

“I know,” he replied.

“No,” I shook my head and got close. “I love you, Brock Lucas.”

His eyes lost that darkness and his hand in my hair slid down and curled around my neck.

“Baby,” he murmured.

“What you did, you saved a lot of girls,” I whispered fiercely.

“I know.”

“That’s beautiful,” I told him.

“Tess—”

“And that’s her legacy as well as yours,” I stated.

He stared at me.

I kept talking.