Yet the idea of being in his bedroom makes my stomach flutter. Too intimate. Too much. Too soon.
With Rosemary clutched to my hip, two fingers stroking the needle-like leaves of a branch, I wander through the living room.
‘It’s right that way! Just go!’
I stop in the hallway off the living room. With the bedrooms a few feet away, I’m braced for a fight with Rosemary when the front door lock rattles. Panic slams through me because I never wander past the kitchen. Here I am, headed toward Rhys’s bedroom.
I should hide. I should run. But my legs go stiff, my breath is a trapped bumblebee in a glass jar.
The door swings open, and Rhys stomps into the apartment. From the darkened hallway, I see him. He’s so tall, his gait dark and dangerous. I should be afraid of a man like him.
Like…Kosta.
Rhys would never hurt me. He hurt Bill already. Puthim in the hospital. Sohewouldn’t hurt me.
Rhys goes to turn into his kitchen when he stills. Hand on his hip where a gun sits, his predator gaze tracks across the shadowed living room until he finds me. His hand immediately drops from the weapon, and his eyes soften.
There’s even a hint of a smile. “Fallon?”
I squeak and step into the light. “Hi, honey. You’re home.”
“Hey,” he says, voice even and calm. Glancing at the plants like he can tell they’re happy and a little more vibrant than when he left, he smiles brighter. “You watered these guys for me again, huh?”
‘Guys? Rosemary and I are ladies,’Cami bristles.
I want to shush them, but I just smile back at my handsome boyfriend. “They were thirsty. I couldn’t let them?—”
“I know.” He shrugs off his leather jacket and tosses it on a chair.
His gun holster is on shocking display, and I look away fast, heart pounding.
In a deep voice I’m not sure I’ve heard before, he says, “Thank you.”
Relief trickles through me. He’s not angry. Maybe Ivy was right. Maybe I really do belong here.
I open my mouth to ask to see his bedroom again, but a crash shocks me into silence. The front door slams inward so hard it rattles the hinges.
“I found you!” a man’s voice shouts, and boots slap down the hallway on the hardwood floor.
“Fallon.” Rhys grabs me and shoves me down onto the sofa. “Stay here. Don’t move. Don’t look.” His hand is heavy on my shoulder, steadying as he yanks a blanket over me like a shield.
Spiraling, I’m ten years old again and back in my father’s study for one dizzying second, watching as armedmen storm into the house. Their voices sounded like thunder, my father roaring back just as sharp and loud. I’d hidden under the desk, my hands pressed over my ears while they argued about money and guns and how loyalty isn’t for sale.
My father didn’t die that day. But my mother did.
The memory tears through me now. My chest locks up, and I can’t breathe.
I curl into a ball and tremble on Rhys’s sofa under a blanket. My lungs hitch, fighting for air, but Rhys’s voice cuts through the panic.
“Did you think you could put your hands on me and live, you dog?” the man shouts.
Rhys’s voice is flat and lethal when he snarls, his accent gone, “Wrong flat. Wrong dog.”
“I never forget a face. Or a fucking man bun.”
Glass shatters in a deafening crash. I curl the blanket tighter, pressing my hands over my ears.
“Thanks for the rematch on my turf because now youhaveto die,” Rhys bites out.
