Page 76 of The Next Lie

I step into her path, and she stops short and looks up at me with every ounce of hatred she can gather while still sounding like she swallowed sandpaper.

“Move.”

“No.”

“Deacon.”

That is the first time she has said my name tonight. I keep my face still.

“I am not waiting anymore.”

Her mouth tightens. “That sounds like a you-problem.”

“It became an us-problem when you left Chicago.”

“There is no us.”

“There has been an us for fifteen years. Just not an…us-us.” He looks flustered, then shakes his head. “Never mind about that. You simply lacked the relevant information.”

The hit lands. I know because she goes very still. Then the fury comes, fast. Bright.

“You arrogant son of a bitch.”

“Yes.”

“You wrote me letters.”

“I did.”

“Years of them.”

“When I could.”

“Oh, well.” She laughs once, sharp and ugly. “That definitely makes the stalking pen-pal situation less creepy.”

“It was not stalking you, Reva. I was watching over you. Making sure you were okay.”

Her eyebrows lift, and she crosses her arms over her chest.

The sleeves of Shiloh’s hoodie swallow her hands. It makes her look younger than she is, which irritates me—not because it makes her look innocent. She does not. Reva can look like trouble in anything.

It irritates me because she came here with almost nothing of her own.

A duffel bag. A handful of clothes. The name of a man she wanted to kill.

Nash should have handled that by now. Shiloh would make it a production. Ever would buy five of the same T-shirt in different colors and call it sufficient. Nash would close a store and terrify the employees.

I would burn Chicago to the ground before sending her back there for anything she left behind.

“Stop staring at me like that,” she says.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re mentally adding more bars to my cage.”

“I have no interest in caging you.”

“Liar.”