What the hell was wrong with me?
I wasn’t built for this. I didn’t want anyone. Never had. Want made you weak. But he hadn’t backed down when I burned too hot—he’d leaned in. As if he liked it and wanted to see me fall apart.
And I was close.
That calm of his? It undid me. Tugged atsomething I’d thought long buried. Made me feel things I didn’t have words for. And yeah, it made me want him. Not only his body—everything. And I hated that most of all. I didn’t want to need what I thought Killian could give me. I didn’t want him.
“He’s an asshole,” I muttered, not looking up. “All that frozen, buttoned-up lawyer shit. Every inch of him is just… tight. Restrained. He walks into a room, and the temperature drops ten degrees. Always acting as if he’s got the moral high ground, as if he’s already figured me out.”
I swallowed down the rest, but it stuck in my throat. Killian was fucking sexy. But every time he stood there calm and still while I burned, had only intensified the fire.
“And you hate that,” Rio said.
I grunted. “Yeah. I do.”
Rio smirked. “So that’s it, huh? Ice to your fire. Makes you wanna punch him and kiss him at the same time?”
“I don’t want to fucking kiss him! Jesus! Shut your fucking mouth,” I snapped, but my voice lacked heat.
He was grinning as if he’d won a prize.
“You want to burn him then?” he asked smugly.
“Fuck off.” I turned back to the laptop, though Iwasn’t seeing the screen. I hated that Rio saw things in me I hadn’t figured out yet. That he could look at me andknow. And yeah, maybe what I hated most was that he was always right.
“You go anywhere, do anything, take me with you,” he said.
I frowned. “What?”
“You so much as burn a sheet of paper—I’m there.”
My jaw locked. “I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”
He didn’t answer while he stared at the eggs. That silence? Infuriating because he’d already decided I was going to screw up.
Ever since Stockton, he’d tracked every flicker of heat in me, stepped in before I could light the fuse. He didn’t need words—he instinctivelyknewwhen I needed to burn. And that pissed me off. Because it meant I wasn’t hiding it as well as I thought.
We shared our shitty apartment for a reason. He kept me steady when the world tilted. He talked me down without trying to fix me. Gave me space to fall apart without judging the wreckage. I owed him more than I ever said out loud. But I never asked to bemanaged. Some days, I wanted to set a fire. Let it take everything. And Rio? He never let me plan italone. Always watching. Always stepping in. Like, I couldn’t be trusted with my own match.
He was probably right.
But it didn’t stop the anger rising whenever he caught me before I fell.
“What do you know about The Bonehook?”
Rio leaned against the counter, stirring the eggs, and said, “The Bonehook? Cheap joint. Not pulling in big money, but always open. Always shady. Out in El Sereno, near the bail bonds office.”
“You know someone in the club?”
“I know the bonds guys next door, but nah, no one in the club.” He didn’t even look up as he went on. “Drugs mostly. Light stuff, moving just under the radar. And the other stuff—girls, maybe boys, not the kind of scene anyone wants to admit exists.”
“Ricardo Price?”
He frowned. “Doesn’t ring a bell. What about him?”
“He was sending money up the chain to Mitchell, who was supposed to pass it to Lassiter and Kessler. Runs the club.”
Rio dished up the fluffy eggs and thick slices of buttered toast, and I let him do that before pushing him to answer—Rio liked his thinking time.
