32. Delaney
DELANEY
“They’re already watching.”
The words settle into me before I can decide what to do with them.
“Now they get to watch me watch back.”
Something in his voice shifts when he says it. Not louder. Not harsher.
Deeper.
Like whatever lives under his control just lifted its head.
My heart races. Not just fear. Something else.
I feel it in my chest first. Then lower. Then everywhere.
I sit up, the sheet slipping down my body that still feels everything he did to me hours ago.
He doesn’t look away.
Not that I expect him to.
Samson Vexley doesn’t look away from anything.
“You’re serious,” I say.
He doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t need to.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand. My knees don’t buckle, but they don’t feel entirely steady either. My body is still caught somewhere between sleep and what he pulled out of me last night.
My thighs ache. My throat is tender where his hand was. Where his mouth was. Where he held me still and said If you tell me to stop, I won’t.
I didn’t tell him to stop.
Not once.
I lean against the edge of the mattress, grounding myself.
That should bother me. That should terrify me.
It doesn’t.
What bothers me is how much I wanted him not to stop.
I straighten and force my focus back where it belongs. “Who?” I ask. “Who’s watching?”
“It doesn’t matter yet.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He grits his jaw. “It’s the only one you need right now.”
Right. His standard answer. This is the Samson Vexley I know, the one who frustrates me to no end. But it’s also the one I know how to handle. Push back. Dig in. Don’t let him control the direction of the conversation.
I throw on a robe and walk to my front door. I reach for the handle and then pause, my fingers hovering.
Something feels off.
I don’t know how I know that. I just do.
“Don’t—” he starts.
Too late.
I open the door and look at the lock from the outside. The metal plate is scratched.
My stomach drops.
Someone stood here. Close enough to touch this door. Close enough to decide whether to come in. I step back slowly.
“They were here,” I say. “Or is this from the first break-in?”
He shakes his head. “I checked it after. These are new marks.”
I turn. He’s closer now. I didn’t hear him move.
My stomach churns. At least I wasn’t home during the first break-in. Now? Someone was standing on the other side of that door while I was inside.
Sleeping.
Unaware.
Vulnerable.
My skin prickles.
And I remember…
His hand on my throat.
Not crushing.
Not choking.
Holding.
The moment I should have stopped him.
The moment I didn’t.
The two feelings collide.
Fear.
And something that feels a lot like trust.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“Move you.”
I exhale slowly. “I have work here,” I say, gesturing vaguely toward the desk. “Notes. Leads. I’m not just—”
“I know exactly what you’re doing,” he cuts in.
“Then you know I can’t just walk away.”
He furrows his brow. “I didn’t say walk away.”
“Then what are you saying?”
He steps closer. Close enough that I have to tilt my head slightly to keep eye contact. Close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him again. Close enough that my body remembers before my mind does.
“I’m saying,” he says, voice low, “that you don’t do it from here anymore.”
My pulse jumps.
His hand is at his side.
The ring catches the light. Dark metal. Hard edges. That strange shape. The key. The same key I saw etched in different places at Vexley House.
The key must open things. Places I haven’t seen yet. Places he hasn’t let me see.
I look back up at him. “You’re taking me somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see.”
I should hate that he’s not more forthcoming. Part of me does.
A bigger part—the part that stepped into him last night instead of away—leans toward it.
Because whatever is happening here isn’t small. It isn’t just about my apartment or the new scratches on the lock. Or even the man who died on that dock.
This is bigger.
And Samson—for once—isn’t trying to keep me out of it.
He’s pulling me in.
Danger.
That’s what this is.
Not just the people outside.
Him.
Me.
This.
All of it.
I hold his gaze. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll go with you.”
Something shifts in his expression.
Not relief.
Not satisfaction.
Something quieter.
Something that looks almost like approval.
He reaches out, his hand closing lightly around the back of my neck. “Get dressed,” he says.
I nod once, but I don’t move right away. I stay there, close enough to feel him, to remember him, to know exactly what I’m stepping into.