Page 127 of Brutal
“About what?” she asks.
I raise my hand slowly, give her time to move.
She doesn’t.
I slide my fingers around her neck, but I don’t squeeze. “That I didn’t hesitate.”
She swallows. “Why didn’t you?”
Because I’ve never been allowed to.
Because hesitation gets people killed.
Because I didn’t know I was stepping into something already decided.
I don’t say any of that.
Instead—
“Because I don’t walk into places I don’t understand.”
She narrows her eyes, glancing at the doorway. “You understood this place.”
“Yes.” I shift my thumb slightly against her soft flesh. How easily I could snap her neck. Nothing I haven’t done before. “They know you’re vulnerable. That you’ve been moved. That I took you out of the open.”
“Who?”
“People who set traps and let other men take the blame.”
Her eyes widen. “You’re talking about the marina.”
I don’t answer.
I don’t have to.
Her throat moves beneath my hand. “They’re trying to do it again,” she says.
“Yes.”
“What, exactly?”
“Put you in danger. Make me react. Turn my violence into their solution.”
Her breath catches.
The inner lock stays silent in the back of my mind. It should have clicked when I opened the door. It didn’t, which means one of two things.
Someone found a way in.
Or someone wants me to believe they did.
Either way, I won’t give them what they want. I won’t drag her back into the street. I won’t move blind because someone touched a lock and expected me to become predictable.
Not again.
Delaney glances toward the door. “Then we should leave.”
“No.”
