Page 107 of Criminally Yours

That need to chase her down and throw her over his shoulder was like a bomb on a countdown timer in his chest.

He sped up his strides but refused to run. He didn’t need to. He was faster than she anticipated.

In that summer dress, with its thin straps and a hem that shortened as she ran, she was everything he desired. He wanted to rip it off her and force her on her knees right here.

Too dark, Strike.

As they reached the edge of the town, his phone rang.

“Millie.” He sank onto a bench, and she joined him. “It’s Hugo. I haven’t decided what to do about your plan to meet with Randolph.”

“Answer it. Maybe he’ll confess or say something stupid we can use, and this shitty business will be over.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, and he opened an app to record the call before putting it to speakerphone.

“I thought you’d be too gutless to answer.” Hugo’s upper-class accent wasn’t dulled by his venom.

“Are you calling to hand yourself in, Hugo?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Millie snapped a hairband. Strike clutched her hand. “You stabbed someone.”

“That’s not how I remember it. I saw some bitch run out of the side road after stabbing a drug dealer,” Hugo replied, a sneer in his voice.

“You don’t call her that.” Darkness fuzzed Strike’s vision. If Hugo had said that in front of him, he’d have snapped his neck without hesitation. “Millie can testify that you roughed him up before stabbing him.”

He cackled. “Yet she hasn’t given a statement. She hasn’t gone to the police.”

Strike snarled, “Because you tried to shoot her.”

Hugo laughed harder before slurring, “With what army rifle training? I’m not a bloody sniper. That’s yourstyle.”

“We have a video of you,” Strike said. “It shows you stabbing the man.”

“Liar. If you did, I wouldn’t be lounging in my father’s mansion. Where are you, Strike?”

“Hand yourself in,” he snapped.

Hugo cackled. “My father hired someone. He’ll find Millie and drag her back by her neck if he has to. I don’t give up.”

Strike paced. “Millie found that you were kicked out of every expensive school you attended and failed at each business you’ve linked yourself to. You’re good at giving up. From what I’ve seen, it’s the only thing you are good at. Your dad must be ashamed.”

“Fuck you. Don’t bring my father into this. You don’t know him,” he roared. “You’re not going to stop me. I’ll do whatever it takes to stop her from lying about me to the police.”

“Is that a threat?” Stike replied, his body stiff with tension. Millie ran her fingers across the back of his neck.

“I don’t need to threaten you. I know people. My father will never employ you again.” His voice dropped to a tone that implied promises rather than threats. “It would be awful if something happened to you and that little bitch.”

“I told you not to call her that.” He fisted his hand, desperate to punch Hugo until he was a bloody pulp. “You don’t fucking speak about her.”

“Does she mean something to you?”

“Touch her, and you die, you motherfucker.”

Strike punched the bench. The wood cracked.