He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a mint. A fucking mint.
“Eat this.” He unwraps it and holds it up. “Open.”
I open my mouth like the obedient duckling I am. He pops it in.
“Drink some water and get your game face on.” His voice drops. Hardens. “Don’t fuck this up.”
There it is.
I can’t respond—there’s a mint dissolving on my tongue, sharp and cold. So I just blink at him.
I’m so disoriented right now. The coat. The mint. The casual cruelty ofdon’t fuck this uplike I’m about to give a presentation instead of meeting a serial killer.
“Good. Let’s go.” Dom gestures for me to walk in.
My feet feel like concrete.
But somehow they obey. Unfortunately, I can’t lift them properly—can’t make them do the normal human thing of walking.
So I shuffle. Actually shuffle into Dom’s office like a zombie in heels.
And there he is.
Marcus Ashford.
I knew he was here. Alex said as much. I saw the coat.
But seeing him—the actual man, in the flesh, breathing the same air?—
He’s lounging on the loveseat. Arms spread wide across the back, one ankle resting on the opposite knee. Taking up space the way powerful men always do. That stupid fur coat right beside him like a pet.
He’s handsome. I’ll give him that. But just that.
Because there’s something wrong about him. Something that radiates off him like heat shimmer on asphalt. The wrongness makes that serpent around my spine constrict tighter, squeezing until I can barely breathe.
Dirty blond hair styled with too much product. Tall. Slim build in an expensive black pinstripe suit. Blue eyes the color of an early fall sky—bright, so fucking bright it’s almost aggressive.
And a goatee. Barely. Like he can’t quite grow a full beard and this sparse thing is what he settled for.
The only remotely decent thing about him is that suit.
But he makes even that feel icky.
Swallowing my fear, I dissociate.
There’s no other way I’m getting through this.
I go to that weird place in my mind. That room with no windows where Dylan Wells lives when the world gets too dangerous.
I bury her. Bury her so deep that the only thing left on the surface is the performance.
Dominic Draven’s paralegal. Professional. Competent. Harmless.
Not the woman who heard him confess to murder.
Not the woman wearing his victim’s ring around her neck.
Not the woman who knows exactly what those hands did in an alley over a week ago.
