This shit was it for me.

I loved doing it and I was good at it.

And it made life better in a variety of ways.

So I didn’t understand what was holding me back from going whole hog, getting licensed and putting out a shingle.

And maybe more importantly, with all that going so well, why did I think I was missing something?

That you could have someone good and clean and right.

Sadie’s words haunted me, yanking me back to the path I was avoiding, and I closed my eyes.

I had to get on making amends. I had to be certain, in my way, to make sure Sadie knew she was part of the family.

She seemed to be getting there.

But I’d sensed she wasn’t there entirely.

And tonight proved I was right.

On that thought, a knock came at my door.

I looked to the door. I didn’t want to get it. I had no cases brewing. I’d cleared the slate when Sadie’s shit hit so I could focus on that.

However, since I’d gotten home that night, my phone had been ringing. All the calls were from the Rock Chicks to natter about what happened and what we were going to do next about Sadie. So once I got the “all’s good” with Sadie, I’d turned off my ringer.

Now someone was at my door.

I knew one thing. Behind that door was not a Rock Chick. They all had their Hot Bunch boys at home and it was past bedtime. They would be nowhere near my door.

So it was probably someone who needed me.

I wished I had an office with a hotline. This hitting my pad business, interrupting me while I was sitting on my ass in a sexy dress in a dark apartment evaluating my life was not working for me. Not that that happened all the time, but once was enough.

The knock came again, and when I gave it time and there was more knocking, I knew they weren’t going to let up. So it would seem I had to haul my ass off the floor and tell them to take a hike.

This, I did.

Except when I got to the peephole, I saw Ren out there.

He wasn’t looking down the hall this time. He was looking at the doorknob as if he expected to hear the locks turning.

Fuck.

I pulled away from the peephole and rested my forehead against the door.

He knocked again.

Fuck!

Okay, I was Ally Nightingale. I figured whatever this was wasn’t going to be a lot of fun, but I didn’t shy away from anything.

Sucking in breath, I unlocked the door and opened it.

Ren stood there in all his glory.

I swallowed the lump that suddenly clogged my throat and asked, “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t look good after Sadie’s thing, honey,” he answered.

I didn’t look good because I wasn’t good.

And he’d noticed and done something about it.

Why couldn’t he be a dick?

I mean, seriously.

I didn’t ask that.

I asked, “Where’s your date?”

“I was worried about you. You weren’t pickin’ up your phone. Dropped her and came to you.”

Again.

Why couldn’t he be a dick?

Seriously.

“You still don’t look good, baby,” he whispered, and it happened.

What happened was something that never happened. Not to me. I was a Nightingale. I was a cop’s daughter. I was the daughter of a cop’s wife. I was tough. It was born in me and bred in me.

So it took serious shit, like Indy marrying my brother—something she and I both wanted since forever—to make me lose it.

But right then, I lost it.

I felt it happen and had no hope of stopping it. The wet forming in my eyes, making my vision bright. Then the tear breaking loose and gliding down my cheek. Then one on the other side.

“Ally,” Ren murmured, eyes to my cheeks.

“I was mean to her,” I whispered.

His eyes came to mine.

“Baby,” Ren whispered back.

Another tear.

“I was mean to her, and that night, she was raped.”

“Honey.”

Another tear. “She looks like a fairy princess and she was raped.”

Then I totally lost it, taking two steps back to escape at the same time I stupidly lifted my hands to cover my face and hide my emotion (which would make escaping difficult, seeing as I couldn’t see).

But I got no further.

The light from the hall was extinguished because Ren was inside, and I knew this because I was being held tight in his arms.

As I felt the strength of his arms surrounding me, the heat from his body penetrating, one of those hiccoughing sobs burned up my throat and made my body buck in his embrace.

God!

I so totally hated crying!

His arms separated, one going low and again tight around my waist. The other one moved so his hand could stroke my back and I heard him encourage into the top of my hair, “Talk to me.”

I didn’t know why I did it. I just knew I needed to do it and he was the only one around.

So I did it.

I pressed my hands and face into his chest and let it all hang out.

“I thought she’d been mean to Daisy. I thought she hated Hector. And I came to Lee’s office the day she came to Lee’s office to ask for his protection.” My head shot back and I cried, “And I was mean!”

His hand soothingly stroking my back (and I had to admit, I’d lost it, but it still was soothing) moved to cup my jaw and he replied, “I know what went down with Daisy and Sadie, and also Sadie and Hector, and Sadie’s not the kind of girl who lets people in. So at the time, honey, you couldn’t think anything different.”

“She got raped that night, Ren!” I stated loudly.

“I know, baby,” he said comfortingly.

“Now she’s a Rock Chick and you heard her tonight!” I kept talking loudly, tears sliding from my eyes. “And I haven’t figured out how to make amends.”

“You and your posse taking her in and having her back is doing that, Ally,” he pointed out.

“Obviously not fast enough!” I returned. “But none of my posse was ugly to her. Except me and Shirleen, but Shirleen got her chance to make amends. Sadie even asked for her.”

And this was true. Shirleen was Darius’s aunt, Lee’s receptionist, and also a Rock Chick of the Daisy variety (which meant she wasn’t attached to a Hot Bunch boy, but she was a Rock Chick all the same).

She’d been snippy with Sadie that day. But when Sadie finally reported her rape, she’d asked for Shirleen to be there.

“Ally, baby, what happened with Sadie tonight didn’t have anything to do with you.”

“I know that,” I snapped, yanking out of his arms and taking a step away. “But she…” I shook my head. “God, that monster broke her wrist. Gashed her face. Made her feel tawdry.”