I raise my hand in a gesture of goodbye to my old supervisor as she stood near her door before driving off with a heavy feeling of dread over me.

I attributed it to the fact that I heard Jon was out of jail but as I drove down the street where my house stood, the feeling seemed to intensify and soon I couldn't even swallow.

There were many questions circulating in my head and the biggest one being 'why the hell was he out free?'

In no time I was pulling up to my place and the feeling of dread turned to fear as I spotted Jon and the guy from the club all those months ago, standing near an SUV that was parked on my street.

Placing my car in park, I took a deep breath and stepped out. Jon had moved from his position near the SUV and was now standing in front of my only entrance forcing me to face him.

Play it cool. I repeat over and over in my head; trying to somehow keep my nerves under wraps and not let him see how my hands had turned clammy from all the sweat dripping off it.

I stuck my hands in my pockets as I faced him and he's staring intently at me.

"What? You broke out of prison or something?"

I wanted to smack my hand against my forehead for the dumbest statement I could ever come up with but I just squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head as I couldn't take back my words.

Jon chuckles and I exhale as he took it light heartedly.

"What are you doing here?"

"Can we talk?"

"Is he your bodyguard or something?" I ask, pointing to the man that's just silently bracing the vehicle and trying his damndest not to pay attention to us.

At the mention of him, he looks up at me before settling his gaze on Jon and I almost rolled my eyes as he smirks.

"My name is-"

"I know who you are." I cut in, failing to keep the annoyance out of my voice.

Of course I knew who he was.

You think I'd just ignore the fact that he was up close and person with a drunk Jon?

I spied the hell out of him and although I knew he was a lawyer long before he represented Jon during the whole ordeal, that still didn't answer the question of whether or not they dated, so... I did.

I turned away from him as I stared at Jon. "I'm really not in the mood to entertain you and your ex."

"My ex?"

"I'm Edward Richardson, his lawyer. We have never dated."

He still held his hand out and I reluctantly shook it.

"He's a handful, isn't he?"

Jon smiles before Edward pulls out a cigar and lights it. "I'll be on my way now, if you need a ride back just call me."

"Wait? You can't just leave him at my pl-"

My statement was cut short as his lawyer walked away and seconds later I stared in shock as the vehicle slowly started to speed away.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Kidding?" He looks at me as though I'd grown another head and I tried my damndest not to roll my eyes at him.

"You're not staying here. I-"

"We have a lot to talk about."

"I'm not having a conversation with a man arrested for killing his own father-"

"I was freed."

"That still doesn't make it any better!" I argued. "I don't know how you did it, who you threatened or paid off but I won't be bought over so easily."

He starts to step closer and on instinct I step back.

"Don't touch me! You're never allowed to me, ever again... not after what you did."

I said the last part quietly but he still heard me and the look of confusion followed by one I couldn't decipher flitted across his face.

"I never meant to-"

"You knew you were going to get arrested and you made damn sure I was your final score."

"I-"

"I never should have let you..."

"What?" He snaps as I go quiet. "You never should have let me inside you? You never should have let me make love to you? You never should have let me into your life?"

"I never should have let you fuck me up so deeply!"

"Dan-"

"Have you any idea what the past few months have done to me? What I have been through? The rollercoaster and the insults and ridicule from the people I called my family and friends. I was- I was humiliated!"

"I was locked up. I was held for months for a crime I didn't commit. I had to deal with crude cops and threats about dying as soon as I was convicted."

"Jon-"

"I missed my father's funeral!... As much as I hated the man, he was my father and the only person that was there for me and took care of me after my mom...

I never killed him. I'm not the monster everyone keeps making me out to be. I stayed quiet and allowed everyone to ridicule me. I let the police ill treat me and even when I was denied bail to go say goodbye to my father for the last time, I chose to protect her."

"What?"

Protect her? Who was this her and what was he protecting her from?

"I tried to be the bigger person and do what I thought was right and I would have kept on doing that even if it meant going to prison for the rest of my life."

"Jon." I tried again. "Who is her?"

"I loved you. I loved you with everything I possessed and yet-"

"Who the fuck is her!" I shouted, my anger and annoyance getting the better of me.

"The woman who shot him."

"What?"

"The woman who killed my father."

We both fell silent; him staring at me, waiting, wondering and me, my mind was still trying to make sense of what he just told me.

"I'm confused." I stated when no answers to the questions swirling around my head came. "Why protect her? Who was she to you?"

"She was sleeping with my father."

"And?"

"They got into a fight."

"Jon. That doesn't tell me anything."

He sighs before pulling me by the hand and leading me towards the front porch. We were now surrounded by darkness, no one being able to see the other's expression and I tried to be okay with that.

"I came home that night and heard them arguing. I didn't know who she was but she was angry at him and I knew all too well what that felt like. At a certain point I stepped in and before I knew it, she pointed a gun at us.

I tried to calm her down but she was obviously upset and she had a right to be. My father had taken advantage of her; a poor, black woman who just wanted to survive in this world but was forced to please a sick, power hungry man known for taking advantage of the weak and underprivileged.

I... she... we got the gun away from her but my dad started choking her and I tried to step in. The gun went off and I tried to call the cops but she told me he got her pregnant and didn't want to take care of the baby. He actually pretended that it wasn't his.

That she was screwing other people when he was the only man she ever slept with. I couldn't let her go to jail, she already had a shitty life and my father... I was trying to do the right thing. How could I just let a pregnant woman go to prison?"

"Jon." I would have given anything to see his face but instead, I settled on just mapping it out with my fingers.

"She's pregnant. She was abused by my father and-"

"Shhh. I understand."

"I never meant to put you in that situation." He murmurs, slipping his hands around my waist and burying his head against my neck. "He did so many horrible things and I knew she wasn't lying because I knew what he was capable of."

"Hey-"

"I thought I deserved this, you know? Going to jail for all the times I turned a blind eye on the girls he hurt."

"You had-"

"I could have put an end to it. I could have just told the cops. A part of me was happy to know he was dead but he's my dad, you know? I couldn't lose the last of my family."

"Hey." I pulled him so he could look down at me and although I couldn't see him, I knew he was all torn up inside. "You don't have to convince me."

"I can't lose you too."

"Baby-"

"Tell me I haven't lost you too."

"You haven't."

"Good."

He whispered the last part against my ear before gently planting a kiss to my lips and for the first time, I tasted salt on his lips. He had been crying, afraid that he'd lost me and in that moment I could feel my heart break for him.

Wanting to prove to him that he had nothing to fear and wanting to forget that I ever doubted him, I deepened the kiss. Hearing him groan as his hands searched me for the familiarity of the past made me in turn moan and even as I felt the hard, flat door pressed against my back, I didn't stop him from turning my body into his battlefield.