It is suddenly, acutely, too easy to picture her here again. In this room, underneath me, screaming my name in pleasure. Still angry. But not at me. Atherselffor giving in.
“Where’d you go?” she asks. Her tone is flat, but there’s something under it. Not exactly concern. Curiosity with teeth. “Your littlelapdogsaid you were ‘hunting.’”
“Wraith isnotmy lapdog,” I say, letting loose of a small chuckle.
Her mouth curves, a defiant smirk sliding into place that has my palm twitching. “He listens to you like one.”
“He listens,” I say quietly, “because he understands what happens if he doesn’t.”
Her gaze holds mine. “Do I get to find out what happens if I don’t?”
“Yes,” I tell her. “Eventually.”
Her throat moves, a hard swallow that I can tell cost her. “Where’d you go?” she repeats, softer now.
I study her. Her shoulders are still squared, but there’s a fine tremor in her fingers. She’s masking it by folding her arms. “You want honesty or comfort?” I finally ask.
Her chin tips, a brow arching in question. “You’re offering… what?Comfortnow?”
“No,” I say. “But I’ve noticed you pretend you want it when the truth is going to hurt.”
That lands. She flinches like I hit her with it. Good. She needs to know I see her.
“Honesty,” she says after a beat.
“Poplar,” I answer. “Syndicate boys who used to run hands on the docks three years ago.”
Her face barely changes, but I see it — the flick of recognition. Owen ran down by the docks. She knows that. She’s mapped his last days over and over in her head until they’re practically carved into her skin.
“And?” she asks.
“And they all forgot he ever existed,” I say.
That earns me a sharp, humorless almost-laugh. “People usually forget dead men eventually. You’d be surprised.”
“No,” I say. “Not like that. Not natural forgetting.Scripted.” Her brows pull in, and I see it the minute it hits her. That there’s a possibility that someone higher up is pulling strings. She buries it quickly. “I walked into a room of men who used to crawl for our money,” I tell her softly, “and for the first time in three years, they wouldn’t even make eye contact. You know why that happens?”
“Because they’rescaredof you?” she fires back, but her chin wavers ever so slightly.
“No,” I say, and let my voice drop. “Because they’re scared of someone elsemore.”
She doesn’t answer this time. She’s still thinking, and another surge of pride flushes through me. Thinking means she’s still fighting.
Good girl.
“Who?” she asks finally, quiet.
“I don’t know yet,” I say.
And that sentence — the fact that I am saying that sentence — irritates me so badly I have to clench my jaw to keep from putting my fist through the wardrobe. Because Idon’tknow. Because that’s not fucking normal, not in the slightest. Ialwaysknow.
Her lips part. “So… you came back with nothing.”
I smile, slow, without humor. “Do you enjoy saying that?”
“A little,” she admits.
Honesty but with bite.Interesting.
