Free Virtues (Base Branch Series Book 8) by Megan Mitcham

questions later. She drew him in. Her sorrow. Her body. Her branded soul.
    “It’s too bad she’s taken.” Cara stepped around his legs and was gone.
    Tyler forced his head to stay upright when all he wanted to do was let it hang. His skin tingled. His hands shook. He forced the reaction down.
    “Rin and Luck are moving in together, just as soon as they agree on a place.” He turned to find her hand on the door. She twisted the knob and jerked it open. “So you’ll have to look elsewhere for entertainment.”
    “I’m not looking for entertainment, Cara.”
    “What are you looking for?”
    “Not a damn thing.” It was just too fucking bad he’d found it anyway.
    He’d looked for years, needing something to fill the patchwork of holes every kill left in his heart. Most of his comrades could lay waste to the enemy without a second thought. Good versus evil. End of story. Growing up the way he had—hand raising animals not strong enough to hack it, and then marching them to their death—he’d learned that every life mattered. He’d seen nature in her raw and unabashed fury, and he knew that only some of the times were clean-cut lines of good and evil. Most often, they were the difference in culture and upbringing. Tyler hadn’t chosen this life. It had chosen him. He was good at it, but it took a toll.
    When he’d grabbed Khani Slaughter’s hand in an unspoken proposition all those months ago, and she’d rebuffed, as she damn well should have, he’d recognized the sick pattern for what it was. He respected the hell out of his lieutenant, but most days, he didn’t understand her dry sense of humor or why the hell she wore so much makeup. No way had he wanted her as his own; he only wanted her company as he’d wanted the company of so many before her…to dull the pain of guilt. Guilt, by all accounts, he shouldn’t feel.
    He stood, replaced the chair, and pulled a sheet of paper from his back pocket.
    “What’s that?”
    “A list of townhouses and condos in decent neighborhoods.” He strode to the door.
    “Why would you do that?”
    “Because surveillance is boring.”
    “I knew you were watching.”
    “Sure, you did.” He grinned.
    Her cheeks flushed, and she ushered him outside with a wave of her hand. He obliged with a nod. “Good day, ma’am.”
    “Why are you smiling like a fool?”
    His boots stalled on the lip of the threshold. “Because you didn’t help your argument.”
    Cara’s brow knitted, but she clamped her mouth shut. He waited for a beat and then turned away.
    “There are ten years between Rin and me,” he tossed back. He walked to the asphalt and then turned. “There are only nine between you and me.”
    Disheveled hair shook with her denial.
    He nodded and smiled.
    “That’s a lifetime.”
    “Not from where I’m standing.”
    “You wanted to know about the cigarettes?”
    His head bobbed in confirmation.
    “They remind me that nothing we do is without effect. The decisions we make bear out over time. I refuse to make another decision that will hurt the ones I love.”
    “What if those same decisions hurt you?”
    “I don’t feel much anymore.”
    “Your eyes tell a different story.” He winked. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Before she could protest, he turned and walked away.

11
    A chemical burn worked its way from Cara’s nostrils down the back of her throat. At the corners of her eyes, coalescing tears and sweat added to the violent sting, and her lids battled with furious blinks. Black chunks and brown suds covered both her hands. A smudge of dust, dirt, and the ever-present grease lashed the back of her wrist. Specks of tainted water ruined the blouse she’d haphazardly worn to the occasion.
    “I thought I knew all of them, but this is a particularly cruel new form of torture.” Cara brushed rogue strands of her high ponytail off her cheek with the top of her forearm. She hunched at the waist to bear more weight on the front burner of the food