Page 18 of Claimed By my Fake Husband

He reaches for the pull chain on the bare bulb.

Every instinct I have goes off at once. He hasn't done anything yet, but this isn't him. Years of reading people, chasing sources, tracking liars—my gut knows something's wrong.

"Why couldn't you just drop it?" His eyes lift to mine, and there's a darkness in them I've never seen. "Cheesecake."

I'm backing away before I've even decided to. Too slow. He yanks the cord, the room drops into black, and his hands close around my throat.

Panic explodes through me. I claw at his fingers, kick out with one leg, try to scream. I'm one wrong step from the floor when I dig a nail into the back of his hand hard enough to break skin. His grip loosens. I shove him off.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Me? Please. You think anyone in this city turns down Cilento money? That's more naive than I gave you credit for."

"I work with you! You're supposed to have my back!"

"I've got my own back!" He drags a hand through his hair, and I hold mine up between us, waiting for him to come at me again. He doesn't. "You think the rest of us have it easy? You land a Pulitzer piece at twenty-eight while some of us are drowning in debt to every loan shark in town?"

Before I can tell him my money goes straight to my parents, that I live in the same cramped apartment as everyone else, he pulls a gun from his pocket.

I freeze. This isn't how tonight was supposed to go.

"You think you're better than the rest of us. So noble. We all bend the rules, baby. We all work an angle."

Tears streak hot down my face as I stare down the barrel. Of course this is my luck.

"You're doing this for money!" I know screaming won't help, but I can't stop myself. "You made your own mistakes, and now I pay for them? What the hell, Andrew?"

"Don't act like you wouldn't do the same." He straightens his arm, the gun level with my face. "Any last words?"

I've spent years building a career on honesty. I don't take bribes. I don't cut corners. I don't bend.

And here I am, about to die in some rotted-out house because I couldn't leave one lead alone.

I'm furious at Andrew. I'm angrier at myself.

I knew the risk. I came anyway.

Of every mistake I've ever made, this one's the worst.

"You suck, Andrew."

I hold his stare, jaw locked, refusing to shrink.

"I covered for you. Every missed deadline, every hungover no-show dressed up as a family emergency. I believed you were putting in the work like I was. Guess I was wrong."

He scoffs. "I had my own business, cheesecake. None of it concerned you. Shame, though. I always wondered what it'd be like to get a little?—"

He lets it hang, stepping closer. I bare my teeth, refusing to give ground.

"—after-hours research session. You've got the body for it. Curvy girls always fuck the dirtiest."

Bile rises in my throat. Then he's shoving me toward the front door.

7

Logan

I pull up to the curb the second I see the front door of the flop house swing open. Tess is getting shoved toward the street, some asshole right on her heels.