The words surge up, desperate to escape, but my eyes catch on the flowerpot’s new position again.
Wrong. Still wrong.
My breath stutters, and the words die in my chest as terror pours in, icy and suffocating. Images of my parents’ lifeless bodies crash through my mind, their faces pale and broken, then morphing cruelly into his.
Tomcat. Dead. Gone. Taken.
My stomach lurches.
What if honesty puts a target on his back? Losing my parents nearly destroyed me. Losing him would finish the job.
My heart thunders painfully against my breastbone.
The longer I stay silent, something in Tomcat changes. The dangerous heat in him cools, replaced by that familiar smirk. The mask he wears when disappointment hardens into something sharper.
“All good, darlin’. No harm. I hear you loud and clear.” He swings his leg over the bike with restless irritation, jerking his chin toward my house. “Go on inside. I got somewhere to be.”
My heart jolts in my chest at the glint in his eyes.
Oh, no.
He’s on the verge of something reckless. He always is when things between us explode like this. When frustration claws under his skin, there’s only one way he knows to let it out.
Other women.
A familiar ache blooms between my breasts, and I lift my hand to rub it away.
No matter.
There are always steps to prevent unfortunate stupidity.
Like tailing him and derailing whatever disaster he’s about to chase.
It’s what I’m best at.
“Be safe,” I murmur.
“I’m always safe, Goldie,” he replies with a wink.
Oh, he’s definitely about to do something reckless.
Bad boy.
I keep my eyes forward as I walk away, his stare burning into me like sunlight on bare skin. The man is absolutely delusional if he thinks this is the end of us.
Never.
I bend down and pick up the displaced flowerpot, straightening its bent stems with unnecessary precision before returning it beside the door. Only after it’s set right do I pull my keys from my fanny pack.
My knife slides into my palm automatically.
My security system stayed silent, but I feel its failure in my bones. Someone was here, right outside my door, and the system missed it. I’ll deal with that later. For now, there’s something—someone—far more urgent.
I have someone to keep safe since he’s about to be reckless.
My alarm shrieks the second I unlock the door, a sharp, satisfying sound that loosens the knot in my chest. Good. No one’s been inside. They’d have to know my favorite thing about Tomcat to guess my code.
244863.
