Page 25 of Shark’s Rise

I swallowed hard. Didn’t do a damn thing for the sting behind my eyes and the lump of lead in my throat. “Processed it?” I flung. “In case you can’t tell, I’ve been busy processing a few other matters at the moment, Banks.”

“And I’m not debating that.” He was still speaking like the goddamned reincarnation of Mr. Miyagi, trying to quietly coax me into walking across his ridiculous rice paper. “But maybe, while you’ve got the chance, you need to step back and evaluate where you’re going with all this. Where you’re actually going with Abbigail too.”

I stomped my way back over to the window from this morning. More than anything, I wished there was another vodka and tonic waiting for me there. “What about Abbigail?”

“You tell me, man. You never really talk about it. About her.”

“What the hell are you— I talk about her all the damn time!”

“About how to protect her. About how to get her to behave the way you want her to. But what about how you actually feel about her, dude? About how much she means to you? About your plans for a future with her?”

I turned my back on him. Slammed my hands to my hips in lieu of smashing one through the plate glass window. “I’m not a touchy-feely asshole like you and Twombley, okay? Just because the two of you sit around braiding each other’s hair and shit doesn’t mean I do. I’m not wired that way.”

“And look where it’s gotten you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” If he didn’t tread carefully, the next place I put a fist would be in his mouth.

“Well, while you’ve been busy with your world domination plans and studiously ignoring your feelings, your arch nemesis is trying to take your most prized possession,” he rebutted. “And said possession has now gotten incredibly ill, yet you still don’t seem to think any of it’s important enough to pay attention to.”

I spun back around. Elijah had folded his arms across his chest. Mr. Miyagi, in all his self-satisfied pride, was still in the house.

“Important enough?” I gritted out. “What the fuck more do you want me to do, Banks? Open a goddamned vein? Because I will. Because the woman in that bedroom is that important!”

As he rolled his eyes, I longed to knock him so hard that his pupils flew to China. “And of course yelling at me will fix everything. That’s the answer, huh?”

As soon as the patronizing words were out, I fought the craving to deck him again. To smack his head into the desktop until he started really hearing me. But that would help nothing.

Fucker probably knew that too.

Not that he’d get the satisfaction of my admission.

I stumbled back to my chair. Fell back into the thing as I let fly with a long, conflicted groan.

“Shit. I brought her here to keep her safe. I had no idea she was this sick.”

Elijah grunted. “Well, she’s this sick.”

“It’s been tearing me up to see her like this. I planned on calling a doctor this afternoon to come out here and look at her, but then I found her in the kitchen, content and cooking, and she looked completely fine. I’m so damn confused!”

“No.” He shook his head. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

I glared harder at him. “What the living fuck are you talking about?”

“Are you really that blind, man? Or that stupid?” When I just continued staring, he facepalmed himself. Hard. “Okay, yeah. I guess you really are.”

I slammed my hands to the tops of my thighs. The wrath in my move catapulted up my body, landing solidly at the center of my chest. “You going to spit it out sometime this century, Banks?”

He lowered his hand. Glared like we were in third grade all over again and he was having to explain new math to me. “Just…call the doctor anyway, okay? And stop evading the important stuff with Abbigail. Something tells me you two will need to be solid on that shit, sooner rather than later.”

He wasn’t going to divulge more than that. Which definitely left me stranded in the dark about the new math.

Which meant I still felt like decking him.

As soon as I remembered how to add two and two.

Chapter Five

Abbigail