Chapter 29 #2
"You know how that's going to end." With everyone dead.
"He's a paranoid genius who's high on his own delusion. I already tried to fight him once, when I rang you. The next time requires more planning. Or maybe I'll just flip."
"You think there's some truth to what he's saying?"
Connall's green eyes flashed, and he held up a hand.
"I'm tired, and not smart enough to best him. You know what they say. If you can't beat them, join them."
I wrapped my arms around my middle as it cramped.
My wrists felt heavy with invisible shackles.
So much weighed on what I did next. But I wasn't reckless, and I wouldn't risk Jenny and Bernice.
Because they meant something to Ray and Jonah, and those men held my heart, even though I was pretending the opposite.
Beck? Now he was something else. He didn't believe in polite, and he certainly wouldn't back down.
I'd never felt more alone.
"I'm going to jog home," I muttered to Connall, jumping out of the car before he could say anything.
The only way to combat the nervous energy ballooning under my rib cage was to run. I wanted out. But there was no exit from the noose around my neck.
Blood coated my tongue as I clamped down on it.
I let myself fall into the rhythm, counting my paces like a moving meditation.
The noise fell away, and I remembered the ill-fated attempt at meditation with Jonah.
I'd been hiding even less. There was barely a moment I didn't feel like my mind was taking bites out of me, gnawing at my fraying resolve.
My feet churned up the pavement until a stitch gripped my side and I gasped, stumbling over to a bench.
A reminder went off on my phone to send Adelaide my daily report.
She wrenched respect from your chest and forced you to kneel.
It had been a mistake to stay in her orbit.
The minute I recognized my bias forming, I should have left and let someone else take my place.
Adelaide ran Greenich Bay like a perfumed steamroller.
Could Ellington be right about The Unseen?
I sank deeper into the fabric of Adelaide's life.
She was ruthless and generous in the same breath.
It was intoxicating being in her world, so close to what I knew, but so different as well.
There was true loyalty and trust between them.
It was only me who tainted it all. I leaned over the bench, trying to stretch the stitch away.
I didn't want to lose the life I'd stolen in Greenich Bay.
The feeble beating of my heart, the relationships I had been building.
Like the fledgling down of a baby bird. One sharp gust would crumple the brittle bones.
And a cyclone was coming soon. My secrets threatened to crush me daily with their weight.
"How can I fix this?" I whispered, knowing the battered comment changed nothing.
Each day I waited was like another nail through my optimism.
I could imagine Beck's expression when I told him.
An empty smile. I would shiver at how unhinged it was.
A pretend expression from someone who practiced in front of a mirror.
At first glance, it was normal. But the longer it remained pasted on his face, the more it seemed wrong.
Like a crude slash. Too many teeth, not enough feeling.
He was a trained weapon, with no pesky emotions like I battled right now. He had instincts like a shark and knew when something was wrong, especially with me. I was sick and bloated with all the secrets I'd swallowed instead of spoken.
My muscles ached from the run, but I couldn't stop.
Thoughts crept in when I stayed still, and I needed to fight them with exhaustion.
Flagellation via steps. My calves screamed as I pushed myself harder back to my apartment.
A prickling sensation on the back of my neck broke my intense focus.
I let shapes flicker in and out of my peripheral vision until something caught my eye. Or rather, someone.
Raimondo Donato didn't know the meaning of the word stealth.
His trainers were bright yellow, and his tanned legs encased in running shorts that rode up his muscular thighs.
But if the shoes weren't enough, he was wearing a tight red T-shirt, and his chest muscles rippled underneath as he jogged parallel to me on the opposite street.
Ray was dangerous to every panty I owned.
Worse, he knew it. He crossed the street, and I swallowed a sigh.
"Are you following me?" I slipped out my earbuds with a frown.
"Does that seem like something I would do?" He cocked his head, incredulous innocence radiating from him. "It's just a coincidence or fate. Do you believe in that, Lara?"
He leaned close, and I swallowed a groan.
Even his slight sheen of sweat was attractive.
A masculine musk alluring rather than repelling.
I believed in fate. And it had been a mistake to entwine mine with his.
Ray nudged me off the pavement, clearing the disgruntled traffic I held up in the middle of the path.
His touch sent a rush of tingles through my body.
"There's no need to keep chasing me, Ray." I swallowed the knot in my throat.
That didn't even sound convincing to me.
Especially not as my gaze dropped to his sensual lips, remembering how they swallowed my orgasm with smug victory.
He shuffled toward me, grin widening as I took a step back.
I was better than this. But there was something about Ray that made my heart beat a little faster, mind scramble and fingers shake.
In the months since his papa attacked Adelaide, he'd grown into his potential.
She dismantled his empire and took him under her wing.
He was strong, deadly and confident enough not to care a woman ruled Greenich Bay.
The history between Adelaide and Ray went back years, and she'd forgiven him.
It gave me hope she might forgive me one day as well.
His fingers lunged out and hooked underneath the necklace I wore.
"Yet you still wear this. Do you need more diamonds to convince you how much I want you, Lara?" His soft tone rolled over me, luxurious as silk.
I took another step back, colliding with a warm, hard expanse. An arm snaked around my middle, hauling me closer. The grip was firm, intimate, but still respectful. Mint filled my nostrils.
Jonah. "You need to stop icing us out."
My stomach swooped, and I scratched through a million responses, each of them useless and wrong. All of them lies. I let myself luxuriate in Jonah's solid hold for a breath, easing myself out after my lungs started burning.
Jonah covered his hurt with a stoic mask.
Concrete, unbreakable and smooth. The shadows made his slick blond hair look ashen.
Proud broad shoulders that refused to curl inward.
Jonah took up space with the same confidence Ray did, but he wasn't flashy with it.
His energy was undeniable, regardless. He existed in the shadows in a way I related to.
He didn't know how intrinsically I understood his job.
Adelaide was slowly reeling him and Ray in as her seconds.
She needed people she could trust to help keep the city's underworld running smoothly.
"Work is busy. I can return the necklace right now." My hands went to the back of my neck, but I hesitated. Weak.
Jonah's eyes narrowed to slits, and Ray's smile turned sour.
"Do you know how long it took me to convince the big guy to get you matching earrings? He was knee deep in ring selections when I found him." Ray's eyes flashed, and frustration laced his long-lashed gaze.
A ring? My lungs constricted, and I ground my fist into the space between my breasts. My eyes bugged, and Jonah made a hissing noise through his gritted teeth.
"Don't worry, I know we aren't on the same page now. I just wish you had told us you'd chosen Beck."
"Beck?" His name was a high-pitched whine.
I looked over their shoulders, as if my mentor might appear behind them. Clapping his hands at having tricked me. I'd been avoiding him as much as I had Ray and Jonah.