He wheels back around, headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” I ask, pulse kicking.
“To check the slope.”
“No.”
His hand pauses near the latch, but I don’t reach for him this time. I learned outside that putting my hands on Rhys Ward only complicates everything.
Instead, I say, “If you walk out that door, you’re not fixing anything.”
His shoulders stiffen.
“You’re running.”
The room feels heavy, and Rhys shifts uneasily on his heels.
When he turns back, his face looks colder, tighter than I’ve seen it since arriving. “You think that’s what this is?”
“I think every time I get close to something real, you find a reason to leave the room.”
“Maybe you should take the hint.” The words should hurt less than they do.
I nod slowly, swallowing around the tightness in my throat. “That’s what you want.”
His gaze narrows, and he shakes his head. “Don’t, Sloane.”
“Don’t what? Ask questions?” I arch an eyebrow. “Notice the gaps? Point out that nothing you’ve told me matches with what I read?”
His shoulders drop. So does his tone. “The reports told you what they needed to.”
“No,” I say too sharply. “They told me what someone wanted preserved.”
His expression doesn’t change. Somehow, it’s worse than anger.
I step closer. Not enough to touch him. Enough to make him look at me. “You said Phoenix was working something off-book. Above your pay grade. You said he left you. You said the coordinates on your arm are where everything changed. So don’t stand there and tell me the reports were enough.”
“You’re leaving things out,” he grits out between clenched teeth.
“Of course I am.” The bluntness steals the next breath from my lungs.
Rhys looks away first, not as a man ashamed, but as one holding a door closed with both hands.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because there are things you don’t get to unknow.”
I huff a sarcastic laugh. “And you don’t get to decide what I can handle.”
His laugh is low and bitter. “That’s exactly what everyone says before they find out.”
My fingernails dig into my palms.
The logical part of me knows he’s trying to warn me. The grieving part wants to claw every answer out of him until there’s nothing left between us but the bare, ugly shape of what happened.
“My brother died,” I say. “Whatever you’re protecting me from already happened.”
Rhys doesn’t move, his face shrouded in shadows.
