Chapter 11 #2
“Is it? You’re both willing to compromise your principles to avoid consequences you can’t accept.” George’s gaze moved to Joe. “What about you, writer? How far would you go to get a story that would make your career? How many people would you betray for a byline in a major publication?”
“I wouldn’t betray anyone,” Joe said, but his voice lacked conviction.
“No? Not even if it meant getting out of this little town, getting back to the big leagues where you belong?”
“I chose to move to Irma.”
“Did you? Chose or were forced? Didn’t you burn one too many bridges on the West Coast?”
“What are you talking about? How do you know anything about me?”
George chuckled. “You think this is the first time I’ve seen your little running group?
How do you think I’ve been getting the information?
At first, I didn’t put it together. I was told when and where to pick up the information.
During the dead of winter, I simply found the drive and went on my way. ”
He shifted his gaze to Kelsey. “But as the weather improved, I started showing up earlier, staying later. Eventually, I realized the drops were happening in the same area as a group of runners always managed to be.”
Gina’s head snapped toward Kelsey. “You’ve been using the running club for your illegal drops?”
“You don’t understand— ”
“Oh, I think I do. I understand you made a choice that put all of us in danger. Why in the world would you even think about using Bearwater for this? Why not stick with drops at home?”
Kelsey shook her head. “I wanted to make them work for it. They keep asking more and more of me. It’s getting too dangerous. I told them this was the last time—and it is. But I decided they’d do what I wanted for a change. It was revenge, I guess.”
George laughed again. “Revenge? That’s rich. As I said, I didn’t know who in the running club was the mole, so I investigated each of you.”
He turned to Brooke. “I know all about your coffee shop and how you borrowed from not only the bank but private investors to get the funding. Investors who are just as shady as the people I work for, so you seemed like a logical candidate.”
His gaze shifted to Joe. “I know all about you and the trouble at your old job. How you scooped the wrong person and ended up being an outcast.”
George was systematically attacking each person’s vulnerabilities, and Gina could see it working. The trust that had held their group together was cracking under the weight of his psychological manipulation.
“And you, Nick?” George continued. “You’re new to this little club, aren’t you?
I’ve never seen you with them before, but I can tell you’re a man with nothing to lose and nowhere to go.
What wouldn’t you do for a chance at stability?
A real job, a real life, maybe even a real relationship with someone like Gina here? ”
Gina felt her chest tighten as George’s words hit home. Nick was exactly what George described.
“What are you saying?” Nick asked.
“I’m saying that everyone has a price. Everyone has something they want badly enough to compromise their precious moral standards.” George’s smile was predatory. “Kelsey’s price was avoiding public humiliation and keeping a career she’d worked hard for. What’s yours?”
The question hung in the air, and Gina studied Nick’s face, looking for any sign that George might be right about him too.
“Well?” George pressed. “What’s your price, Nick?”
“I don’t have one,” Nick said firmly.
“Everyone has one.”
“Not me.”
George laughed. “Right. The noble drifter with nothing to lose. Very romantic.” His gaze shifted to Gina. “What do you think? You believe him?”
The rational part of her brain screamed the answer. Nick had shown up when it mattered. Had made good decisions under pressure. Had protected her, worked with her, kissed her like she was something precious.
But Kelsey had seemed trustworthy too. A true friend. And Kelsey had been lying to all of them for six months.
She’d kissed Nick. Hours ago, outside by the vehicles, she’d made a choice. Had let herself feel something she’d sworn she wouldn’t feel again. Had started to need someone, which was infinitely more dangerous than simply trusting them.
Trust could be rebuilt. Need was a weakness that never went away.
Her mother had needed her father like that, had built her whole identity around him being there. And when he left, she’d shattered into so many pieces that twelve-year-old Gina had spent the next six years trying to glue them back together.
Gina had sworn she’d never need anyone that way, would never give another person the power to destroy her by leaving.
And here she was, one day in, and already feeling the hooks of need settling into her chest. Already starting to plan around him, wondering about him, needing to know he was okay.
How well did she really know Nick? If Kelsey could betray them after two years of friendship, what did that say about trusting Nick after one day? A man who might leave tomorrow because that’s what men like him did. They left. They always left.
The answer should’ve been easy. Yes. Of course, yes. She’d felt his integrity in every action today, tasted it in his kiss, seen it in the way he took care of people without needing credit.
But saying yes meant admitting she needed him. Meant giving him the power to hurt her. Meant risking everything she’d built to protect herself.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly.
The words seemed to hit Nick like a physical blow. His face went pale, and she saw something die in his eyes. Not anger. Worse—understanding, like he’d been waiting for this, expecting it.
“Gina,” he said, and the way he said her name made her chest ache.
She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t stand there and watch him look at her like she was ruining something. So she did what she always did when things got too complicated, too real.
She stepped back and put distance between them.
“I don’t know you,” she repeated and heard her voice go cold, clinical. The nurse voice. The one that kept everything at arm’s length. “We met this morning. One day, Nick. That’s all this is. One day of crisis that made everything feel more intense than it actually was.”
“You don’t believe that.” His voice was quiet but certain.
He was right. She didn’t believe it. But she needed it to be true, needed the kiss to be just adrenaline, needed whatever was building between them to be situational instead of real.
Because if it were real, she was already in too deep to survive him leaving.
“I don’t know you,” she said again, stepping farther away. “I don’t know any of you. Apparently, I don’t know anything.”
The betrayal she felt wasn’t just about Kelsey anymore. It was about her own stupidity, her willingness to trust and care and hope when she should’ve known better. When she did know better.
And it was about the terror of how much she had already started to need him, how the thought of him leaving made her chest tight and her breathing shallow and her carefully controlled life feel suddenly, desperately insufficient.
George was right about one thing: everyone had a price. And apparently, hers was the fantasy that she could let someone in without getting destroyed when they left.
She couldn’t look at Nick’s face, couldn’t see what her words had done to him. Because if she looked, she might take it back, might admit that pushing him away hurt worse than any betrayal Kelsey could’ve managed.
She might admit that she was terrified, not because she didn’t trust Nick, but because she was already starting to need him. And need was the one thing she’d sworn she’d never feel again.