Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Delaney steps closer. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” It comes out rougher than I intend.
She looks down at my right hand. My knuckles are split, and blood is dripping over my ring. But not all of it is mine.
She reaches for me before I think to stop her, closing her fingers around my wrist.
“I said I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
I should pull away.
I don’t.
The wind hits us again, harder this time. She doesn’t loosen the grip on my wrist.
“I told you to stay back,” I say.
She doesn’t reply. Simply looks down once more at the blood on my hand. Then back up.
“I think you know by now that I don’t do well with orders,” she says quietly.
“You shouldn’t have followed me.”
She lifts her chin. “And you shouldn’t have gone alone.”
I almost laugh.
Almost.
Instead I step in.
Her hand is still on my wrist. Her pulse is jumping in her throat.
It’s not fear.
Never fear.
It’s the same dangerous awareness from the house.
From the dock.
From the locked door.
“What he said,” she asks, voice lower now, “about the lawyer. What does that mean?”
“It means he wanted us looking in the wrong direction.”
“Us?”
“Yes,” I say.
Her fingers tighten slightly. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” I admit. “I don’t.”
“Do you have a lawyer in mind?”
I think of Nathaniel immediately.
Nate, with his clean hands and sharper lies. Nate, who could bury a body in contracts and call it following the law.
But no.
Not yet.
I’m not giving that thought air until I know it deserves it. Nate may be merciless, but he’s still my brother.
“Not enough to say,” I tell her, but I already know that won’t satisfy her.
“He said ask the lawyer. Not a lawyer. The lawyer.”
“I heard him.”
“And?”
“And we don’t move the word of some asshole who’s clearly just a messenger.”
Her eyes flash. “Easy for you to say.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you can decide what to hold back.” Her voice stays even, but just barely. “You can decide which parts matter and which parts wait. I can’t.”
Because I killed a man and she’s hunting a truth.
“You’ll wait,” I say.
She drops her hand from my wrist. “There’s that thing you do.”
“What?”
“Act like this is still something you can command.” She exhales sharply. “Like if you lower your voice and make enough rules, I’ll fall in line. Everything will fall in line.”
I shake my head. “You think this is the time to discuss all that? Here? At the marina?”
“I think this is exactly the time.”
Wind tears through the space between us, but neither of us moves.
My blood is still hot from the chase. Hers is too. I can feel it. Smell it. See it in the color high on her cheeks.
“He knew something,” she says. “He knew enough to come watch us. Enough to run. Enough to point at a lawyer.”
“And he also came with a knife.”
“Which means we pushed the right place.”
I step closer. Now we’re almost touching again.
“Which means,” I say quietly, “you don’t decide to chase men because you’re angry.”
“I wasn’t angry.”
That’s a lie. “You were furious.”
“So were you.”
I don’t deny it.
I can’t.
She drops her gaze to my mouth.
A mistake.
I should end this.
Take her back to the car. Get her inside. Lock it down. Keep her safe.
Instead I say, “When I tell you to stay back, you stay back.”
She looks up again. “Or what?”
I lift my hand and grab her around the neck. Again. “Or I stop you.”
Her eyes darken. “Maybe I don’t want you to.”
Jesus.
She’s killing me.
Forbidden fruit.
That’s what this is. Not sweet. Not innocent. Something you know will cost you the second you touch it and wanting it anyway.
Delaney is the woman who shows me where my strength fails.
I drop my hand.
Now.
Before I forget why I have to.
“We’re done here,” I say.
“No, we’re not.”
I look at her.
Really look at her.
Hair windblown. Mouth still slightly parted. Eyes too steely. Standing in the middle of danger like she was made to meet it head-on.
God help me, she’s magnificent.
“We are for now,” I say.
Her expression hardens. “You don’t get to dismiss me.”
“This isn’t dismissal.”
“What is it, then?”
I step past her but then stop, turn, and keep my mouth close to her ear as I whisper, “Survival.”
Then I walk.
She follows.
By the time we reach the car, the marina is behind us, but the energy isn’t. It’s in my hands, my chest, the space between us. In the question hanging over everything now.
The lawyer.
I open the passenger door for her. She doesn’t get in right away.
“Tell me one thing,” she says.
I wait.
“If you had to guess,” she says, “who would he mean?”
Nathaniel.
The dock. The open access. The body. The cover-up.
My brother’s steady voice telling me what mattered and what didn’t.
I meet her gaze. “I don’t guess.” Then I lean down, one hand braced on the top of the door, caging her in without touching. “But I know where we go next.”
“Where?”
“To someone who cleans up messes for a living.” I open the car door. “Get in.”