Even if it works in my favor, it stings that thievery is the second thing that comes to her mind. “You really think the worst of me, don’t you?”
Her gaze clocks my necklace that peeks out from my hoodie collar, evidently questioning my ring’s provenance now.
“Your wallet is monogrammed with the same initials as your shoes. Which aren’t your initials. What exactly did you expect me to think?” She tilts her head to the side.
I shrug. “I don’t know. That Cillian Lowry wasn’t my real name,” I say, with clinical sangfroid.
I wait for her eyes to spark and ask me for the truth behind the initials. They remain dark. Or as dark as such limpid irises can get.
“So…which is it?”
“Secondhand shop. But you must know this already, seeing as I’ve probably been background-checked to hell and back.”
“Did you also thrift the ring?” she asks.
“No. That belonged to my mother.”
Electra leans against the countertop as the woman on the phone dials yet another clearly useless colleague. I’m starting to think she’s pretend-dialing to keep us entertained while?—
“What sort of cancer did she have?” Electra asks.
“Breast.”
When the clerk’s eyes go to the door behind us, and she murmurs, “Fucking finally,” the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
I reach inside my pocket for my foldable knife.
Electra’s lips move, but my heart is slamming too wildly to make out her words.
I palm my knife, thumb on the flipper tab, and pivot. Only to find it isn’t Trenton or one of his minions. It’s a stranger in overalls and a Red Sox cap grumbling something about not being paid enough.
“The man needs access to his vehicle,” the clerk tells the Red Sox fan.
As I close my fingers around the knife, forcing the blade back into the handle, Electra snorts.
“What’s so funny?” I murmur as I jam my weapon back into my pocket.
It’s only once I’ve recovered my ID and we’re halfway across the lot that she finally answers. “What’s so funny is my complete and utter misreading of your person, Mr. Lowry. You’re not some sweet, harmless boy with a penchant for Latin music. You’re a jumpy thug with a backstory messier than the land of bald eagles and white-picket fences.”
If only she knew just how messy my life is, and what a mess I’m about to make of hers.
I glance over at her as we walk side-by-side. “Does that scare you?”
“Not much scares a girl like me.”
I force my gaze not to lower to her neck and the runes it holds. “And why is that?”
“Because fear comes from a lack of control, and I’m a control freak.”
I’m suddenly convinced that Trenton picked Electra, not because of her connection to our parents’ murderer, but to ensure I’d fail so he could keep Quinn under his thumb.
I can’t fail.
I need to become the variable Electra can’t control. And not to break or scare her—unlike Trenton, I don’t get off on making women feel smaller—but because if I don’t “pull a Polly,” Quinn doesn’t walk free.
“Is it even safe to drive?” My target draws to a full stop beside the attendant who is unhooking the station wagon from his truck.
“Hasn’t given up on me yet.” I walk over to the driver’s side.
