Page 73 of The Next Lie

“Nah. Just protecting my investment.”

The almost-smile becomes something quieter. More dangerous.

“Noted,” he says.

But he picks up the fork. And for some stupid reason, that feels like winning.

Delia—

They’re teaching me how to fight.

I’m bad at it.

You would enjoy that. You always liked it when I was bad at things first, because then you could be smug for three whole minutes before helping me.

I wonder who taught you. I wonder if they were kind.

That question makes me want to break something because I already know the answer is probably no.

I don’t know which one of us was worse off.

Maybe that’s the ugliest part, and we don’t get to compare our pain and decide which is bigger or worse or somehow…more.

And that really fucking pisses me off.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

DEACON

Blackwood House does not like me.

Old houses have opinions. Anyone who says otherwise has never spent enough time breaking into them. They settle differently when they want you gone. The boards remember the weight of men who belong and men who do not.

Tonight, every inch of Nash Blackwood’s ancestral mausoleum knows exactly which category I fall into.

I park beyond the main drive, under a live oak old enough to have watched several generations of good ole boy Blackwoods make poor moral choices and call them legacy. The house rises through the dark, white columns silvered by moonlight, windows black and watchful. A fortress dressed as inheritance.

I do not knock.

Knocking would imply I am here as a guest.

I am not.

I slip through the side entrance the way I have done twice before, once with permission and once without. The alarm system acknowledges me with a low, obedient blink. Nash has not removed my access.

Interesting.

Either he trusts me less than he should, or more than I deserve.

Both are possible.

The hallway is quiet. Blackwood House has a different silence at night. During the day, there are footsteps, voices, doors opening and shutting, Shiloh’s laugh drifting from one room to another like smoke. At night, the place turns inward. It holds its breath around the people sleeping inside it.

Around her.

I should have waited.

That is the polite version of the truth.