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All that matters is that I’m the one who’ll make her pay.
This is going to take a ten-thousand-foot view, because some assholes aren’t creative enough to think past violence as the means of revenge. I’m not ruling out violence. I can’t. My parents were burned alive. But I don’t have to limit myself, either.
I won’t limit myself.
My current task on the long-ass drive to my cabin is to keep her talking. As long as she’s talking, she’s not screaming or trying to climb into the driver’s seat and escape via my lap.
Via mywindow.
“Did your parents have a special connection to ladies who got banished from primordial gardens?”
Lily hesitates. Snowball sings, a high-pitched call that sounds likeyeah, tell us, we have some time to kill and this loser didn’t even bother to spruce up my cage before we left.
“My dad wasn’t party to the decision-making.” Damn. Lily sounds like a lawyer already. It’s best if she doesn’t know how hot it is when she uses those prim lawyer terms while she’s wearing those slacks and that top. “I’m not sure what connection my mom had to the name, or if she chose it at random.”
I open my mouth to tell her the story of how Remy’s name got chosen. After three boys, my mom was convinced her last baby would be another son. She found the name either in a nonfiction book about an ace pilot from World War I or the Hill family tree. Finding out Remy was a girl didn’t change her mind. I used to tease her about making Gabriel an outlier, but the joke is that Gabriel was and continues to be an outlier. He’s the brave, charming, committed one, and I’m the criminal.
“Interesting.”
“We don’t have to talk about her.” Notit, as in Lily’s name, buther, as in her mother.
“I don’t care if you talk about her.”
“No.” Again with that lawyer voice. It’s sweet but confident, firm but warm, and I’d bet my new job at Mason’s company that it’s fake.Rehearsed. It’s not how she’d be if I wasn’t a crime scene. If I wasn’t a kidnapper. “I’m not going to talk about my mom, because this is either a very weird date or a kidnapping situation and you don’t need to know why my mother bailed before I had teeth.”
“Ouch.” Not a huge fan of the empathy punching its way into my chest. I hate that my mom’s dead. Lily’s situation might be more painful. “That sucks.”
Anyway, I don’tcareabout this. I won’t ask too much about it. It’s easiest for me if she keeps talking about herself. I don’t want to give too much aboutmeaway. That happens when people ask questions. They always end up telling you more about themselves than they meant to.
“Maybe,” Lily offers. “I wouldn’t know the difference. I don’t remember her.”
Pressure at my right temple says memories are coming on, along with a panic—I don’t remember my mom, either. I don’t remember her disappointed face. I hate that I’ve disappointed her, but I never wanted to lose any little piece of what we had when my parents were alive.
The question that comes next isn’t entirely within my control. “Not at all? Like, zero memories?”
“No. I’ve seen photos, but it’s not like my grandfather displays them all around the house. I can’t imagine…” She trails off. “You already know I live in Cobble Hill. I’m going to law school in the fall.”
The mention of her grandfather has my blood at an angry simmer againandI want to laugh, because of course she’s going to law school in the fall. I won’t kill her. I’ll ruin her, then send her back to her life to pick up the pieces in front of the old man.
But she’s sodefiantabout it.
Lily Hayes truly believes she can survive me.
That’s the biggest joke of all.I’mbarely surviving me.
“Your turn,” Lily prompts.
“What?”
“Those are the broad strokes of my life. We’ve covered the origin of my name, my family, and my career plans. This is the part where you tell me your name.”
I didn’t plan for this. I planned to burn a house down, and making introductions wasn’t part of that. My first instinct is to keep her in the dark. The less she knows, the more terrifying I am. No scary code names come to mind, either. All the BDSM shit strikes me as laughable.
However, begging is hotter when it’s personalized.
“It’s Jameson.”
“Jameson what?”
