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What the fuck are you into, Brant?
“What am I going to do, Rhys?” she whispers.
“Don’t say anything to anyone about what you heard,” I say, making a split-second decision. “Just go home and wait for me to figure this shit out.”
I should never have sent her back there. I should have gone myself, confronted Brant, and demanded answers. If I had, maybe he’d still be alive. Instead, Marnie went home. Twenty-four hours later, Brant was dead. And she officially had me by the balls.
“What the fuck did you do, Marnie?” I yell, staring in shock at Brant’s body on the security camera. Brant’s body. Fucking Christ. He’s dead. That’s his blood spread across the floor. His blood splattered across the wall.
I spin away from the camera, my stomach heaving.
Fifteen years in law enforcement, and I’ve never puked on my shoes. Never shoved anything up my nose to mask the smell or shied away from the sights either. Figured if the victims could live those horrors, I owed them the respect of looking without throwing up on my goddamn shoes. I want to throw up now.
“I was just trying to get away from him!” Marnie cries. “He was yelling and acting crazy. I thought he was going to hurt me or the baby. I didn’t mean to hurt him.” Tears pour down her face, her mascara running in rivulets down her cheeks. “I didn’t know we were so close to the table or the fireplace. Now, what are we going to do, Rhys?”
“We? This is on you, Marnie.”
“No, it’s on us! I came to you for help. You’re a cop, and you sent me back there! How do you think the world is going to feel when they hear that?” She dashes tears from her face, her expression twisting into something cold…ugly. She’s not the same vain, self-absorbed woman I’ve known for the last four years. She’s someone else. Someone desperate, on the edge. Someone dangerous. “How do you think Raven will feel when she finds out that you’re partially responsible for this?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’ll tell everyone,” she says, her shrill voice inching toward hysterical. “I’ll tell the world that you sent me back there. I’ll tell the world who he really was. I’ll tell them everything. Will he still be a hero to his precious little Raven then, Rhys? Will you?”
When she came to me, did she already plan to kill him, or was it an accident like she said? I don’t know. I wish to hell I did. His blood might not be on my hands, but everything that happened after, well, that certainly is. Marnie’s still walking free because of me. If she goes down, we all do.
Tick, tick, boom, motherfucker.
I don’t give a shit if I go. They can lock me up and throw away the key. At this point, it’s less than I deserve. Marnie figured out long ago what Brant never realized. She saw the way I looked at Raven the day we met. She knew why I’ve avoided her for so long. She thought using that knowledge against me would muzzle me.
She’s wrong.
Holding Raven’s future over my head may have bought her a little time, but I’m not tame. I’ve let her run the show and pull the strings because she’s pregnant and I won’t let her go to prison while she’s carrying Brant’s kid. But she fucked up the minute she lashed out at Raven. When it comes to protecting what belongs to me, I bite. While I may not be able to take Raven to my bed, that doesn’t make her any less mine.
I’ll be on the first plane leaving the island as soon as the last raindrop falls. Marnie will be having a change of heart about cutting her off. My songbird will be finishing school on time. If Marnie intends to hold onto Brant’s fortune by keeping Raven from graduating, that won’t be happening. She’ll play by my rules where Raven is concerned, or the only place we’re going after Brant’s kid is born is to prison. I’ll destroy my own future to fuck her over without hesitation.
I just need time to sort out the details first and figure out what I’m missing. Whatever it is…I’m pretty fucking certain it’s the key to this whole mess. It’s the answer to why Brant was laundering money through his company. It’s the answer to why Marnie killed him. Hell, maybe it’s even the answer to why she dragged me into it and why she’s trying to cut Raven out now.
There’s always an inciting incident, something that starts the boulder rolling downhill. Trying to find it when you’re missing half the puzzle is a pain in the ass.
“Um, hey,” Raven says from the doorway behind me. “What’s that?”
“Case file,” I say, shoving the last few pages into the folder and then closing it.
“Oh. A big one?”
“Something like that.” I tuck it under my arm, turning slowly to face her.
She looks like a little kid playing dress-up in my clothes, but damn, they look good on her. She tied the t-shirt up at her waist in a knot, allowing the tiniest sliver of her abdomen to show in brief, enticing flashes that already have my core temperature rising fifteen degrees. One sleeve hangs off her shoulder. Even dressed, she’s far too tempting. Far too beautiful. She probably has to beat college boys off with a fucking stick.
Jealousy eats me alive at the thought. The little bastards don’t even know what to do with a woman like her. They don’t know how to eke out every drop of pleasure from that body, or how to take care of her after. They probably just pump until they cum and then pass out on top of her, not even caring if they got her off or if she enjoyed it. The bastards.
“Why are you growling at me?” she asks, her nose scrunching. “I’m completely covered.”
Because I want to kill anyone who ever touched you.
Because I’d kill to be the only one who touches you ever again.
“Are you hungry?” I ask instead of opening that can of worms.
