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She only sits there, staring straight forward.

“Answer me,” I say. “Or at the very least, acknowledge that I’m addressing you instead of treating me like a speck of dirt on the floor.”

She turns, very slowly. “That was the problem.”

“What was the problem?”

She’s looking at me, her gaze fully on mine. “That I acknowledged you. I’m sorry. And I’m not sorry.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

The bartender discreetly motions from behind the woman, where she can’t see. He taps his temple and makes a face.

She’s not right in the head. That’s what he’s telling me.

Then he makes a shooing motion, asking me to leave her be.

I keep looking at the woman. I know there’s something going on here. I know she’s involved. I just don’t know what to do about it.

I need more. Whatever’s going on, I have to act as if I don’t see it until I figure it out.

I reluctantly head back to the others. Henry moves closer, not touching me but leaning in to whisper, “Best ignore her.” He raises his voice. “But she’s right. What happened to that old man is a fatal injury by this point. If I could have gotten to him right away, I could have stopped the bleeding. If you need someone to blame, blame me. I’m the professional, and I couldn’t get to him in time.”

Noemi is still holding the door open, and a crash resounds from outside.

The sound of another accident.

EIGHTEENRAYMOND

Raymond has no fucking idea where he is, and frankly, he doesn’t care. He’s going forward, and these days, that’s all that matters. Tonight, that’s especially all that matters. The car dashboard says he’s heading north, and north is where he’ll find Bryce.

Get to Bryce before he packs his bags and calls an Uber and catches a flight out of Raymond’s life.

Because that is not happening. It just fucking isn’t happening. Bryce thought he could slink out before Raymond came home? Thought he could fly across the ocean, back to his old life, and Raymond would just shrug and let him go?

There’s a reason Raymond has topped his firm’s sales charts for the past ten years. Because he doesn’t let go. He sees what he wants, and he goes after it, and he does not take no for an answer.

Bryce has lost his fucking mind. How else do you go from telling someone they’re the best thing that’s ever happened to you—talking about a wedding, talking about adopting kids for fuck’s sake—to dumping them by text message?

And that message?

Sorry, Ray, but I’m just not feeling it anymore.

Just not feeling it? After two years together? After Bryce gave up his life in England to live with Raymond. After Raymond let him live with him, something he’s never done before. Hell, Raymond hadn’t even squashed the talk of adopting kids, even though that is not happening.

Kids? Was Bryce out of his ever-loving mind? Where would kids fit into their lives? Brats with sticky fingers running through Raymond’s immaculate house? Children tagging along on their vacations? While Raymond makes a shit ton of money, he makes it for himself. And now for Bryce, but Bryce is for him, so it’s the same thing. Raymond’s perfect life, with his showcase house, top-of-the-line Jag, custom-tailored wardrobe, and hot twenty-five-year-old Brit boyfriend.

Just not feeling it.

What does that even mean? It’s something you send after a week together. Not to someone you’ve been begging to have kids with.

Is that the problem? Had Raymond’s reaction suggested there would be no children?

No, Raymond is very good at hiding what he thinks and feels. You can’t move product if you secretly think your client is a jackass who’s wasting his money.

Raymond adjusts his death grip on the steering wheel and scowls out at the storm, which is just one more obstacle thrown into his path to test him, keeping him from getting what he deserves.

If he were a superstitious man, he’d trace the problems with Bryce back to that thing from six months ago. What happened had been a tragedy, sure, but it had nothing to do with Raymond. The police hadn’t done more than perfunctorily question him. He’d been adjacent to a crime. That was all. But now it’s as if that crime has seeped into his life, as if the cosmos somehow blames him when no one on earth did.