Chapter Nineteen
Katey
I woke up the next morning feeling amazing… and shitty. Those orgasms gifted to me by the man who was also my protector helped me sleep well last night. So well that the nightmares had returned damn near every hour. Sniper had witnessed every cry and every whimper, I’d known it each time I woke up, because I was pressed against his body, and his hands soothed me back to sleep.
He’d even kissed the top of my head in that soothing, almost caring way of his. He didn’t mean anything by it, of course, he simply needed me to shut the hell up so that he could get some sleep. That was all. Nothing had changed between us just because we’d been intimate.
Nothing at all.
I needed to remember that, because last night I’d been too vulnerable with Sniper. I wasn’t out of the danger zone just yet, I knew that. I might have jumped from the fire and straight into the frying pan if I wasn’t careful. Sniper was still a biker, and he might not be anything like Ethan, but that didn’t make him good.
“It doesn’t matter,” I snapped at my reflection, pale and sleep-deprived and sad. My eyes were so fucking sad I couldn’t even stand it.
“What doesn’t matter?” Sniper’s deep voice broke through my thoughts, and I let out a sharp gasp and spun to face him.
“What? Oh, nothing. What’s up?”
He held up his hand. “I brought you some breakfast.”
“You did. Why?” I glanced at the plate like it contained poison and that made me feel like an asshole. “Sorry.”
His lips tugged to one side. “It’s fine. I’m not trying to poison you Katey, but if you only eat every other day, you’ll be too weak to practice medicine. To save yourself. To live.”
“You should’ve just taken the apology,” I grumbled.
Sniper laughed. He actually laughed and the sound was rich and deep, and so unlike the man I’d spent the past few weeks with. “You have to eat Katey.”
“I know,” I sighed heavily. “But I’m too stressed to eat right now. When my life is normal my appetite will get back to normal.”
He shoved the plate in my direction. “That’s a shitty plan.”
His words were so deadpan I couldn’t help but laugh. “Gee, thanks.” The food smelled good though and I sat and dug in. “And thanks seriously, for the food.”
Sniper stretched out on the bed and crossed his legs at the ankles. “You’re welcome. Eat.” He watched me curiously as I took the first few bites and then I began to feel self-conscious.
“What?”
“Nothing. I was just waiting for the right time to get back to our conversation about who’s bankrolling your boyfriend.”
“ Ex boyfriend,” I reminded him even though I knew what he was doing.
“Yeah, because that’s the important part of the conversation.” He rolled his eyes but then resettled his gaze on me. Again.
I needed to tell him the truth. I had to. To not tell him was to put his life and that of his entire MC in danger. He needed to know what they were up against or rather who they were up against. I opened my mouth to stop being a coward and to tell Sniper the truth, but nothing came out. Fear gripped me as I thought of all the ways they might come after me for revealing their very existence, and I chickened out. Again. “He has wealthy friends,” I hedged. “I don’t know who they are exactly, only that they exist.” It wasn’t a lie, I didn’t know the identities of his friends, but I knew they existed. And that they were powerful and connected.
He stared at me again but this time his gaze was less hard. “Wealthy friends, huh?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “That’s what he always said about them. I never met them though. Honestly.”
His green gaze narrowed, and I knew that he knew I was holding back. “Okay.”
Okay? “That’s all you have to say?”
He nodded. “You want me to say something else?”
“No, I’m just surprised you let it go so easily.” Ethan would have resorted to threats and then seen those threats through if he didn’t get the answers he wanted.
“I don’t know what else to do to get you to trust me enough to open up.” His words shocked me. They weren’t just insightful, they were almost disappointed. Sniper stood and watched me for a long moment and then he left me along with my cold breakfast and my nonstop thoughts.
I had to tell him the truth, I owed him that much, at least.
I couldn’t let him go into an ambush without knowing the full truth of what I knew, which wasn’t much. I just wish that I’d never gone into the basement that night, had never opened that damn locked door because it was the beginning of hell for me. I couldn’t regret it completely though because I was a doctor, I saved people. It’s what I did and that would never change.
But mentioning what else I knew, knowing the Steel Demons would use it to their advantage, scared me silent. If they found out I was the source of that information, they wouldn’t stop until I was dead.
Then again, neither would Ethan.
Resolved, I sat taller and finished my breakfast and figured out how in the hell I would tell Sniper what he needed to know.