Page 177 of Problematic

My chest tightened. “Liv.”

“No.” Her voice cut through the room, shaking but steady where it mattered. “Do not say my name. Do not explain. Do not tell me why I should stay. Walk over to that fingerprint pad, unlock this door, and let me leave.”

I crossed the room to the black glass panel set into the wall beside the door. My hand shook once before I pressed my thumb to the fingerprint pad.

The lock clicked open.

Liv reached for the handle.

“No cameras,” I said before she opened it. “No more. Feeds die now. No one enters your apartment unless you give permission. No one tails you.”

Her spine went stiff. “You’re saying that now?”

“Yes.”

“Because you got caught?”

“Because it’s what you deserved from the beginning, and I was too blind to see it. Too afraid that—”

“I would reject you?”

I nodded once.

She turned enough for me to see her pink eyes, shaking mouth, and mark glowing against her skin, furious—and mine. “I don’t trust you.”

I nodded once, and the movement hurt. “You shouldn’t.”

Pain flashed over her expression as if some foolish part of her had wanted me to argue, to feed her that beautiful lie.

I would have given her anything else.

Never again that.

“Don’t follow me,” she said.

“Okay.”

She paused, hand on the door, and met my eyes, so I gave her the only thing I had left to give. “I love you.”

Her face crumpled for half a second before she pulled it back together with hands I could almost see in the air.

“I know.”

The door opened, and morning light spilled in from the hall, pale and cold. Vale stood beyond it, expression wiped clean until he saw her face. Then regret moved through him so fast he almost seemed young.

Smart man. Kind man. Dead man, if he tried to stop her.

He did not.

Liv walked out.

And I did not follow.

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

The elevator waited at the end of the hall, and she stepped inside without glancing back. The doors slid shut.

Vale stood beside the open door, hands folded in front of him, gaze fixed on the elevator as if he expected me to change my mind and tear the entire floor apart to get to her.