Beast (A Righteous Outlaws Novel #4) (The Righteous Outlaws) by Savannah Rylan

side of the law anyway. If anything, we were doing the world a favor.
    “You don’t have to agree with what we do. You just have to understand it.”
    Silence plagued the air around us. I honestly thought she would drive me back to the station, and put her notice in. Go back to where she came from, and never look back at Black Hills. Instead, she leaned forward and opened the glove box. She grabbed a stack of napkins, and handed them to me.
    “You have blood all over your face.”
    “Just another day at the office,” I said, and it reminded me of Miles. He always said shit like that. I guess it kind of stuck with me. I took the napkins, and then the bottle of water she handed me. Ten minutes later, I was as clean as I was going to get without a shower and some soap.
    “I’ll be right back.” I got out of the car, and put the napkins into a pile on the ground, before lighting them on fire. I watched them burn for a minute, making sure there would be nothing left but ash and got back in the car.
    “You seem to be a pro at this.”
    “You have no idea.”
    “Yeah. I realize that now.”
    She went to put the car into drive, and I grabbed her hand. Her hand tensed beneath mine, and she blinked up until the dark browns of her eyes met mine. “We might be on opposite sides of the law, but we have the same goal.”
    “Really. And what’s that?”
    “Keeping Black Hills, and the people who live there, safe.”
    “No matter what the cost?”
    “No matter what.”
    She took a deep breath and let it out. “Just try not to kill anyone else.”
    “I’ll do my best, darlin’. That’s all I can promise.”
    “I guess that’s good enough for me.”
    She eased the car back onto the road, and we headed toward home. I’d be surprised if she stuck around any longer, but, then again, the girl kept surprising me so who knew.
    Maybe she didn’t need a babysitter after all.

6
    Ryan
    I t had been two days , and no word of a body had come through the station. The guilt ate away at me for not reporting such a horrific crime, but, even if I did, nothing could be done without a body. And, what was I supposed to do? Arrest Beast for the murder? He was protecting us. He protected me. He was right. If he didn’t put a bullet in that guy, then there would be no guilt to toy with. I’d be as good as dead.
    My mind flashed to how easily Beast killed, and how he didn’t hesitate. Not even for a second. After the body slumped to the ground, it was as if nothing happened. Like he didn’t just take the life of some guy he didn’t know. It had no effect on him whatsoever. I’d worked with officers who had been on the force for over two decades, who had seen and done the unspeakable, yet they still looked affected in the end. Not him, though. I guess there was a reason why he went by the name Beast. He embodied the definition: large and dangerous.
    I tried to shake the memory from my mind, but I couldn’t. All I kept seeing was the blood smattered across Beast’s face, and how he didn’t notice it was there. I wondered how much blood and death he had seen in his life. Was this just another day for him? Was taking a life just something he did without any thought or remorse? Had he become so oblivious to it that his take on reality had turned jaded? His eyes held so much darkness, but how dark did they really go?
    Then, I remembered what he said. What’s the difference between that or killing someone in war? Was he speaking from experience?
    “You okay?” Reed asked, and I turned my head from the car window, letting the million unanswered questions float away.
    “Fine.”
    He rubbed at his clean-shaven skin and, after a few days with him, I began to notice he did that when he had something to say, but wasn’t sure how to approach it.
    “Spit it out.”
    “You’re kind of quiet. You’re not mad at me, right?” I glanced up at him, and tried not to laugh. He wore the uniform, the badge told me he was a cop and went through all