Speaking of that, the list of recriminations I should be screaming into Max Langer’s ear—starting with the fact that the man was indirectly the reason why the girl I loved had once more turned tail and disappeared out of my life—was almost infinite at this point. But it was all those very same things that made me want to hold off.
So instead, I just stood there and waited for what he had to say.
And like many things that had come out of my boss’s mouth over the short time I’d known him, it was a surprise.
“Ever seen the sunrise from the window of a private jet over the Gulf of Mexico?” he asked.
“No.”
“In a few hours, you will.”
8
HER
It wasn’t until I finally collapsed in exhaustion in a patch of short, soft grass on the edge of what I assumed was someone’s fussy rock garden—maybe three, maybe five, maybe seven blocks away in what I could only pray was the right direction. Only then, curled up there, helpless, barely conscious, nearly nauseous, taking rattling gasps of air, harpooned by searing pain that at times seemed to almost be strengthening, did I allow myself to confirm that he was smart enough not to have followed me.
Not that some stupid, delusional, self-destructive part of me didn’t still hope hehad.
But if it came down to a choice between him holding my hand while I breathed through this and watching him get thrown on the ground by the police and dragged away because Daddy had triggered his tracking chip, the choice was clear.
It was funny thatthat—that every second I remained in his presence, I was putting him in danger, and that I had to get away from him—was the thought running through my head as my skinwas being melted off my body, minutes after he’d fucked my mouth to oblivion. But it was.
That and the fact that he soclearlyhad a plan.
Clearly.
At this point, I hadn’t a clue what time of night it was. But I did know that as the minutes ticked by, my standard studying-in-the-library lie—knowing how my father’s mind worked—was going to get flimsier and flimsier. It was basic math. Daughter missing for hours with no phone + forbidden to see boy + boy instantly trackable by implanted chip = jackpot for Daddy.
Of course I had to consider the possibility that my boy didn’t know why I’d run, or thought I hadn’t figured out what he’d been doing. That I hadn’t figured out why he’d said what he said, or done what he did. That he didn’t realize that what he’d been trying to accomplish—saving my life—was a damn sight more important than protecting me from hearing him say he’d plotted to destroy my entire family. And that he hated me.
When he still hadn’t even fucking said he loved me.
Yes, and.
Eyes closed, my mind replayed a supercut: the marble walls, the clink of the cuffs, the terrifying way his body moved like heownedmine. Like he owned me. He’d even said it:
Mine.
And I’d been shaking and soaked and confused out of my mind, like my body couldn’t decide if it wanted to escape or collapse into him. But what if that was the point? What if he was playing a role so dark it scaredhimjust to wear it because that was the only way to undo the cuffs, to keep Resi fooled, to keep me alive? What if he already knew me well enough to know exactly where I could take pain, and where I couldn’t? And if that was his way of keeping me from breaking, then maybe it wasn’t hate at all. Maybe it was love, in the only language we were allowed to speak.
I hate the way she’s the only one who’s ever looked at me like I’m someone worth saving.
He did hate it. I believed that. Because for him, that meant being a person, and he didn’t fully know how to do that yet.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t believe I was worth saving, too.
But my burned throat and scream-weary mouth were as parched as the sand, and stray gravel from the rock garden was digging into the open pustules of my burns alongside the dirty, sticky, gauzy, torn fabric of the stupid fucking lacy thing I was wearing. When I’d been running, the pain hadn’t mattered, but now that I’d collapsed, it was back, and even raising my head off the grass seemed impossible.
And anyway, the burner phone Erica had given me was dead. Even if it hadn’t been, I had no real means to stop the wheels Resi had put in motion. I didn’t even know what the wheelswere, really.
But I had totry. I had to do what I’d hoped I’d conveyed to him that Iwoulddo—find and look after Maeve so he had time to do whatever he needed to do to hatch his plan. The plan that he so clearly had. The plan pretty muchhadto be to stop Resi and save us all because at this point anything less would be failure.
But I wasn’t seeing to anything. I wasn’t even moving. I was lying in some grass, curled up like some red-and-purple pus-covered worm. Ishouldbe dead. The only reason I wasn’t was that Resithoughtshe had neutralized me as a threat. That I wouldn’t, and couldn’t, help anyone, let alonehim.
And right now, I sure didn’t feel much like a threat.
I was grateful for the cool night air on my skin, at least. Even though I didn’t deserve it.
