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He splayed more I-beams against her other hip. “No way are you calling an inch of what happens right now.”
“What the hell’s going on?”
More flint etched its way over his face. “Not at liberty to discuss with you, ma’am.”
Not at—
Ma’am?
Her jaw plummeted. “Are you shitting me?”
He didn’t even blink. “Get in the car, Tracy.”
Even as he ordered it, Max was already doing just that. The guy turned the engine over and revved it, as if deliberately adding a grating backup to his friend’s logic.
Yes,dammit. Logic. She’d have readily accepted a root canal over admitting it, but Franz’s urgency wasn’t just smart. It was necessary. The longer she stood here trying to pull rank she didn’t really have over him, in any version, the more precious seconds went by without him getting out of here and up to Zeke—
And Luke.
God. God. Her boy. Her sanity.
He’d be safest if she got the hell out of here. It was a brutal truth she couldn’t rewrite—one Franz had already forced himself to confront.
But how? And when?
When he hadn’t been between the sheets—and in the shower, and on the desk, and in the laundry room, and on the couch—with her, he’d been spending valuable time with Luke, hours she’d treasured as much as all their intimacy. So when had he carved out more hours in those days to develop this escape plan with the guys, “just in case”? And why did she glare harder at him now, only to be slammed by the most insane instinct for that effort? The feeling that he’d actually known “just in case” might become “just a matter of time”?
Holy shit.
The realization twisted in deeper, feeling like a corkscrew to her chest.
Hadhe known? Had he sensed—perhaps even gotten some intel to back it up—that this horrible shoe might really drop? Had he continued screwing her, charming her, dominating her, and consciously kept this from her? Had he seen her most terrified tears, fulfilled her most filthy fantasies, and demanded the most brutal honesty of her soul, while holding back this vital information about the people trying to snuff her life?
And if so, why did he even think she wanted him near her now?
And dammit, why did he pick that exact moment to lean over, staring in, reading every shred of that fury across her quavering face? Why the hell did he make her feel like shit about it without even trying, with double daggers jabbing vertically between his eyebrows? Why was she even tempted to reach for him as the hurt stretched across his face, ticking his jaw and clenching his teeth?
She looked away. She had to. Like that did any good. He loomed so close, every one of her viable sightlines was consumed by him—every one of her breaths was full of the potent command of him.
Damn him. Damn him.
“Tracy.”
“What?”
“You have to trust me.”
She swallowed heavily. Because she had to. Because if she didn’t, the bile would invade her tone more than it already did. “I know.”
What the hell. Maybe she’d still puke, just for the hell of it. Not inside Delphine, though technically Max was a culpable accomplice here and deserved the mess in his car—but hurling on John’s boots was such a superior idea, in so many ways…
Also not an option. Not now.
Now, just like so many other times when just giving up and getting sick was a temptation better than chocolate mousse and Dwayne Johnson combined, it just wasn’t a damn option.
Now, like those other times, she had to bracket her spine with steel, command her chin to lift, and grit back the tears until her teeth hurt. Her boy, hiding and horrified somewhere in this building, needed her strength.
Even the strength to leave him.
