Page 229 of The Lies We Play

Creed exhales.

“I think the petition is the right move,” he says. “I think it is also the most dangerous thing you could possibly do. I think the security company I hired has the infrastructure to keep you safe. I think we have the infrastructure is a sentence I am going to be repeating to myself in the middle of the night, so I don’t get on a plane right now and do something stupid.”

I cock an eyebrow. “What type of stupid?”

His mouth twists.

“The type that drags Halston out of his apartment, flies to the other side of the Atlantic, and hides with my partners while forgetting the rest of the world exists.”

My breath catches.

Not because it is romantic.

Although it is, damn him.

Because he says it like a confession pulled out of him with force. Like the word ‘partners’ costs him something and gives him something back at the same time.

“You would do that?”

“For you? I’d set the world on fire, Liv.” He glances slightly to the left, away from the camera. “But Lang would stop me.”

“I would,” Lang says.

Creed ignores him. “They think I’m being irrational for wanting to protect the two people in the world who matter most to me.”

The two people who matter most.

Hal.

Me.

I have spent ten years trying to become a woman who could withstand hearing nothing from this man.

Apparently, I didn't prepare for hearing too much.

“It’ll be fine,” I say, which is a ridiculous thing to say, since nothing about this has ever once glanced in the direction of fine.

Creed looks at me.

“Liv. They tried to kill you once. They are going to try harder if you walk back into his life. I have been in this position before, and last time you died and didn’t come back to me. I don’t get to ask you to come back.” His voice drops. “For Hal, I have to beg you to come back. I want to know that you understand the difference.”

“I understand.”

“Are you sure?”

“Not only would he hate being stuck in that situation . . .” I stop, pull in a breath, and force myself to say the thing that has already lodged beneath my ribs. “They might be abusing him if he’s under their mercy.”

Creed closes his eyes for half a second.

That is enough of an answer.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough. “I’m afraid that’s been happening.”

For a moment, no one speaks.

I think of Hal’s hands. The way he used to stand between me and doors without making a performance of it. The way he treated trust like a loaded weapon and somehow still gave me his. The way he would rather bleed than beg.

Then I imagine him helpless among people who know exactly how to make cruelty look like care.