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Darkness creeps into the edges of my vision as I come to understand the situation. “He’d want to turn me in.”
“He wants what’s best for Kodiak,” she answers softly. “And I’m not going to lie, I do too. I think Kodiak thinks he can handle this, but time isn’t on his side.”
“You think they’re going to arrest him again?” I force the words past an unexpected knot of emotion in my throat.
“They’ve been building a case against him for years,” Gypsy says. “Lucian is nervous, and for good reason. There’s a lot of public pressure right now for the police to make an arrest and charge him with your abduction and murder. Things are heating up with the bodies that have turned up down there.”
I sag into the counter and stare at the floor, trying to conjure up an impossible solution. But there’s only one.
“So what are you suggesting?” I ask. “I turn myself in, even if I don’t think I’m her?”
“If you can’t remember anything, then maybe they won’t charge you.” Gypsy looks at me pleadingly. Even she thinks I’m guilty. “But you could finally clear Kodiak’s name. You could help give him his life back. He has much more at stake than he’s probably told you.”
Before I can reply, Birdie comes down the hall, glancing back and forth between the two of us. “What are you guys whispering about in here?”
Gypsy doesn’t take her eyes off mine, and she doesn’t answer. It’s clear she doesn’t want Birdie to know what she asked of me. I can’t say that I blame her. Birdie’s been kind to me, and she hasn’t turned me over herself, but maybe she should have.
Madden and I can keep playing this game until everything blows up in our faces. But waiting that long seems like a death sentence when I’m already feeling… something. It would make more sense to face the facts now before I’m in too deep to recover. If I’m not her, then a simple DNA test should prove it. And if I am, well, then maybe I deserve whatever I have coming to me.
“I was just telling her how I made the pizza,” I lie to Birdie.
She nods, picking at another piece of crust. “Okay, well, I’m not going to ask for the recipe because I’ll just come back here so you can make it for me again.”
I smile, despite feeling like I want to cry.
Birdie mumbles something about her TV show starting, and I tell them I’ll be in as soon as I’m done with the dishes. Gypsy refills her wineglass and then checks over her shoulder before slipping me a piece of paper. It has her phone number on it.
“Think it over,” she whispers. “If you decide to do this, I can help you.”
I take the paper even though it’s the last thing I want to do. “Okay.”
Birdie and Gypsy are deep into a debate about which bachelorette the man on TV should choose when Madden walks through the door. The sisters barely spare him a glance before they continue their argument, but when his gaze finds mine, the energy in the room shifts.
His eyes are dark and wild as they move over my face, and I don’t know why. Before I can even guess, he stalks toward me with a determination that sends a shiver down my spine. I lean back into the couch and stare up at him in question as he towers over me, his pulse thrashing in his neck.
“Bianca—” His words get caught in his throat like he doesn’t know what to say. So instead, he hauls me up into his arms and crushes my head against his chest like he’s trying to comfort me.
The room spins, and my heart kicks against my rib cage. Vaguely, I’m aware that the girls have gone quiet, but I can’t seem to care as I wrap my arms around him and breathe him in.
God, this man is crazy. Infuriating. Confusing. But I can’t get enough of him. Does he know what he does to me?
“Uh, we’re just going to go….” Gypsy and Birdie creep past us to the front door, and I break away to tell them goodbye, only to have Madden yank me back to him.
As soon as the door shuts behind them, he guides me to the couch and settles me onto the cushion before he takes a seat beside me. With a long sigh, he leans his forearms onto his thighs and cranes his head to look over at me.
“Tell me what you remember. Wherever that story starts, and whatever it may be,” he says. “This time, I’m going to listen.”
Chapter 42
Madden
—PAST—
Madden,
I don’t know what to say. But then again, I guess I never do. Every time I send you another letter and wait for a response, knowing it won’t come, I tell myself it will be the last time. I tell myself I can’t do this anymore. But it’s what I deserve, right? I know it is.
