“I don’t want to fight with you. I just…want you to act like I exist.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“I thought that was the last thing you wanted! I thought you wanted me to stay the hell out of your way.”
“What?”
“Ever since I got here, you made it perfectly clear how much you hated me being around. But now that I’m doing just that, suddenly you want to talk? I can’t seem to win with you.” She abandons her quest for a bowl and snatches up the blueberries instead.
“Riley—”
But she’s already climbing back up the stairs.
I run my hand down my face as her door slams.
How the hell did I manage to fuck this up so damn quickly? Hell, maybe what I thought was building between uswasone-sided, and Riley Walsh is a better liar than I thought.
I grit my teeth and try to shove the thought away as I down my espresso before taking the elevator down to the parking garage.
Right now I need to get my mind off Riley before I lose it, so I decide to go and pay Finn a visit to put some distance between me and the suffocating silence back at the apartment.
Finn doesn’t lookup when I enter the room.
When I spoke to Brennan earlier, he told me he stopped offering him food three days ago, hoping a little hunger might loosen his lips.
But it seems the bastard has got more discipline than I gave him credit for.
“Morning, sunshine.” My voice comes out flat and sarcastic as I drag a chair across the floor and sit across from him.
He flinches slightly at the sound but still doesn’t meet my gaze.
I guess that makes two people who now refuse to look at me.
I push Riley to the back of my mind. “Still enjoying our hospitality?”
Finn remains silent.
If he doesn’t start talking, I’m going to lose it, and I’m already on thin ice with Ronan as it is. If he learns I’ve killed Finn before we’ve got any information, I might as well start digging my own grave.
“Look, Finn. I’m a reasonable man, for the most part. I know loyalty is a hard thing to kill, but if the person you’re protecting wouldn’t lift a finger to stop you from getting tortured in some rat-infested warehouse, maybe that loyalty is misplaced.”
No reaction.
I lean forward to rest my elbows on my knees.
“We both know who you’re working for, but what I want to know is why. What is Sean offering you that makes any of this worth it?”
Still nothing.
God, I want to smash his face in. Not because I think it will finally get us some answers— if anything it will probably kill him—but I need to get some of this pent-up anger out of my body that has been bubbling beneath the surface ever since I caught sight of Sean’s men spying on me and Riley.
I was meant to be protecting her, but instead, I buried myself balls deep inside her and lost my focus.
If Sean had decided to send in his hitmen instead of two watchdogs, our night could have ended very differently.
My blood runs cold when I think how close we almost came to coming back in body bags, and that’s the best-case scenario.
