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“My leave won’t be long,” I assure her. “Please, just keep me updated on everything in the meantime.”
The door to my office is unlocked, and a sinking feeling pulls at my stomach as I enter. Things are just as I left them yesterday, only it somehow feels different. Off. Like this isn’t my office at all.
“Do you need help?” Quinn stands at the doorway.
I push my hair back from my face and turn toward my desk. “Just need my laptop and a few files. I have mostly everything we need on my computer at home.”
“We’ll grab that, too. Along with whatever else you’ll need.”
Confusion pushes my brows together as I face him. “Grab my stuff…to go where?”
Abashed doesn’t suit Quinn. The way he shifts his stance, shoves his hands into the pockets of his slacks. His gaze, though—that is steady on me as his lips thin into a determined line. “You’re staying with me.”
My mouth parts, disbelief shocking me silent.
“It’s not safe at your house,” he continues, pulling his hands from his pockets and lacing his arms over his broad chest, effectively setting his body language in a deflective, no argument stance.
I take my own defensive measures, propping my fists on my hips. “Now you’re crossing a line, Quinn. I’m sorry, but I won’t be made to feel so…helpless. My home is the one place where—” I break off, searching for the right words. “It’s my place. It’s the only place I have left that this darkness can’t touch me.”
His whole body tenses, his nostrils flare. And in the second his tough persona slips, I glimpse the crack in his armor that conveys pain.
Shit. I might as well have slapped him. My mouth flies open to correct myself—to let him know that I didn’t mean… Hell, I don’t know what I meant. Yes, I feel safe with Quinn. But I don’t want to feel dependent on that. On him.
The nights he spent holding my hand while I slept, fitfully, in that hospital bed come rushing back, and I’m suddenly mortified. No matter where I am, he’s my haven.
And he wants me.
“I have to have something of my own,” I try, sensing my backpedaling making it worse. God, what’s wrong with me? “You understand that, right?”
He steps forward, closing the door behind him with a loud click. “You understand that the people who took you yesterday know who you are. As much as this pains me to say, you have to hear it, Avery. They had no intention of releasing you. You know too much, and they’re not just going to let you—”
“Live?”
A heavy breath expels. “Exactly. But I promise. We’ll figure this out and end it so you can put it behind you.”
I want to scream. Maybe even cry. Yet another thing to put behind me. When does it end? What if I’d just refused to correct the drug. Trifecta—that’s what the man in the mask called it. Had I’d just stood my ground and denied them that, then they would’ve killed me, and this would already be over. No more running. No more fear.
No more secrets and no more lies.
The truth hovers on my tongue, a breath away from confessing my sins. Quinn needs to know—I have to tell him everything in the hope that he can glean even one clue to stop this madness.
Yet, in life’s never-ceasing moments of irony, my phone rings, dragging me from the depths of panic. I gulp down a breath to expand my burning lungs and glance at my phone. Detective Carson’s name flashes on the screen. “Johnson,” I answer, raising my gaze to Quinn.
“I heard you were taking a leave of absence,” Carson says. “Is that true?”
I rub my forehead, my thoughts muddled. “Uh, yes. I am. Why?”
A brief few seconds of silence, then: “Shit. I need to know who to contact, then,” Carson says. “Another body has been reported. A victim that needs processing—”
“I’m on my way.” I still have the phone to my ear as I head toward my locker.
“But I thought you were off? Avery, you can hand this over—”
“Carson,” I snap, then squeeze my eyes closed briefly and curb the irritation in my voice. “I said I’m going. Is there a mark? On the vic’s thigh?”
As Carson goes on about just being called away from the law firm, Quinn steps into my line of sight. “Give me the phone.”
