Turns out crouching behind Taylor’s kitchen island, listening to this conversation, makes that look like child’s play.
My phone lights up again: another call I kill mid-buzz.
Alerts roll in on top of a whole stack. Missed calls, voicemails, texts piling up:
Theo.
My officer at the prison.
My contact in the Met.
My man on the inside.
I don’t need the details to know what went down.
Fuck.
I should’ve been ahead of this. Not cock-deep in Taylor, losing my damn mind.
But that’s been the story of my life for the past two months. Off my game, distracted, counting down the hours… hell, the minutes until I’m back in her orbit. And people are noticing. Theo included.
Now this…
‘Come on,’ Tay tells Sadie gently. ‘Let’s get you into something dry. Then we’ll talk, yeah?’
I power the phone off and wait. The click of Taylor’s bedroom door lands a second later and I move. Clean myself up. And make a break for the elevator.
I’m halfway across the living room when the bedroom door opens and I’ve nowhere to go.
My eyes flare wide as Tay steps out. Alone, thank God.
But her eyes are spitting sparks.
She shuts the door quietly and comes at me hard.
‘What did you do?’ she whisper-shouts.
I glance towards the bedroom. Does she really want to do this now?
‘Sadie’s showering,’ she says, leaning into my line of sight. ‘Sotalk.’
I don’t like the way she’s looking at me.
Worse, I don’t like the way I feel. Something cold, thick, wrong, is slithering through my gut, and I can’t make sense of it.
Danny’s dead. Be happy about it. Move on.
‘There’s nothing to say.’
Nothing she wants to hear anyway.
‘Was ityou?’
‘Was what me?’
‘Don’t play dumb, Ax! Danny!’ She crosses her arms and I see it: the judgement, the horror, every good thing we’ve shared being swallowed up in her gaze. ‘You heard Sadie. He’s dead. So I’m asking again: what did you do?’
‘Why are you assuming it was me?’
