Page 99 of Burned

That means he suspects more than he has proved.

“Say it,” I tell him.

“Isobel really might not know the final name.” He looks at me. “I believe her when she says she doesn’t.”

I stop walking.

Rafe stops too. “She didn’t say she knows who opened the gates. She said she knows who can prove it,” Rafe says. “Those may not be the same thing.”

My temper sharpens. “And you waited to share this—why?”

“You were,” he clears his throat. “Otherwise engaged. We gave you as much time as we thought safe.”

I continue walking.

“But she’s ready to talk. And she’s asking for you.” Rafe opens the library door for me.

The room has been cleaned. Curtains drawn. Bayne stands near the window, staring through an exposed slice of the window. Blaze sits in a chair with one ankle crossed over his knee, knife moving idly between his fingers. Rafe looks ready to deliver information. Mack stands at the door and makes sure everyone survives.

Isobel stands at the fireplace. No fire has been lit. A small gesture from my men.

They are Team Erin all the way.

She looks cold. It feels wrong to care. And, to not care.

When she turns, her gaze moves over me.

She sees something.

I know because her expression shifts.

I wonder if Erin’s mouth is still on my skin. If her touch has marked me in some way, Isobel can read. It would be fitting, I suppose. Erin marked me where no one could see long before I admitted it.

“You’re calmer,” Isobel says, a secret smirk as if she knows why.

I say, “I’m focused.”

“That was always worse.”

“Let the old intimacy die with the men you killed.”

Her face loses color. She’s the first to break our gaze.

Rafe perches on the edge of the table by Isobel and the cold fireplace. He looks at her. “Tell him what you told me.”

“I need a moment.” She turns away from us.

Blaze wants to give a smart-ass remark. My glance makes him hold his tongue.

He gives me a look, telling me he might, for now.

It throws me back to another time. When we’d disagree for days, then I’d finally ask him if he’s ready to talk.

“Do we ever talk?” he’d say, giving me that grin of his. The one to remind me how good-looking he is. “All we ever do is yell.”

And I’d say something like, “We only yell when you won’t agree with me.”

Another time, just as stressful as this one, but somehow now feels much simpler than it did back then.