Page 92 of Cain

“I need some clothes. Don’t get me wrong, I want to live in these matching sets, but I need more options for when we go out. And to wear on laundry day.”

“I mean, I don’t think you need any clothes at all,” I said, shooting her a smirk.

“That would be interesting to explain to all your club brothers.”

“Fine. A couple outfits. Anything else special around here that you want me to pack, just in case?”

“The crafts.”

“What crafts?” I’d cleaned up what seemed like everything she owned. There weren’t any crafts.

“The ones we made at the garden center. I don’t want to lose those for any reason.”

Fuck, this woman.

“Got it.”

“And my charger. Ronan has to be getting tired of me stealing his. He’s probably going to put an AirTag on it at this point. What?” she asked, making me realize I’d stiffened.

“AirTag,” I repeated. “I wonder if that was how the car knew where to find you.”

I was reaching for my phone before I finished speaking, this time shooting off a text to Croft, asking him to find out where Georgie’s car had been taken and to head over and check it for any tracking devices.

I could tell by Georgie’s pinched brows that she thought I was being crazy.

The thing was, I was from this world. I knew that crazier shit than this happened almost every day. I understood the lengths desperate people would go to if they thought it might protect them from ruin. And if I was right about Perry, for the first time in the time they’d known each other, Georgie was going to have the upper hand. She was going to have all the say.

I was sure Georgie’s attorney was decent. But I was going to go ahead and reach out to Quinton Baird and see if I could set up a call with their in-house attorney, Rosie. See if he could help me find any way for Georgie to untangle herself without blowing up Perry’s finances, so maybe he would be less likely to keep trying to kill her.

I wasn’t convinced, though, that he would ever truly let her go. He’d spent so much time molding her and making her what he wanted. Men as controlling as that never willingly dropped the reins and whips. They wanted to pull them tighter and whip them until their bodies gave out.

Then it was time to try all over again with a new model.

“It’s like some movie,” Georgie said. “I mean, I lived with Perry for years. He was obsessive about flossing. He didn’t allow any carbs in the house. He worked out seven days a week. He has a skincare routine. The only TV he ever watched was investment stuff. He’s… boring. I can’t see him having some super-secret criminal side.”

“But he can also charm his friends. He could convince a young girl that he was a nice guy and he loved her. He can be who he needs to be to get what he wants.”

“I can see that. My thing is, why? He comes from wealth. He owns a company. Why would he need to do that? For the thrill of it?”

“Maybe. I don’t know him like that. But it’s more likely that he is or has been in some sort of financial trouble. And because his image is so important to him, he would have done everything in his power to keep his business going.”

“But once things were good again…”

“The thing is, when you get into this kind of shit, you can’t get back out. Either because who you’re doing business with won’t let you, or because you get addicted to the money or the thrill. Did you notice any changes in Perry?”

“I mean… hitting me was new.”

My stomach tightened, and it took actual work to force my body to relax.

“There was no escalation leading up to that?”

“I mean, I guess. Little by little over the years. But I was blindsided by that. He’d come home in a bad mood. And it just spiraled from there. That was the night I left him.”

I gave her foot a squeeze.

“Do you know where he’d been that night?”

“No. He never ran his schedule by me,” she said with a huff, like it was absurd to think he might have. “But he was later than usual. He liked getting nine hours of sleep. He was home well after bedtime.”