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I start to frown, but before I can get annoyed at the way she’s not looking at me anymore—or have to figure out why it bothers me so much—she looks up again. “Are you really okay with having me help you guys look for Chloe? I know you don’t trust me.”
I smile. I appreciate how intelligent she is. “Correct.”
She gives a delicate snort, her lips twitching. “You never have, have you? And Dante said you’re the one who put the cameras in here, so probably even less so now that you’ve watched me try to escape, right?”
I don’t bother answering. Obviously, the question is rhetorical. “We’ve got an agreement now.”
Riley rolls her eyes. “Sure we do, but this truce thing between us is shaky at best. None of you trust me, and I sure as fuck don’t trust you. You’re really just going to sit back and accept it?”
I blink. “Of course I am.”
She scowls. “I don’t get you.”
And normally, that wouldn’t bother me. For some reason though, it does. An uncomfortable, untouched part of me wants her to “get me,” so I explain.
“Maddoc is one of the two people in this world that I do trust, and I understand why he made the decision to include you in our efforts. It’s clear you’ll do anything to protect your sister. I may not trust you, but I do understand you.” I pause, frowning. That’s not true. I don’t understand her. I correct myself. “I understandthat. That kind of loyalty, that love. It supersedes everything else. When my sister—”
I stop abruptly, shocked at the fact that I mentioned Emma. I don’t talk about her. Ever.
Riley sits upright, smoothing her hands over the blankets covering her lap as curiosity flares in her eyes. For a split second, I relish her interest, being the object of her focus. I note that the warm brown of her eyes is more than just pleasing. It’s as beautiful and nuanced as those bold paintings Dante pours himself into. But then that second passes, and it takes all the self-control I have not to flinch away from her gaze.
Accidentally bringing my sister into the conversation feels like I’ve just ripped off a patch of skin. Like I’ve flayed myself open and allowed Riley to see inside me.
It’s not a pretty place. Certainly not a safe one. I don’t like to look at all the darkness that lives there, and whatever this pull toward her is, whatever this inexplicable attraction is, it’s not worth exposing that part of me.
“Logan?” Riley asks, leaning forward.
“Go to sleep,” I say, cutting off whatever it is that she’s about to ask. Then I turn and leave, shutting the door behind me and keeping my mind carefully blank as I head back to my room.
I’ve left the monitors on, but I don’t let myself look at them. Not even to go near enough to turn them off. I can’t. Not while I’m feeling so… raw. Disordered. Out of control.
Luckily, I have a series of exercises that have never failed to settle me when emotions threaten to become distracting.
I go through the series. And then I do it again. Eventually, I lose track of the repetitions, only aware that for the first time I can remember, they don’t work. My mind stays in turmoil. I don’t find any peace. Even once my body is exhausted, I still feel like something inside me is on the verge of spinning out of my control.
Because ofher.
Riley is disrupting everything.
10
RILEY
The way Logancuts off our conversation and leaves so abruptly is so… so…ugh.
It’s just so him. It’s fucking maddening, is what it is. Especially because he did that thing again. Almost opening up to me for a second. Showing me that there’s more to him than the cold-blooded killer facade he wears every day. He’s not like anyone else I’ve ever met, and every time I start to feel like I know what to expect from him, he proves me wrong. He’s a total mystery to me, and talking to him feels like playing Russian roulette. I never know which chamber will hold the bullet.
And still, I can't deny that I’m drawn to him. Everything I learn about him is hard won, but each new facet just makes me more curious to find out more.
That’s not going to happen tonight, though. Or ever, I guess, since this partnership between me and the Reapers ends the moment we find my sister.
Both parts of that thought leave a sour taste in my mouth for different reasons, so I do my best to shove the whole thing out of my mind and settle down to actually do what they all seem to want me to: get some fucking sleep.
It’s not easy. I close my eyes and slow my breathing, but my brain doesn’t get the memo, my thoughts racing almost out of control. Now that I don’t have the distraction Dante and then Logan provided, I’m left reeling from everything I learned tonight. I need to sift through it all, make sense of it, come up with a plan. But I also really, really want to just sink into oblivion and not have to deal with all these changes to the world I thought I was living in. The one where Chloe was my one constant, and I thought I had the Reapers figured out too.
They never did answer me about which one of them planned on marrying her to take control of her inheritance, but honestly, I don’t know why I even bothered to ask. It won’t be Logan. I can’t even fathom it. And Dante… okay, Icanpicture that, and the image bothers me more than it should.
But it wouldn’t be Dante. I smother a silent laugh, rolling over and punching the pillow into a more comfortable shape. All three men clearly have control issues—and I’m just fucked-up enough that contemplating that fact has my body responding in ways that remind me of the relief I didn’t give myself after Logan barged in and interrupted me—but the truth is, if someone’s going to control the wealth that the Reapers need to come out on top in this stupid gang war of theirs, there’s no way in hell Maddoc would ever let it be anyone but him.
