His jaw tensed with the strain he was putting on it as he gripped at his hair. “Mallory, let’s just go inside and?—”
“No,” I said shakily, even as I straightened my spine and lifted my chin. “I know what you want, Gray. I know you want a life together and—” I swallowed thickly as I stopped myself from reaching for my stomach, and watched as his frantic stare dropped there anyway.
No, no.
Force it back. Force it back.
Don’t let yourself go there right now . . .
When I continued, my voice twisted with a soul-deep grief. “And I thought it was something I wanted too. But if today has shown me anything, it’s that you want to hide me away like aprincessin a tower. It’s that you don’t respect me or view me as an equal.”
“That isn’t true,” he said through clenched teeth.
“It’s that I’ll never be able to look at you without seeing all the women you paraded in front of me for years,” I added as if he hadn’t spoken, and watched as his shoulders caved, as if that had hurt him worst of all.
Just as Gray’s mouth opened, his chest pitching with wild breaths, his stare snapped to the side and narrowed. “Told you to stay away from my wife,” he sneered.
I took an unsteady step away and looked to the side, where Davis—whatever his true name was—was watching us as if he wasn’t sure how to intervene.
Apprehension and frustration rolled through me and mixed with my building panic over thattopicI refused to talk about as I took the briefest second to study this man who had managed to slip into my life, unaware. But even with what I now knew, everything about him was still so unassuming. From the way he dressed, that bordered somewhere between nerdy and preppy, to the unsure way he held himself, to the nervousness dancing in his eyes.
“It’s fine, Davis,” I said tightly.
He looked at me before trying to adopt my stance—straightening his spine and lifting his chin—as he faced Gray again. “I believe she told you to go.”
“AndI believeI told you to stay away,” Gray said in low warning. “This is a conversation between my wife and me. I’m only gonna give you one more chance to leave.”
“No, this isyourlast chance,” I corrected Gray, and waited for his green eyes to dart my way. The pleading there tore at me, even if it was just as fake as Davis’ cover.
After all, this was the plan.
It wasn’t a full offensive attack, the way we were used to, but civilians were sure to panic and call the cops if we kicked down doors and started killing their neighbors. So, whether the Davises knew we were onto them or not, we were drawing them out with their own targets to places where we could take care of them quietly...if at all possible.
Sometimes doors just needed to be kicked in.
But my Davis? He liked to play hero when it came to Gray and me, so we were letting him.
However, fake or not, this argument felt far too real for us after the last three months.
“Leave,” I firmly said to my husband. “Do not come back. I’m ending this ridiculous marriage, then I’m leaving?—”
“Mallory...” Gray rocked closer and reached for me, even when I slammed a hand against his chest to stop him.
“Juststop,” I begged him. “Let me go andleave.”
His eyes searched my face for long seconds—seconds I shouldn’t have allowed—before he whispered, “I don’t know how.”
The grief in his voice made that knot of emotion in my throat so thick, it felt like I was choking, because this was real.
I knew he didn’t want to leave me. I knew he was terrified to let me do thismostlyalone. I knew he wanted to shove Davis into my condo and take care of him together—or, most likely,himself—because we’d argued about it for so long at Shadow, and the entire way here. Every single time, I’d reminded him that he’d told me I could handle this, and every time, he’d yelled back that I was asking him to let his pregnant wife walk into danger.
Pregnant . . . pregnant. I’m?—
No.
I pushed the thought back and lifted my chin higher, donning a cold, expressionless mask as I stepped away from him. “Learn.”
When Gray’s arms fell heavily to his sides, I turned for my condo, noting how Davis slowly came closer. “Should I...do you...I mean, are you okay?” he asked cautiously. “Do you want me to come in with you, in case he tries to come back?”
