I swing my legs off the bed, careful and slow. I pat the spot on the bed beside me. “Don’t do this standing over me like you want to take my head off. Sit. Let me explain.”
She doesn’t sit. She takes another step closer, and I see it: she’s not just furious, she’s terrified. Like she’s realizing she let someone into her home, into her body, into her life… and it was a mistake big enough to get her killed.
“You explain,” she says. “Now.”
I swallow. My throat feels scraped raw. “My sister, June…”
“Don’t even fucking start, Evan. Or should I say Gator?” Her voice cracks again as she spits that word, as if she can’t stand the taste of my road name in her mouth. “Don’t you dare use a sister story. You told me that before. In fucking bed. You looked me in the eye and you told me that bullshit and Ifucking believed itbecause Ifucking loved you.”
“I wasn’t lying about June.” My voice drops. “She’s in trouble.”
“Whatever,” she says. “Tell me: why are you called Gator?”
I close my eyes for half a second, then open them. The truth that I need to tell burns in my chest. It needs to come out — it’s pulled by the pained, plaintive look in Molly’s eyes — but lettingit free will burn down the last of everything between us. “It’s my road name.”
Silence.
Not calm silence — loaded silence. Like the eye of a hurricane of red-headed violence.
“You ride. For who?”
“Independent.”
“Don’t fuck with me. You sure as fuck aren’t acting independent if you’re taking orders — likefucking that bartender— from some asshole with an anonymous fucking number.”
“I’m not fucking with you.” She raises her hand in a fist, but I continue. “Molls, I’m not.”
“Molls? You think you have any right to say that? Shut the fuck up.” Molly’s mouth curls. “Tell me the truth. Who are you working for?”
“I’m not working for anyone. Working means I have a fucking choice. I don’t.”
“No choice, huh? No choice but to fuck me and betray me?”
“Yes. I had to… I had to do all that.” I force it out. “The Sons of Sorrow. They have June. She used to date one of their members, and when they found out I grew up here, when they found out that you and I were… connected… they took her. She's twenty-two. She still sleeps with the lights on. She called me the night they took her, and I could hear her trying not to cry so I wouldn't worry. They’ve had her for weeks. They promised —” My voice catches, and my hand involuntarily forms a fist on my thigh. “They promised they’d do things worse than kill her before they sent her to me in pieces.”
Her eyes go colder. “So you did what they said. You came in here, you moved into my fucking apartment building, you became my neighbor, all to fucking use me.”
“I tried not to.” It sounds pathetic the second it leaves my mouth. I shake my head hard. “No. That’s not totally true — I didn’t want this. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Her face flickers with hurt so sharp I feel it in my chest, and then she surges forward.
Her fist slams into my face.
Hard.
I grunt, not from pain, but from the sick twist in my gut.
“I am sick of the fucking lies.” She swings again at my face. I catch her wrist on instinct and immediately loosen my grip, like her skin burns.
“Molly. Stop.”
“Don’t you fucking touch me.” She jerks away from me, striking out with her free hand, her nails scraping my forearm. “Don’t you think for a second I’ll let you touch me ever again.”
Her words hurt deeper than the bleeding furrows her nails have left on my arm.
“If you’ll just listen…”
“You used me,” she says, voice shaking. “You used me. I took you into my home. Into my bed. Into my hear—” She stops, voice choking. “You said you loved me.”
