He squeezes my hand. “Good.”
His truck is many cars back on the long driveway up to the house, and we’re completely alone by the time we reach it. He swings open his door, then quirks a look at me.
“Is that good or bad?” I’m holding my breath.
If I lost my phone and the wrong person sees the wrong person calling me?—
It’s one thing to tell my brothers who I really am tomorrow.
It’s entirely different for a potential enemy to have that knowledge first.
“It’s good.” He reaches in, and when he turns back around, he has my phone in his hand.
“Oh my god, thank fuck,” I breathe.
I reach for it, but his entire demeanor has shifted, and he’s suddenly shoving me behind him, between the truck and the world, his back to me.
And just as quickly, he relaxes. “Evening, Mrs. Sullivan,” he says.
I peek out from behind him and give her a small finger wave, but the look on her face makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
A shiver slinks down my skin.
She doesn’t answer Rhys.
Instead, she keeps staring at me. “What are you doing here?”
I make myself smile. “Looking for my phone. I lost it.”
In the dim light from inside the truck and the garden lamps lining the drive, she’s barely illuminated, but it’s enough to see that she’s bouncing on her toes and that her hands are curled into fists. Her whole body vibrates with an uneven energy that I don’t like, but the shine in her eyes and the wobble in her lips has me putting aslow down, this is okayhand to Rhys’s back as she speaks again. “You need toleave.”
“Mrs. Sullivan—” I start.
“I have protected them foryears,” she whispers. “Donothurt them.”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck,fuck.
She knows.
She knows.
But she’s not angry.
She’s scared.
“I know,” I whisper back, trying to keep a wobble out of my voice at the instant understanding of the lengths she’d go to in order to protect her sons.
The lengths my father wouldn’t go to in order to protect me or Daphne.
But the bigger problem—this is happening.
It’s happening, and it’s happeningnow.
I hold my hands at my side, nonthreatening, as I fully scoot out from behind Rhys. “You’ve done an amazing job. I don’t want to hurt them.”
“Thengo.”
