Page 25 of Blood We Steal

I swallowed the words like I’d swallowed the scream, unwilling to give Rubin the satisfaction of my sarcasm, and sank back against the filing cabinet.

I’d finally gotten used to the revolting carpet deodorizer, but my tailbone ached, and my mouth was dry.

Rubin still didn’t look up when I reached for one of the unopened bottles of water and settled back in my spot. I drank it slowly, deciding to look at everything in the room but him.

I failed.

My eyes strayed to him. His thick blunt-tipped fingers. The half-day’s stubble on his jaw, black and the perfect kind of rough. The angry set of his expression.

He terrified me. Had terrified me every day for seven years. I hated that fear I couldn’t control.

I hated what was underneath it even more.

Because sitting there, my ass numb, my belly empty, my life now measured in minutes, I wasn’t thinking of a way out. Wasn’t trying to renew my personal relationship with God. Wasn’t thinking about the death that surrounded me like air.

I was thinking of him.

His finger breaching me, how the loss of that half digit left me wet and wanting. How the brave version of me would have pulled him closer, forced him deeper.

How much I wished the brave version of me existed.

“You’re staring, miu,” he said, without looking at me.

“There’s not a lot else to look at.”

“No.” He kept his head down but I still felt his awareness like he was staring. “There isn’t.”

He said nothing else, and again I was left with my thoughts.

I was going to die in this jail. I’d mostly made peace with that.

I was also going to die as exactly what Rubin had named me, something I couldn’t deny. Plain, sure, but who cared? Boring? Today had proved excitement was overrated.

Weak.

The truth of it stung in a way that was unbearable.

Because never, not once, in three decades, had I been brave enough, strong enough, to reach for what I wanted.

Who I wanted.

And I’d lost my chance.

“Stand up, Simone.”

Rubin’s voice pierced my rumination like one of those gunshots, and my response to it was as automatic as the generator turning over.

I stood, blood rushing to my feet, though I barely felt the tingle.

Rubin stood and circled the desk, looking as expectant as he always did.

And I responded to his unspoken command and walked toward him, hating how pathetic I was, powerless against it like I was everything else.

I stopped when my shoes touched his, and he looked down, his frown deepening.

He was such a fucking asshole.

He wrapped those thick fingers around my wrist, let them lay there as my pulse raced, and stared at me for long seconds, his eyes excavating the depths of my soul.