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“I don’t plan to,” he shot back easily.
“You know that’s an answer in itself.”
He studied my face as he reached for me. Fingers trailing down my arm and intertwining with my own before he focused ahead again. “Already told you I wouldn’t lie to you, and you’re asking questions I don’t want you knowing the answers to because I don’t want those images in your head.”
“I can handle you, which means I can handle this,” I said as we neared my building.
When he just grunted in acknowledgment, I worried my bottom lip as another question gathered on my tongue. One that had been a hard line with him in the past weeks.
But that was before I’d learned the truth about Diggs and his family.
“Before, I thought you were deflecting because it wasn’t something you liked talking about,” I began hesitantly. “But with what I know now, I feel like I might’ve been wrong in my assumption. The scars on your back and side—”
“Tree...”
“Is being the first into these kinds of fights how you got them?”
A muscle in Diggs’ jaw was twitching when we stopped in front of my apartment door. With a look that edged between haunted and panicked, he muttered, “Also told you that isn’t something we’ll ever talk about.”
“I just—”
“Never, Tree.”
I conceded with a whispered apology and had just inserted my key into the lock when Diggs’ free hand snatched mine from my keychain faster than I imagined possible.
“What—” The words jumbled in my throat, choking me and making the pounding of my heart that much stronger when I caught sight of his expression that was equally murderous and calm.
“Come here,” he said so softly, the words almost held no weight as he shifted me so I was no longer near the door.
Grabbing my keys, he removed them and reached for the handle.
“I didn’t unlock—”
The slant of Diggs’ head was all I needed to stop talking. To swallow the questions and pleas as I watched him open the door so slowly. So quietly. And without ever having unlocked it, even though I remembered stopping in that exact place the night before because Diggs had checked the door and taken my keys afterward.
“Shit,” he hissed as he let the door fall shut and then hurried me away from my apartment and car while pulling out his phone and searching for Dare’s contact.
“What’s going on?” I begged as he tucked me close to his side. Holding me in a way that probably looked like he was shielding me from the light rain to anyone who might see us.
But those people wouldn’t see the death-like grip Diggs had on me, daring anyone to take me from him, or the way he was trembling with a lethal mixture of fear and rage.
“Willow’s apartment was marked,” he said into the phone, voice low and dangerous. “Same setup as the others...message is on the floor so it would be seen as soon as someone opened the door. But I have her with me, so I can’t check it.” His eyes made a quick sweep around us before he muttered, “Taking her to mine,” and ended the call.
“Diggs—”
“Trust me?” he asked over me.
“Yes, but—”
“Then know that I’ve got you.”
“Evan,” I snapped, prompting his head to whip in my direction. Once his frenzied eyes were on me, I begged, “Talk to me. Don’t leave me blind when it involves me.”
“What we’ve been dealing with,” he said after long seconds of contemplation, “the bodies...”
“Yeah?”
“We’ve found nearly every one of their houses and apartments like I just found yours,” he said, jerking his head behind us. “Chair facing the door. Handcuffs hanging from it. Our symbol in paint or blood on one of the interior surfaces.”
