Sarai nods and says, “Daddy.”
“That’s right,” Caleb says, looking pleased. “I’m your daddy. How would you like it if you and Mommy could come live with me?”
My throat implodes, trapping a scream inside. I dig my nails painfully into my palms, but that’s good. The pain keeps me sharp and aware.
“I wanna live with Gus,” Sarai says, clear as day.
I close my eyes, my head dropping forward, because I think my daughter may have just sentenced me to die.
“Gus?” Caleb asks, a frown pinching his dark gold brows together. And then his eyes latch onto the San Diego Waves T-shirt she’s wearing to bed. “Is that right?”
The words are stones hurled at the bed, but she doesn’t realize it and answers honestly, nodding.
“Let’s go talk in the living room, Caleb,” I urge him, forcing myself to touch his arm and tug. “Sarai was having a bad dream but needs to sleep.”
Their dark violet–blue eyes hold for long seconds. Sarai, perversely, looks more alert than she has all day, not like it’s time for sleep at all.
Finally, Caleb walks into the hall. I turn the lock on Sarai’s door and pray she doesn’t figure out how to get out. Whatever happens in the next few moments, I don’t want her to see it. I have to know she’s safe, or I won’t be able to fully focus on getting out of this alive.
My mind is on spin cycle, whirring with possible weapons, escape routes, distractions—anything to hold him off until August arrives. I decide on redirection—stalling him by pretending he didn’t come here to kill me.
“I didn’t release that file, Caleb.” I gesture for him to sit on the couch while I take the seat a few feet away. He cocks one brow, asking if we are really going to play this game, but shrugs like he has all the time in the world to remind me how much he likes hurting me.
“I know that.” He sits back on the ugly couch, spreading his long arms across the back. “Andrew did. Bastard.”
“What did you have on him?”
He looks surprised for a moment before shrugging. “He accidentally gave his girlfriend in college too much of some drug he was experimenting with, and she died.”
“What? Oh my God.”
“I handled it for him,” Caleb says. “But, of course, he owed me. Idiot confessed and ratted me out.”
“I’m sorry.” I assemble my features into concern. “Has there been much backlash?”
Maybe it was the wrong thing to ask. The adrenaline coursing through me is muddling my thoughts and has my fight-or flight instinct in overdrive. There is no “sit down for banal chatter with your predator” instinct, but that’s the route I take because in a physical fight with Caleb, I’d have no chance.
Taking flight from him, I’d have no chance.
The longer I delay a physical confrontation, the closer August comes.
“Backlash?” He barks out a laugh like the rabid dog he is. “I’ve been cut from the Stingers, lost all my endorsements in a matter of hours, and my father has basically disowned me.”
“Your father?” I ask, shocked because Mr. Bradley has always navigated any rough waters for Caleb.
“Too damning, I guess.” Caleb shakes his head. “The league is taking a very hard line on this, and my father can’t be seen on the wrong side of it. Probably making me an example.”
“I’m so sorry,” I lie.
“Sorry?” he spits, sitting forward suddenly and shrinking the space separating us. “This is your fault.”
“No. I kept my end of the bargain.”
My mind hums like a machine, thinking on overdrive of a plan to escape as I watch his skin mottle, his eyes narrow, and his fists open and close, like he’s itching for something to pummel.
“So you did,” he admits. “But unfortunately for you, all of my . . . incentives, shall we say, for letting you go and leaving you alone . . .” His handsome faces creases with a half-grin. “Are gone.”
I don’t know if he moves first or if I do. I don’t know if the predator and prey are somehow psychically linked and we move in harmony, but it becomes a hunting party. He’s the hound and I’m the rabbit. I rush past him to the kitchen. Heavy, rapid steps eat up the floor behind me.
