I’d let her in, and she destroyed me.
The chill of panic grabbed my bones and shook them until I rattled.
Noelle stepped forward, hands raised.
Like that mattered. “Rafe, I’m not?—”
“Not what?” I snarled at her, teeth bared and all the hurt she’d given me putting a cruel twist to my lips. “Not a cop? Not a spy? Not some sneaky piece of shit walking around in my life like you belong there?”
I ripped a handful of hair from my head, using the sting of physical pain to ease the rending feeling in my chest. “I trusted you.”
She flinched back like my words were physical blows. “I know you did.”
Another trembling breath slowed her tears. “I didn’t want to lose you before I knew I could trust you.”
“But you expected us to trust you.” Ash spoke from behind her.
He hadn’t moved an inch since he spotted the wire.
Like me, he seemed torn about the entire situation.
My pulse pounded so loud in my ears, it drowned out everything else.
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
She took a step back, and her hands fell to her sides.
She stopped fighting, and that hurt too.
I’d never hit her.
Not ever.
Not for any reason.
But for the first time since I met her, she looked at me with fear in her eyes.
Damned if I didn’t deserve it.
“Rafe.”
I still couldn’t hear her, but I was intimately familiar with the shape of her mouth when she said my name.
The wound opened further.
I shook my head and ran a hand down my face.
There were so many things wrong with this situation. “How long until they get here?”
My hearing returned in time to catch her cautious, “I don’t know.”
Every instinct I had begged me to get the hell out of the warehouse, but if the police showed up and took our stock, the kids wouldn’t have a Christmas.
Fuck that.
