Page 46 of Sherwood
“Lox,” Jove said. “Let’s not do anything rash. Please. We still don’t know.”
But when I looked at Marian’s face, I could tell she knew what I knew. Rafe knew I had some sort of contingency plan for the machines, he knew there was only one way I’d ever break.
I’m sorry.
I sucked in a long breath, looked down at my trembling hands. Curled them into fists.
I’m sorry.
Was he? Was he really?
I remembered the way he looked at Marian last night, his pale eyes softer than I’d ever seen them.Everything else between us has been real…
And the thing was that I believed him. I believed he cared for Marian. And…I thought I even believed that he was sorry.
Not that it made me want to strangle him any less.
“I’m open to any non-rash ideas,” I said finally. “But you only have the next twenty minutes before I do something rash anyway.”
Jove groaned. “Please don’t tell me that you already have a plan.”
“Then I won’t,” I said. And then I squinted at her. “Which is probably a good thing, because I can promise you’ll extra hate this one.”
ChapterTwelve
RAFE
“You can’t make me talk,”the young man said, pushing me out of my thoughts and back into the present. I walked away from the exposed balcony and into the tarp-strewn shell of the unfinished house, stopping once I reached the feet of Will Scarlett. He was currently zip-tied to a folding chair, his ankles also bound together, and the breeze blowing in from the window openings lifted the mud-matted hair off his face.
He glared at me as I squatted down to look him in the eye.
“I don’t need you to talk,” I said simply.
“That’s bullshit,” he spat, all bravado, all fear. Lord knew how he’d managed to fool all those French kinksters into thinking he was mature enough to be a dom. “I know what you want. You want me to give up everyone else, and Lox besides, and I’m not going to do it. And I’m certainly not going to help you sift through all those charred CPUs back in the forest to look for clues.”
I held up a hand. “Allow me to stop you, Will. I don’t need your help with charred anything, much less a list of your associates. I only need you to be here.”
He struggled against his bonds a moment, before slumping back. “What are you going to do to me?” he asked, the defeat evident in his voice. “Are you going to kill me?”
“I’m not even going to keep you here after I’m done with you,” I assured him, standing up. “Once Lox arrives, you’re free to go.”
The millionaire building this house had gone bankrupt halfway through construction, and the structure had been caught in some sort of asset limbo ever since. Since it was isolated enough that sound wouldn’t carry and far enough away from the road that any comings and goings would go unnoticed, it made a very convenient interception point for Lox.
He lifted his head to look at me. The gray light of morning kept the night shadows close. They wreathed around the doorways and crawled along the legs of his chair. “I don’t believe you,” he said.
“You don’t have to believe me,” I said, walking back over to the balcony. Built into a jut of earth deep in the forest, the balcony opened onto the trees themselves, and I could see the rivers of morning fog as they moved over the forest floor below me. “But that doesn’t make it any less the truth.”
“You’re not any less reprehensible for it, you know,” he said fiercely. “Using me to get to her is even worse.”
“Do you know why we’re alone right now?” I asked. I turned and braced myself against the balcony’s railing as I looked back at him. I knew I looked like as much shit as he did—I hadn’t slept, my suit jacket had long been abandoned, my trousers were wrinkled, and my shirtsleeves were rolled up to my elbows. I didn’t even know where my tie was.
“Because you lied and you’re actually planning to kill me?” he said, again with that shaky bravado that made him look so young, so very young.
I ignored his accusation. “Because I know Lox, and I know that she will come to find you. And when she does, I will let you go, and then I will convince her to do the right thing before Zhang and the others have a chance to get involved.”
“You’re deluding yourself if you think Lox will ever choose to betray us. No matter how convincing you are. No matter howalonethe two of you are.”
I crossed my arms and studied the young man. His conviction shone through almost as much as the fear. “You really believe her, don’t you? Believe that Ys exists?”
