37. Samson
SAMSON
The second the figure runs, I move.
Gravel tears under my boots as I cut across the area, the cold air slicing into my lungs. The bastard is fast, but not fast enough. Hood up. Dark jacket. Lean build. He knows the marina well enough to take the narrow path between the stacked pallets and the maintenance shed without breaking stride.
He’s been here before.
That matters.
I hear Delaney behind me for half a second.
Then I don’t.
Good.
She’s safer back at the dock.
The runner cuts left toward the fenced service lane and then slips through the gap at the far end where the chain link never got fixed right. I clear it a second later, my shoulder clipping metal hard enough to rip into the leather of my jacket.
He glances back.
That’s his mistake.
I see enough.
Male. Mid-thirties maybe. Beard or shadow. Eyes wide.
He knows exactly who’s chasing him.
I put on speed.
He darts toward the rear of the marina office, tries to angle for the road, but then changes his mind when he realizes I’m going to cut him off.
He veers right instead, toward the rows of dry-stacked boats and the narrow spaces between them. Plenty of places to hide if I were farther back.
I’m not.
He knocks over a crate as he runs. It splinters against the concrete and tools scatter. A wrench skids under my boot. I keep going.
“Stop!” I bark.
He doesn’t.
I gain another few feet.
Then I hear it.
Not him.
Her.
She’s right behind me. Running. Damn, she’s fast.
I don’t look back. Can’t. Won’t. If I take my eyes off him now, I lose him.
“Delaney, stop!” I snap, hoping my voice carries behind me.
She doesn’t.
The runner hears her too. He risks another look over his shoulder. He pushes harder.
He lunges through the last gap between two boats, hits the open concrete behind the service garage, and slips on water. Maybe oil. Doesn’t matter which.
I’m on him before he can recover.
I hit him low and hard, driving my shoulder into his middle and slamming him into the side of the garage. He grunts and catches my ribs with his elbow. I barely feel it.
I pin his wrist, wrench it up behind his back, and shove him face-first into the wall. “Who sent you?”
He thrashes.
I twist harder. “Who sent you?” I repeat.
He sneers through split lips. “Fuck you.”
I slam him once more into the metal. The sound rings out sharp and ugly.
“Samson—” Delaney’s voice.
“Stay back.”
The runner spits blood onto the concrete and tries to twist free.
I shove him harder.
“Watch him,” he snarls, not to me.
To her.
Or about her.
Doesn’t matter.
I tighten my grip. “What were you doing at her building?”
He laughs.
Actual laughter.
“You’re late,” he says.
Something cold moves through me. “Late for what?”
He shakes his head against the metal. “You don’t even know what you broke.”
That hits me low in the gut. Not because I understand it. But because I don’t.
I glance once toward Delaney.
She’s standing a few yards back, her chest rising and falling too fast, hair whipped loose by the wind, her gaze locked on the man under my hand. She should look scared.
She doesn’t.
She looks furious. Beautiful and furious.
Mine.
The thought comes hard and immediate.
I hate it.
I don’t hate it enough.
“Who sent you?” she asks, voice sharp.
The man laughs again and then coughs. “Should’ve stayed away, sweetheart.”
I drive my forearm harder into his spine. “What the fuck does that mean?”
He groans, but there’s something ugly and satisfied in it. “She doesn’t even know, does she?”
Rage curls at the back of my neck. “You don’t get to say another word until you answer me.”
He turns his head as much as my hold allows, just enough to show me the corner of his mouth. He’s smiling. Fucking smiling.
“You want names?” he says. “Ask the lawyer.”
“Which lawyer?” I demand.
He just laughs again.
I drag him backward by the arm and spin him hard enough to face me. His hood falls back. Younger than I thought. Thirty, maybe. A scar along his jaw.
I know the type. He’s not a mastermind. He’s a messenger.
He looks past me and then drives his knee up into my thigh, rips his wrist half free, and swings something silver from his pocket.
A knife. Fuck.
I catch his wrist before he gets the blade up all the way, slam it into the wall once, twice, until his fingers loosen. The knife clatters to the ground.
He goes for my eyes with his free hand.
I block, punch him once in the gut, once in the face, and he drops hard onto one knee.
“Samson!” Delaney again.
The bastard sees her and moves.
Not at me.
At her.
That’s his last mistake.
I hit him before he gets two steps, catch him by the back of the jacket, and throw him into the side of a fuel drum. He crashes into it with a hollow bang, loses balance, and goes down hard.
He scrambles anyway.
I grab the front of his coat and haul him up. “Which lawyer?”
Blood runs from his mouth. He smiles again. Then he jerks sideways, slips out of the coat entirely, and runs.
For half a second, I consider going after him.
Then I look at Delaney.
No.
Not worth it.
Not with her standing here in the open and my blood up enough to kill a man.
I let him go. For now. He disappears between the storage units and the dark beyond them.
Delaney steps closer. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” It comes out rougher than I intend.
She looks down at my right hand. My knuckles are split, and blood is dripping over my ring. But not all of it is mine.
She reaches for me before I think to stop her, closing her fingers around my wrist.
“I said I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
I should pull away.
I don’t.
The wind hits us again, harder this time. She doesn’t loosen the grip on my wrist.
“I told you to stay back,” I say.
She doesn’t reply. Simply looks down once more at the blood on my hand. Then back up.
“I think you know by now that I don’t do well with orders,” she says quietly.
“You shouldn’t have followed me.”
She lifts her chin. “And you shouldn’t have gone alone.”
I almost laugh.
Almost.
Instead I step in.
Her hand is still on my wrist. Her pulse is jumping in her throat.
It’s not fear.
Never fear.
It’s the same dangerous awareness from the house.
From the dock.
From the locked door.
“What he said,” she asks, voice lower now, “about the lawyer. What does that mean?”
“It means he wanted us looking in the wrong direction.”
“Us?”
“Yes,” I say.
Her fingers tighten slightly. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” I admit. “I don’t.”
“Do you have a lawyer in mind?”
I think of Nathaniel immediately.
Nate, with his clean hands and sharper lies. Nate, who could bury a body in contracts and call it following the law.
But no.
Not yet.
I’m not giving that thought air until I know it deserves it. Nate may be merciless, but he’s still my brother.
“Not enough to say,” I tell her, but I already know that won’t satisfy her.
“He said ask the lawyer. Not a lawyer. The lawyer.”
“I heard him.”
“And?”
“And we don’t move the word of some asshole who’s clearly just a messenger.”
Her eyes flash. “Easy for you to say.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you can decide what to hold back.” Her voice stays even, but just barely. “You can decide which parts matter and which parts wait. I can’t.”
Because I killed a man and she’s hunting a truth.
“You’ll wait,” I say.
She drops her hand from my wrist. “There’s that thing you do.”
“What?”
“Act like this is still something you can command.” She exhales sharply. “Like if you lower your voice and make enough rules, I’ll fall in line. Everything will fall in line.”
I shake my head. “You think this is the time to discuss all that? Here? At the marina?”
“I think this is exactly the time.”
Wind tears through the space between us, but neither of us moves.
My blood is still hot from the chase. Hers is too. I can feel it. Smell it. See it in the color high on her cheeks.
“He knew something,” she says. “He knew enough to come watch us. Enough to run. Enough to point at a lawyer.”
“And he also came with a knife.”
“Which means we pushed the right place.”
I step closer. Now we’re almost touching again.
“Which means,” I say quietly, “you don’t decide to chase men because you’re angry.”
“I wasn’t angry.”
That’s a lie. “You were furious.”
“So were you.”
I don’t deny it.
I can’t.
She drops her gaze to my mouth.
A mistake.
I should end this.
Take her back to the car. Get her inside. Lock it down. Keep her safe.
Instead I say, “When I tell you to stay back, you stay back.”
She looks up again. “Or what?”
I lift my hand and grab her around the neck. Again. “Or I stop you.”
Her eyes darken. “Maybe I don’t want you to.”
Jesus.
She’s killing me.
Forbidden fruit.
That’s what this is. Not sweet. Not innocent. Something you know will cost you the second you touch it and wanting it anyway.
Delaney is the woman who shows me where my strength fails.
I drop my hand.
Now.
Before I forget why I have to.
“We’re done here,” I say.
“No, we’re not.”
I look at her.
Really look at her.
Hair windblown. Mouth still slightly parted. Eyes too steely. Standing in the middle of danger like she was made to meet it head-on.
God help me, she’s magnificent.
“We are for now,” I say.
Her expression hardens. “You don’t get to dismiss me.”
“This isn’t dismissal.”
“What is it, then?”
I step past her but then stop, turn, and keep my mouth close to her ear as I whisper, “Survival.”
Then I walk.
She follows.
By the time we reach the car, the marina is behind us, but the energy isn’t. It’s in my hands, my chest, the space between us. In the question hanging over everything now.
The lawyer.
I open the passenger door for her. She doesn’t get in right away.
“Tell me one thing,” she says.
I wait.
“If you had to guess,” she says, “who would he mean?”
Nathaniel.
The dock. The open access. The body. The cover-up.
My brother’s steady voice telling me what mattered and what didn’t.
I meet her gaze. “I don’t guess.” Then I lean down, one hand braced on the top of the door, caging her in without touching. “But I know where we go next.”
“Where?”
“To someone who cleans up messes for a living.” I open the car door. “Get in.”