9. Havoc
Havoc
She doesn’t freak out. That’s the first thing I notice once I get her back in the room and set her down.
Most people would. They’d start crying, yelling, demanding answers like any of that would help.
The girl just turns and glares at me, breathing hard, looking more irritated than terrified.
Not that the fear isn’t there. I can smell it on people when it is.
But she’s got a lid on it, and that alone makes her more interesting than half the women I’ve met in my life.
Her hair’s a little messed up. Her face is flushed. Her chest is rising too fast. But then she lifts her chin and looks at me like I’m the one being unreasonable.
It nearly makes me laugh.
“You done?” she asks. Not trembling. Not pleading. Pissed.
Jesus.
I lean against the doorframe and look at her properly. “With what?”
“With acting like a lunatic.”
There it is again. That mouth. Snarky. Sassy. Meaner than it has any right to be for someone in her position. And somehow that only makes her sexier. If she were sobbing in the corner, I’d already be bored. But this? Her glaring at me like she wants to stab me and outsmart me at the same time?
Yeah. That does it for me.
I grin. “Depends. You done trying to run?”
She folds her arms. “Depends. You done kidnapping people?”
That gets a laugh out of me.
I shouldn’t like this as much as I do. I know that. But every second she keeps looking at me like that, all pissed-off fire and pride, I just want to get closer and see what else I can pull out of her.
Then Knox walks in. One glance at his face and I almost laugh again.
He takes in the room in one sweep. Me by the door. The girl standing in the middle of the room with that irritated look still on her face. The air between us still humming from everything that happened in the hall.
And then he looks at me.
I know that look. It says a lot without him needing to open his mouth.
First, he thinks she’s hot too. Maybe he won’t admit it, maybe he’d rather bite off his own tongue than say it out loud, but I know what I’m seeing.
I know the way men look at things they want but don’t trust themselves to touch.
Second, he thinks I should stay the hell away from her.
That part is even funnier. Because I had a feeling already. Back in the hallway, when he came at me over the kill, there was too much heat in it. Sure, part of it was business. I did move too fast. I know it. He knows it. He’s not wrong that we should’ve questioned the guy first.
But that wasn’t all that was bothering him.
No. Knox wasn’t just pissed because I screwed up the order of things.
He didn’t like me getting too close to the girl.
Didn’t like me touching her. Didn’t like hearing what I’d done with her.
Didn’t like walking in and seeing me standing there with my mouth still curled from it.
That part had nothing to do with the kill.
And now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it.
The girl looks between us, smart enough to catch the tension, not smart enough to keep out of it. “What?”
Knox ignores her. Keeps his eyes on me.
I smile wider.
He gives me that flat, cold stare of his, the one that’s supposed to be a warning, and all it does is make me want to push harder.
Because now I know. He likes her too. Or at least he wants something he thinks looks a lot like protecting her, which is close enough. And that puts a whole new shape on things.
“What?” I ask him, all innocence.
His jaw tightens. “Nothing.”
Bullshit.
The girl looks irritated at both of us now, which is fair. “You two are exhausting.”
I glance at her. “And yet you keep talking to us.”
She glares at me. “Against my will.”
I laugh again, low this time.
Knox’s eyes flick to her, then back to me, and there it is one more time. Clear as daylight.
Stay away.
I don’t say anything right off. I just look at him and let the silence do the work, let him sit with the fact that I see it. That I know exactly why he was really ready to put me through a wall earlier.
It wasn’t only the job. It was her.
And Knox, for all his control, for all his cold, disciplined bullshit, does not like competition.
Well. That’s a shame for him. Because I’m suddenly in a much better mood.
“Oh, don’t do that,” I say, still looking at Knox. “Don’t give me that righteous stare now. It’s a little late for moral outrage.”
His face doesn’t change. That’s one of the things I hate most about him. He can be furious and still look carved out of stone. No raised voice. No wild expression. Just that flat, cold look that makes everyone else start second-guessing themselves.
Everyone else. Not me.
The girl shifts her weight and looks between us again, clearly picking up on the fact that whatever this is, it’s bigger than the dead man and bigger than the screwup. Her irritation is still there, simmering under everything else, and I like that too much.
I push off the doorframe and take a slow step into the room. “You know,” I say lightly, “for a man pretending this is all about business, you’re being weirdly territorial.”
Knox’s eyes narrow a fraction.
The girl looks at him, then at me. “Territorial?”
Knox doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t.
I grin. “He doesn’t like me near you.”
Her brows pull together. “That’s not what this is.”
I angle my head. “Isn’t it?”
“No,” Knox says.
I look at him. “You sure?”
His jaw tightens. That’s all I get, but it’s enough. Enough to tell me I’m not wrong. Enough to make this fun.
The girl lets out an annoyed breath. “Can you two stop making everything sound insane for five minutes?”
“No,” I say at the same time Knox says, “Probably not.”
That makes her glare harder, and I laugh.
I take her in. What is it about her that’s getting under my skin? I don’t understand it. I need to unsettle her—yes, that’s how I make this more interesting.
I glance at Knox. He sees it happen, can tell from my face I’ve moved on to something else, and I watch him brace for whatever I’m about to say.
“You know who would know stuff about the dead guy?” I ask.
Nobody answers.
I look straight at the girl. “The one who was found with him.”
For the first time since I brought her back in here, her composure slips. Not much. Just enough. Her throat works as she swallows, and I catch that little flicker of alarm in her eyes before she smooths it over.
“I didn’t know him,” she says quickly. “He probably gave me fake info.”
“Right.”
I let the word hang there.
Maybe she’s lying. Maybe she’s not. Doesn’t matter much to me yet. People always say they don’t know anything. Didn’t see anything. Didn’t hear anything. Sometimes they’re even telling the truth as they understand it.
Truth is a flexible thing.
Memory too.
And fear? Fear changes both.
She hears something in my tone, because her expression changes again. More cautious now. “What does that mean?” she asks.
I shrug. “Means I have my own methods of finding the truth.”
Her eyes narrow. “Like what?”
I don’t answer right away. I turn and look at Knox. He’s gone still. Completely still. Which, with him, usually means he’s thinking very hard about whether he’s about to hate what comes out of my mouth.
He says nothing. Just watches me.
The girl looks between us again, and I can almost see her putting it together, that whatever answer she’s about to get, Knox doesn’t like it.
I smile. “You really want to know?” I ask her.
She lifts her chin, trying for brave. “I asked.”
Knox finally speaks, voice flat. “Havoc.”
Just my name. A warning.
I glance at him, amused. “What?”
“You’re not helping.”
“Depends what you think the goal is.”
His stare hardens.
The girl’s voice cuts in before he can answer. “Can someone stop talking in riddles?”
I look back at her. “People tell the truth in all kinds of ways. When they’re comfortable. When they’re scared. When they’re tired. When they think they’re smarter than the person asking.”
Her face loses some color.
I keep going anyway.
“And sometimes,” I say, “you don’t even need them to know they’re telling you something.”
Knox swears under his breath.
I grin without looking at him. “See? He knows what I mean.”
The girl folds her arms tighter. Defensive again, but trying not to show it. “You’re trying to scare me.”
“Maybe.”
Her eyes flash. “It won’t work.”
That gets my full attention. Not because I believe her. Because of the way she says it. Too fast. Too stubborn. Too much like she’s trying to convince herself first.
I take another step closer, not enough to crowd her, just enough to make the distance between us feel more deliberate. “Everybody scares,” I say quietly. “The question is when.”
Knox moves then. Not much, just enough to put himself back into the shape of the room instead of watching from the edge of it. “That’s enough,” he says.
I look at him over my shoulder.
And there it is again. That look.
Not just annoyance. Not just that I’m making this messier than it already is.
Protectiveness. Possessive, almost.
I shouldn’t enjoy it as much as I do.
But I really, really do.
The girl sees it too. I can tell from the way her gaze flicks to him, then back to me, her mind racing now, recalculating.
Good. Maybe she’s starting to understand that everyone in this room wants something different. And maybe, if she’s clever, she’ll figure out that Knox staying quiet tells her more than anything I’ve said.
I lean back a little and smile. “Relax. If I wanted answers right this second, you’d know.”
Knox’s expression turns murderous.
The girl goes very still.
I pick her up again because it’s easier than arguing.
This time, she doesn’t fight me. That gets my attention.
She just goes quiet in my arms, tense but still, and I can feel her thinking. That’s the thing about her. Even when she’s scared, even when she’s cornered, her mind keeps moving. Maybe she thinks if she cooperates, we’ll let her go. Maybe she thinks if she stops making trouble, we’ll ease up.