Page 50 of In the Dark

But when he pulled into a large parking lot, the sign above the building didn’t read police station.

I gave him a look, and he said, “We’re eating first.”

“Take me to a drive-through, then. I don’t want to go to a sit-down with you.” I cracked my neck, trying to release some tension.

“Damn it, Jas. Why are you gearing up to fight with me over this?”

“How do you know I’m about to fight?”

“Because you crack your neck every single time you’re going to. It’s what gave you away the night you burned down my building.”

“What?”

“It’s how I knew it was you. You did that same thing the first time I met you.”

“You seem to remember a lot about me.”

“I remember everything about you, Viper.” He sighed. “Even when I try not to.”

And then my stupid stomach had to go and defy me.

“Seems your stomach agrees we should eat first too. Let’s just have a meal.” The smell of food wafting into the car vents was divine, but I didn’t care.

“I’m not in the mood to eat,” I whispered, and that was actually true.

He made a soft sound, sucking on his teeth as his eyes searched mine, looking for the crack in my armor. And maybe he found it, because then he sighed. “Why don’t we have dinner, and we’ll be civil. You can discuss whatever you want before we go down to the station.”

“I’m not exactly hungry with what I have ahead of me at that station.”

He sighed again. “You won’t be in the mood to eat after either.”

Why did I demand evidence I didn’t want to freaking see? It was like asking for a damn meal I didn’t want at all.

“Well, how about we take our chances?” I said, with no emotion. I didn’t want to give him a single piece of myself when I was this vulnerable. I had to sift through my feelings, had to recalibrate my whole thought process on my family if what he was saying was true. I needed to scrub the filth of my family’s secrets off my soul and build a better plan.

“I think I’ll just wait,” he said simply. Then, he leaned back in his leather seat and settled in like he wasn’t going to be leaving any time soon.

“Wait for what?”

“For you to change your mind. About whatever you’re spinning up in that brilliant, dangerous head of yours.”

I crossed my arms, tucking my hands away so he couldn’t see the tremor in my fingers while I looked toward the ceiling. “You’ll be waiting a long time.”

“It’s been five days, Viper.” I hated that his nickname for me was starting to sound almost normal. His jaw ticked, too, showing he was really irritated, like he might actually care. A sign of the simmering frustration beneath his cool exterior. “You’re losing weight. And you don’t have much to lose.”

“Worried about the bride you’re holding prisoner?” I asked, the bitterness continuing to leak through.

The temperature in the car plummeted. Callahan gripped the steering wheel so hard I saw his knuckles turn white, and suddenly the fire was back in his eyes. Raw. Violent. “Holding prisoner? You agreed to this shit just like I did,” he growled.

“I didn’t agree to finding out my uncle might be a monster,” I hissed, my composure finally snapping. I knew dealing drugs and weapons weren’t any better. But as I became more involved in laundering our money and argued about it with Paolo, he reminded me we moved guns and drugs to those who came looking for them, and I told myself that made it okay. But a heartbeat changes the math. You can’t trade in mothers and daughters and still call yourself a merchant. Dealing to the willing was a trade; selling the unwilling was a line I never thought we’d cross.

Either way, we were probably all going to hell.

“You knew he was a monster all along.”

I ignored that fact because I didn’t want to accept it. “Yeah, well, I didn’t agree to having meals with you and playing house with a man who thinks he owns me.”

“I do fucking own you.”