13. Samson
SAMSON
I watch her come out of the municipal records building just after four the next day.
She doesn’t linger on the steps. Doesn’t check her phone.
I stay where I am across the street, one shoulder against a building, and watch her walk briskly, a brown messenger bag slung across her body. She cuts toward the subway entrance on the corner.
I push off the wall and cross the street. She’s halfway down the stairs when I catch up.
The station air is warmer than the street and smells like something I don’t ever want to smell again. When was the last time I was on the subway? Seems like forever, though it was probably only a few months ago. We Vexleys use the subway when it works for us.
A train screams somewhere below. She hears me before I say anything. I know because her shoulders shift, just slightly.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she says dryly.
“You don’t know when to stop,” I say.
She keeps walking. “Neither do you.”
I fall into step beside her as we descend the stairs and reach the platform. It’s not empty—it never is—but rush hour hasn’t quite started yet.
Delaney moves farther down the platform. I go with her.
“You went digging again,” I say.
She finally turns her head to look at me. “And you followed me again.”
“Yes.” No point lying.
She lifts an eyebrow. “You don’t get to do that.”
“I do what I want. Especially when you’re making a mistake.”
“Do you ever make mistakes, Samson?”
“No.”
That’s a fucking lie, and I’m pretty sure she knows it because she stops walking.
So do I.
Now we’re standing near a tiled pillar halfway down the platform, far enough from the others to have a bit of privacy but not enough for anything to look unusual from a distance.
She faces me. “Are you going to tell me what you were really doing at the marina last night?”
“Watching you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I smirk. “It’s the only one you’re getting.”
She lifts her chin. “I don’t believe that.”
I take one step closer. Not enough to trap her but enough to make her feel how large I am. How, with one strike, I could end her.
“You’re following a trail now,” I say. “You’re not just asking questions.”
“What trail?” she asks.
“The one that took you into that municipal building.” I drop my gaze briefly to the strap of her bag.
“Locks don’t get replaced for no reason,” she says, and I can’t quite tell if she’s speaking to me or herself.
I don’t reply.
A train barrels through on the opposite side, roaring past. Wind blasts across the platform hard enough to snap her coat against her legs. Her hair lifts again and dark strands whip across her cheek before falling back into place. She doesn’t move to fix it. She just stands there looking at me.
“Tell me where I’m supposed to be looking,” she says.
I place my hands on her shoulders. “Level with me. Why? Why are you pulling at this fifteen-year-old thread?”
“Victor Halstead didn’t go over that railing because of rain,” she says.
I don’t confirm it. I don’t deny it.
“The weather mattered less than the timing,” I say.
She wriggles out of my grasp. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re asking the wrong questions.”
She steps closer. “Then ask me the right one.”
A station announcement crackles overhead, garbled and mostly useless.
Neither of us moves.
I can smell her perfume under the grit of the station—something clean and citrusy with a darker note under it. Patchouli, maybe. I don’t like that I notice.
I like even less that I want to lean in and sniff the curve of her throat.
The train headlights appear in the tunnel. She glances toward them and then back at me.
The train pulls in with a shriek. Doors slide open. People step off. People step on.
Delaney moves toward the nearest open set of doors. I go with her.
Inside, the car is crowded enough to make distance impossible but not enough to swallow us whole. She ends up near the center doors and reaches for the vertical pole as the train lurches back into motion. I step in close and grab her arm before the shifting car can throw her off balance.
Her back is close to the pole now. Not pinned. But there’s nowhere for her to go that doesn’t involve moving through me.
“You don’t get to corner me because you know something,” she says.
I exhale sharply. “You think I’m cornering you?”
“Aren’t you?”
The train rocks hard over a turn. Her body shifts toward mine for half a second. The contact is brief.
It still lands. Still makes me want what I can’t have.
Strike that.
What I won’t let myself have. I can have anything I fucking want. I can take her right now in this crowded subway car, and no one would dare say a thing.
“Delaney,” I say, “you have no idea what you’re standing next to.”
“Then tell me.” She licks her lower lip.
Fuck. That small movement almost undoes me.
I tighten my grip on her arm enough to make my point.
“Something was opened that night,” she says. “Or something was sealed.”
Damn. This woman isn’t just smart. She’s cunning.
“You already know that,” I say. “Interesting. You’re a talented researcher. You just don’t know which it was.”
“And you do?”
“Yes.”
“Then why not tell me?” she asks.
Because once I do, there’s no way back for either of us.
Because if you see the whole shape of that night, you see me in it.
Because I’m already standing too close to you for a man who should be keeping his distance.
I don’t say any of that.
Instead I look at her mouth.
I shouldn’t.
But I do.
The train slows for the next stop. Bodies shift around us. A man brushes past my shoulder on his way to the door. Somewhere farther down the car a child whines. The world keeps moving.
This moment doesn’t.
“You’re not asking the right questions,” I say.
“Then stop answering the wrong ones.”
That should irritate me. Instead it does something far less useful.
I lean in. Not too quickly. Deliberately enough to give her time to turn her face away.
She doesn’t.
Her breath catches once. She tightens her fingers around the pole.
Then I’m there.
My mouth on hers.
Her lips part under mine just enough to let violent heat flash through me.
I deepen the kiss a fraction.
Only a fraction.
Enough to feel her answer. Enough to know exactly how bad an idea this is. Enough to know I don’t want to stop. Not now. Not ever.
I force myself to pull back.
Abruptly.
I have to. Because I was about to scrape her tonsils with my tongue and I know she’d have let me.
Fuck…
I look into her eyes. They’re wide, but not with innocence and not with surprise.
They’re wide with need.
I finally let go of her arm. If I continue to touch her, I’ll…
Fuck.
The space between us is only a few inches now, but after that kiss it feels unstable. Charged. Wrong in a way I can’t afford.
The train doors open. “This is your stop,” I say.
She doesn’t move immediately.
Neither do I.
Then she steps around me and onto the platform. I follow her out before the doors can close.
She turns fast. “Are you going to keep doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Following me.”
“Until you stop chasing this.”
Her laugh is soft and humorless. “That’s not going to happen.”
“I know.”
The platform is less crowded here. White tile, old advertisements, fluorescent light that turns everyone a little paler than they are.
She looks anything but pale.
“What happened to Halstead?” she asks.
Finally.
She admits what she’s after. I already knew, but having her say it gives it a true finality.
The past is coming back to haunt my father. My brothers.
And me.
I hold her gaze. “You’re closer than you think,” I say.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
“For now?” Her voice is quiet. Almost intimate.
I take one step toward her. “Forever,” I say.
Then I turn and walk toward the stairs before I do something wildly stupid like kiss her again. I make it halfway to the street before my phone is in my hand.
“Status,” I say when the line connects.
“We’re still working on the second vehicle from last night.”
“Find it.”
A pause. “We will.”
I end the call and keep moving.
Delaney Cross thinks she’s looking for answers about Victor Halstead.
She is.
What she doesn’t understand yet is that the answer she’s moving toward isn’t a fact.
It’s a door.
And if she gets it open—
There’s no version of this where either of us walks away unchanged.