“Wait, please.”
No, I’m done. I turn away to leave, but his hand closes on my arm. I try to shrug him off, but he doesn’t let me. “Getoffof me!”
“No. You have tolisten.”
My other hand goes to the small of my back. Closes around the butt of my gun and pulls it out. I point it at him. “I don’t have to do shit. You don’t get to tell me.”
He still doesn’t let go. He doesn’t even look at the gun aimed right at his chest.
“Everything you’ve said is true,” he says, voice intense. “Everything I’ve said is a lie.”
“We finally agree—”
“Exceptthe bits aboutus. Iloveyou, Genesis Greer. Nothing else matters to me but you.”
“Get your hand the fuck off my arm,” I grind out, “or I swear to God I will pull this trigger.”
He steps in closer, pressing his chest into the muzzle of the pistol. Only then does he let go. “I’ve resigned,” he says, his pale blue eyes locked on mine. So intense it’s almost painful to hold his gaze. “I’m not FBI anymore. I’mnothing. There’s no evidence, nothing I will testify to. They can’t make me. I swear to you, I will not damage youorthe crew.”
“More lies.”
“I’ve thrown my career away for you.”
“Who cares?”
“I brought your bike from Salt Lake City. I never intended—”
“I’d have ridden it my goddamn self if I wasn’tdruggedin your truck!”
He draws in a ragged breath, glancing away like he’s searching for something, then meets my gaze again. “That morning I left you and didn’t make it back in time? I was meeting my handler. I didn’t get a choice. Nothing else would have dragged me away from you, and I hated every minute of it.”
“I don’t want to hear this!” All that time, I thought it was me. And it wasn’t, it was just more lies.
“I’ll do anything it takes to prove to you I mean what I say.”
“And I’ll believe none of it.”
“No matter how long it takes, I won’t give up.”
I scoff. “Then you’re wasting your time.”
“Time is all I have now,” he says quietly. “I don’t have a job, nothing to do but prove to you I mean every word I’ve said today.”
I laugh in his face. “You know this whole job shit? That would beso much more convincingif you weren’t sitting on thediamondsyou stole from me and the crew.”
He reaches inside his jacket. I freeze, finger clenching on the trigger. He stops too, watching me carefully. Then his hand continues, slowly. Drawing out a velvet bag I recognize immediately. Hedrops it on the kitchen island, and reaches inside his jacket again. A second bag,hisbag, joins the first. Two little pouches full of diamonds sitting in the kitchen.
His hand goes back inside his jacket for a third time. He doesn’t look at what he’s doing, but holds my gaze for all of it. I swallow hard. He hesitates for a brief moment, then Kurt’s black box joins the diamonds on the counter.
Declan takes a step back, then another. I keep the gun trained on him.
“That’s it,” he says. “Everything I have. I told Renner I’d give him back the box. Would you… please would you see he gets it?”
“You spoke to Kurt?”
“Yeah.”
I laugh, aiming for dry but hearing the note of hysteria it carries. “And I bet you toldhimyou were FBI too, huh?”
