The light turned green.
Folk didn’t seem to notice. His gaze locked on mine and his face did something complicated. Before today, I might’ve worried it meant he didn’t feel the same, but I knew he loved me. He didn’t have to say it. He didn’t have to do anything. I just needed him to be okay as much as he needed me to be whole.
My hand was still on his leg. He laid his over it, for once not lacing our fingers together. “I told Alexei I loved you today.”
Behind us, someone beeped their horn. Over the thump of my heart, I barely heard it. “Lucky Alexei.”
Folk’s gentle grin made a faint appearance. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure he felt lucky. But I needed him to know in case something happened while we were gone. I needed him to know how important you were to me.”
Were. Past tense. “In case you don’t make it back?”
“Seth, I’m coming back. I promise.”
I gritted my teeth. Folk wasn’t a liar, and I had no idea where he was going. But I wasn’t detached enough from the murkier side of business to believe that was a promise he could make. Maybe he meant one way or another.In one piece, or in a fucking box.Anger flared in my stressed and frayed heart, but I had no right to it. I’d jumped in front of a moving car today without thought for how he’d have felt if it had killed me. I hadn’t wanted to die. But I hadn’t cared how he’d live without me.
HowIvywould’ve lived without me.
The gravity of the last few hours descended on me in one fell swoop. Emotion rose in me at the same pace as the increasing volume of the car horns behind us.
Folk finally squeezed my fingers, but I felt like I was underwater. Not drowning, but not breathing either.
A knock on the car window made me jump, like I had in the hospital. A complete reset of my senses.
Folk wound his window down. An irate driver glared back at him, then changed his mind so comically fast that a harsh laugh burst free of my tight lungs.
Talk about whiplash.
Folk shut the window and put the car in drive. We left the traffic lights behind, and somehow some of the mess from our conversation. Or maybe Folk just didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
“Alexei registered the spy camera to Lauren’s email address, by the way. In case you were wondering. So she can’t deny it’s hers.Teddyspoke to your solicitor too, while you were with that copper. I don’t know what they did, but there’s an emergency restraining order in place now. On the off chance Lauren gets bail, she’ll be nicked again the second she comes within fifty feet of you or Ivy.”
“Ivy too?”
“Yup. But it doesn’t matter anyway. She’s going to be charged and she won’t get bail.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I’ve seen the evidence.”
“Then you saw me shouting at her too. I’m the one who went there. What if she convinces them she ran me over to get away from me? That’s what she said she’d do.”
“I know. I heard her. So did next door’s camera.”
“How do you know?”
Folk turned onto the quiet street where Mateo lived with Embry and Liliana. “Alexei hacked it. Cut out any audio of you raising your voice, amplified every nasty thing that came out of her mouth. It might not reflect exactly what happened today, but it shows who she really is.”
The car rolled to a stop. “Does that mean...? Fuck.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “She’s not getting out, is she?”
“I don’t think so. And she doesn’t deserve to. She hurt you. She hurtIvy. However you feel about what Alexei’s done to prove it, that’s the cold hard truth.”
Locke pulled up behind us, the rumble of hog pipes rattling the car before he shut his engine off, and the silence hit me as hard as Folk’s words. But all I could think of was getting to my little girl, and the fact that Folk had told me he loved me and I hadn’t said it back yet.
We’d run out of time.
Mateo’s front door opened.
“Shit. What am I gonna tell her happened to my face?”
