"People I should have left behind." Her voice is frayed at the edges, more than I expected.
"You're going to tell me what the hell is going on," I say, because I need a target besides the image of her slamming into me like I'm the last solid thing in her world.
Her lids drop. She shakes.
"Go," she chokes out. "Now. Expressway." Her eyes flick open, locking onto the mirror.
So I do. Her hands shake in her lap the whole way to the expressway, and I drive faster.
Chapter 3
Sloane
Mymindcomesbackbefore my body does. I'm in the car. Still shaking.
The cabin is too small for how hard my heart slams against my ribs. Cold air seeps through the door frame, but my skin burns.
I curl in on myself, boots on the seat, arms locked around my legs, trying to hold the pieces together by force. My suitcase is still on the sidewalk two blocks back where I dropped it. Everything I took when I ran, gone.
Knox drives like he owns the road. One hand on the wheel with his jaw set and eyes scanning continuously. City lights flash over his face, gold and blue and shadow, turning him into someone I can't quite hold in focus.
The ghost of his mouth still haunts my throat, the bite of his fingers on my hips, his voice going rough when he said my name.
Humiliation crawls hot under my ribs. The ache between my thighs still pulses. My body tilts toward him before I catch it. Last night I chose him. Gave him what my father intended to sell. Knox doesn't know. He doesn't need to, not yet. But I know, and I chose right.
When I turn my head, I take in his profile. The sharp angles of his face, the faint stubble, the calm, lethal focus. His hands. The ones that held me down and steadied me when I shook apart under him.
Part of me recognizes him before my mind does, the way it did when I crashed into him in the parking lot. Danger ignited behind me, and I ran straight toward the only person who wasn't a trap.
A memory slices through the panic: my father, smoothing my collar at a charity gala, his voice a low murmur. A lie is a tool, Sloane. The best ones are wrapped in a pretty truth. Make them want to believe you.
But with Knox, the lies feel like sandpaper in my throat.
"Breathe," Knox says. "You're going to pass out."
"I'm fine," I whisper. I sound wrecked. His eyes stay on the road, but his fingers tighten on the wheel.
"You're shaking so hard the door's rattling."
He's right. Chicago blurs past in streaks of white and neon.
"Talk to me," Knox says. "Start with your real name."
"I gave you my name."
"You gave me a name," he corrects. "I want yours."
My teeth clench. "Why does it matter?"
"Because I just watched private security sweep a parking lot hunting you," he says. "Because they're not stopping. And because if I'm going to help you, you don't lie to me."
Help me. My stomach twists.
"You don't have to help me," I say. "I didn't mean to drag you into anything—"
"Your name." A command. "Tell me."
"Sloane," I say after a beat of silence.
