“You two should probably get out of here before Mr. Marrow changes his mind and says there’s a problem here,” the taller officer says. He’s staring us down like he just knows we were having more than a misunderstanding. He’s looking like he’d really like to put us both in handcuffs and haul us down to the station.
Must be a slow night.
“Yes, sir,” I say, not pushing it, not tempting fate. My grip on Willow’s hand tightens slightly as we turn and head down the road to where I parked. Willow breathes so hard I can hear it. My hands are shaking.
We haven’t even reached the car when the flashing lights cease, and we hear the cruiser pull out, driving in the opposite direction.
Silently, we climb into the car, and the engine catches like a heartbeat.
“Holy shit,” I breathe out. My whole body is vibrating right now as I’m wrecked by conflicting chemicals raging through mysystem. Adrenaline. Relief. Rage. Fear for Willow. It all hits me like a fucking freight train.
“How the hell does he keep slipping through my fingers?” Willow snarls. I look over at her, and she’s the picture of cool, collected, deadly rage. “Every time. Every damn time.”
“Are you okay?” I finally get some words out. Instinctively, I reach out, brushing her cheekbone, my fingers reaching to the back of her skull.
“I’m fine,” she says, her words angry. “You?”
“I’m fine,” I echo.
A tiny hint of a smile twitches in one corner of her mouth. “You’re kind of sexy when you’re feral.”
A laugh rips from my chest, I’m so taken off guard. “You’re fucking unhinged, you know that, Dagger Kitten? I just about killed a man back there. We absolutely should have been arrested. And you’re turned on?”
She just gives another of those little smiles, and shrugs.
I curse as I laugh, shaking my head. “Fucking lunatic,” I say as I pull her in and kiss her like it’s the last thing I’ll do.
Finally, I lick her taste from my lips and check the sideview mirror before I put the car into drive. My hand stays fixed firmly with Willow’s in mine. Willow rambles as I drive, plotting how she’s next going to get to Phoenix, how she’s going to savor it as she suffocates him. But my mind is frozen in place, remembering the sound Willow’s head made as it came into contact with the wall. The look in Phoenix’s eyes as he attacked her. The destructive fury that burned through me in a single instant.
Phoenix’s days are numbered. And now I’m not sure I’ll have the patience to let Willow be the one to kill Phoenix.
After seeing him touch Willow, I’dreallylike to do it myself.
I’ve hurt people in the past. I’ve done what my family told me to do. I’ve stolen, broken in, planted evidence, and watched a mob boss’s back. But I’ve never killed anyone before.
But tonight, I would have done it, and I would have slept like a baby after.
When we finally step into the penthouse, it should feel like a relief. Like a reprieve. We’re safe. We’re home. But adrenaline is still burning my blood.
Willow crosses the space to the kitchen, heading for the fridge like it’s just another Monday night. She pulls her phone from her pocket and holds the button to power it back on.
She’s just slid it back into her back pocket when it begins a firestorm of dings, pings, and vibrations—like a slot machine caught in a hurricane.
“What the hell?” She breathes as she pulls it back out and looks down at the screen. By the second, it’s dinging and vibrating.
She clicks on something. I hear music, some sound that’s been trending for the last week or so.
But it’s Willow’s face going sheet white that freezes me in place.
“Uh, Lucky?” she says, her voice haunted and horrified at the same time.
I’m across the space in one point two seconds. I look down at her phone over her shoulder, and it feels like the world drops out beneath my feet.
It’s us.
Outside the theater. Her arms around my neck, my head bent toward her. The kiss that grounded me, that made the whole damn world make sense, frozen and captured by a stranger’s camera lens. My mask is off. My hair gleams like a damn halo. Thank fuck my back is to the camera. There are only hints of my profile. But Willow’s face is there, clear as day.
“Fuck.” The word is a gunshot in the penthouse.
