After I hang up, Annie appears in the doorway wearing only my T-shirt, her legs bare and her hair tousled from our activities. She looks beautiful and thoroughly debauched, and I have to grip the phone tighter to keep from crossing the room and picking up where we left off.It stops there,I remind myself.That’s all we can do. Where we stopped before. Nothing more.
"How is he?" she asks, biting her lip, and the sudden rush of desire cools slightly.
"Barely holding it together." I run a hand through my hair, the guilt eating at me like acid. "Annie, I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. Lying to him about where you are, about what happened—it's killing me."
"I know." She approaches slowly, like she's afraid I might bolt. "But it's the only way to protect him. You yourself said that he freaked out just from Desmond bringing up Siobhan. Imagine what would happen if he knew the truth about Desmond."
She's right, but that doesn't make the deception any easier to bear. Every conversation with Ronan feels like another layer of betrayal, another nail in the coffin of our friendship.
"I have to go back to the city," I tell her. "Keep up appearances, help with the search, start hunting Desmond seriously."
"And us?" The question comes out smaller than I think she intended. "What happens with us while all this is going on?”
There is nous. There can’t be.But I can’t bring myself to say it. It's the question I've been dreading, the one that doesn't have a good answer. What we shared last night and this morning was incredible, everything I’ve ached for for years… and absolutely catastrophic for every other relationship in our lives.
"I don't know," I admit. "Annie, if Ronan ever finds out what's been happening between us on top of everything else..."
"He won't find out."
"You can't guarantee that." I move to the window, needing distance from her to think clearly. "If he discovers I've been lying to him about your safety, he'll probably kill me. But if he finds out I've been sleeping with you while lying about your safety? He'll kill me slowly."
The words hang between us like a blade. Annie's face goes pale, but her chin lifts with that stubborn determination I know so well.
“He won’t find out,” she says firmly. “I won’t let him. Nothing leaves this safe house. He’ll never know.”
"Annie—"
“This is helping me. Making me feel like myself again. Reminding me of what we had all these years ago… this isours, Elio. Yours and mine. We can have this for a little while.” She steps closer, and I can smell the sweet scent of her skin, warm from the sheets still, the faintest hint of sweat. "Don't take that away from me now."
The plea in her voice breaks something inside me."We can't let it go further than what we've already done," I tell her firmly. “If we… if this happens again, we stop at this line. We have to, Annie.”
She swallows, nodding, and I try not to look at the movement of her throat, at her lips, to imagine them around me like I have for eleven fucking years.God,what I wouldn’t give to know what her mouth feels like on my cock. It’d almost be worth the slow torture Ronan would put me through if I could remember that while it was happening.
"I understand," she whispers. Andfuck,I hope she does. Because we both have to have some self-control if this is going to work.
I make us breakfast, then spend a little time briefing the guards I’ve left at the cabin on security protocols, making sure Annie will be safe while I'm gone. Then I drive back to Boston, my thoughts torn between the woman I'm leaving behind and the man I'm about to lie to again.
—
The mansion isa hive of activity when I arrive. Ronan has mobilized every resource at our disposal—men from other families in Boston who can help, street gang contacts, police informants, even some of our rivals who owe us favors. Maps cover every surface, marked with search grids and potential locations. Photos of Annie are tacked to boards alongside known associates of various criminal organizations.
It's an impressive operation, and it makes my deception feel even more poisonous.
"Any word on the gang Rocco was working with?" Ronan asks the moment he sees me.
“I’ve sent several of our men to stake them out, and I’m looking into information on where they’ve been lately, what kind of jobs they’ve been doing. I’ll have information soon.”
The truth is, I've actually been tracking Desmond's movements since Annie and I talked last night, sending some of my resources to look into him. The man is clearly rattled—he's cancelled several business meetings, and according to his doorman, he's had food delivered instead of going out to eat.
I pull out my phone to check the latest updates from my surveillance team. "They seem spooked. Maybe it’s just that they’ve heard about us mobilizing, looking for someone. It doesn’t necessarily mean they were involved. But if they were, we’ll find out.”
"Good." The savage satisfaction in Ronan's voice is chilling. "They should be scared. If they had anything to do with what happened to my sister..."
He doesn't finish the threat, but he doesn't need to. I know perfectly well what a man like him is capable of when his family is threatened. And I know just as well what he’d do to someone who lied to him about it. Who let him go to these lengths when I could end it in a couple of sentences.
But he’s Annie’s brother. Not really mine, even if we were that close, once. Even if I lived here as if I were part of the family, I never really was. And if Annie thinks that finding out would destroy him…
I have to trust her. I’m going to betray one of them—it can’t be helped. Either I lie to Ronan, or I betray her.
