“I wasn’t okay, Jake,” I assured him. “I wasn’t at all.”

“That’s what I was afraid you would say. Abby okay is not the same as everyone else okay.” Jake said. “Look at your arm. Look at my brave fucking girl and her warrior ink.” He ran his fingers down the artwork covering my right arm. “I know this is one of your pictures, and this is obviously me.” He tapped the angel of death image on the motorcycle. “And this is our quote, but what is this one?” he asked, his fingers landing on the black and gray version of “The Scar” painting.

“It’s my favorite painting. The real one is in color, but I had him do it in black and white instead. It’s a woman with a scar down the middle of her entire body.”

“But he didn’t tattoo the scar itself?”

“He didn’t need to.” I’d had the artist use one of the reddest, most jagged of my scars as the red line down the center of her.

“Wow,” Jake said. “It’s beautiful and fucking amazing, just like you.” His eyes were darkening, but it didn’t push the crystal blue out entirely. Both the devil and angel in him were with me that night. “I don’t know how I ever survived without you, Bee.”

I hadn’t thought of it from his side. At least I’d had Georgia. Jake had no one. I could see how the last four years were so difficult for him.

“I turned off my feelings the second I walked away from you on the bridge,” I told him. “But when Georgia was born, it was like she just broke through it all. It was hard to do, but I had my baby, and when you have a screaming three month old with colic who won’t sleep through the night, it’s hard to get caught up in your own bullshit. The things that happened to me in the past just started not to matter with her around. They still hurt, and I didn’t avoid them. They just weren’t the most important things in my life anymore. She saved me.”

“You both saved me,” Jake said. “As much as I can be saved.” His tone became serious. “I need you to do something for me, baby.”

“Anything.” If he asked me, I would do it. It was that simple.

“I need you to tell me why you took those pictures, the ones of you after…”

“I took them for you,” I admitted. “I wanted you to see what he did to me. I wanted you to be mad because I wanted you—” I stopped just short of saying it.

“Say it Bee,” he insisted. “I need to hear it.”

“I wanted you to kill him.” The words didn’t hurt, and I wasn’t embarrassed. It was actually liberating saying aloud that I wanted Owen to die. “There’s something else, too, besides what he did to me and Georgia.”

His eyes were fully dark now. “What is it?”

“He killed Nan.”

“I need to see them, the pictures, now, and I need you to show them to me.”

“Why?”

“Because, baby, I am going to leave here tonight, and I’m going to track him down wherever he is, and I’m going to take him out of this world. I’m going to bury the pieces of him where no one will ever find them.”

I hadn’t looked at the photos since I developed them that night in the high school darkroom. I didn’t know if I could see that part of my life again. “What difference will the pictures make? You know what happened.”

“I need to see exactly what he did to you, because the more I know, the more detailed your description of your pain… the more satisfying it will be for me when I kill him, and the more I’ll enjoy it.”

“You want to enjoy it?” I knew right away that I was judging him. Who was I to judge anyone? Beneath that was a curiosity within me about what he felt when he did something like this. Jake had so many things at war inside him. I wanted to know as much as I could about what made him tick.

“Yes, I want to get off on it, as much as possible. I know that sounds fucked up. But in order to move forward, to enjoy what we have with our family and the rest of our lives together, I need to close this chapter first. But I can’t just kill him, Bee. I need you to understand…” He tightened his fists into balls. “I need to feel him die under my hands. I need to feel it so badly.”

He pressed his lips into my neck, and a rush of heat shot right to my core.

Then, he whispered into my ear, “When this is all over, what we have will be complete. The three of us under one roof, forever, as it should be, with no trace left of the fucker who tried to ruin everything for us.” His beautiful promises mixed with his warm breath on my ear made me whimper. “Not to mention, we have a lot of time to make up for, and I plan on spending a lot of that time with my head between your thighs.” He cupped his hand over my jeans between my legs and squeezed. I jumped at the sensation. “I’ve never gotten to taste that sweet pussy of yours, baby, and I think four fucking years is long enough to wait.”