Chapter 31
“Go home, Gray,” I snapped that evening before slamming the passenger door of his truck.
When I heard the sound of his door opening, an irritated breath escaped me as I whirled to face where he was getting out of the truck as well, anger and worry etched across his unreasonably and infuriatingly handsome features.
“We need to talk.”
“We need to talk, Mallory. This isn’t something we can just ignore.”
Pregnant. Two pink lines.
No, no, no. Not right now. Don’t think about that now.
I pushed a condescending sound from my too-tight lungs. “We talked. You just refuse to listen. Go home.”
“Mal—”
“No,” I seethed as I stalked toward him.
“We tried, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why we even did that, because we can’t go five minutes without doing this.
” I gestured between us in emphasis. “We were never meant to last, Gray, so let us be done. Aruba was a mistake. Marrying you was a mistake.”
Pain flared in his pale green eyes as he staggered back a step, but then he was coming closer. Determination written over every inch of him, his voice dripping with an anguished plea as he said, “You don’t mean that.”
“Would you listen to yourself?” I cried out on a frustrated laugh. “I just told you that you refuse to listen. This . . .”—I angrily tossed a hand in his direction—“this is what I mean.”
His jaw tensed with the strain he was putting on it as he gripped at his hair. “Mallory, let’s just go inside and—”
“No,” I said shakily, even as I straightened my spine and lifted my chin. “I know what you want, Gray. I know you want a life together and—” I swallowed thickly as I stopped myself from reaching for my stomach, and watched as his frantic stare dropped there anyway.
No, no.
Force it back. Force it back.
Don’t let yourself go there right now . . .
When I continued, my voice twisted with a soul-deep grief. “And I thought it was something I wanted too. But if today has shown me anything, it’s that you want to hide me away like a princess in a tower. It’s that you don’t respect me or view me as an equal.”
“That isn’t true,” he said through clenched teeth.
“It’s that I’ll never be able to look at you without seeing all the women you paraded in front of me for years,” I added as if he hadn’t spoken, and watched as his shoulders caved, as if that had hurt him worst of all.
Just as Gray’s mouth opened, his chest pitching with wild breaths, his stare snapped to the side and narrowed. “Told you to stay away from my wife,” he sneered.
I took an unsteady step away and looked to the side, where Davis—whatever his true name was—was watching us as if he wasn’t sure how to intervene.
Apprehension and frustration rolled through me and mixed with my building panic over that topic I refused to talk about as I took the briefest second to study this man who had managed to slip into my life, unaware.
But even with what I now knew, everything about him was still so unassuming.
From the way he dressed, that bordered somewhere between nerdy and preppy, to the unsure way he held himself, to the nervousness dancing in his eyes.
“It’s fine, Davis,” I said tightly.
He looked at me before trying to adopt my stance—straightening his spine and lifting his chin—as he faced Gray again. “I believe she told you to go.”
“And I believe I told you to stay away,” Gray said in low warning. “This is a conversation between my wife and me. I’m only gonna give you one more chance to leave.”
“No, this is your last chance,” I corrected Gray, and waited for his green eyes to dart my way. The pleading there tore at me, even if it was just as fake as Davis’ cover.
After all, this was the plan.
It wasn’t a full offensive attack, the way we were used to, but civilians were sure to panic and call the cops if we kicked down doors and started killing their neighbors.
So, whether the Davises knew we were onto them or not, we were drawing them out with their own targets to places where we could take care of them quietly . . . if at all possible.
Sometimes doors just needed to be kicked in.
But my Davis? He liked to play hero when it came to Gray and me, so we were letting him.
However, fake or not, this argument felt far too real for us after the last three months.
“Leave,” I firmly said to my husband. “Do not come back. I’m ending this ridiculous marriage, then I’m leaving—”
“Mallory . . .” Gray rocked closer and reached for me, even when I slammed a hand against his chest to stop him.
“Just stop,” I begged him. “Let me go and leave.”
His eyes searched my face for long seconds—seconds I shouldn’t have allowed—before he whispered, “I don’t know how.”
The grief in his voice made that knot of emotion in my throat so thick, it felt like I was choking, because this was real.
I knew he didn’t want to leave me. I knew he was terrified to let me do this mostly alone.
I knew he wanted to shove Davis into my condo and take care of him together—or, most likely, himself—because we’d argued about it for so long at Shadow, and the entire way here.
Every single time, I’d reminded him that he’d told me I could handle this, and every time, he’d yelled back that I was asking him to let his pregnant wife walk into danger.
Pregnant . . . pregnant. I’m—
No.
I pushed the thought back and lifted my chin higher, donning a cold, expressionless mask as I stepped away from him. “Learn.”
When Gray’s arms fell heavily to his sides, I turned for my condo, noting how Davis slowly came closer. “Should I . . . do you . . . I mean, are you okay?” he asked cautiously. “Do you want me to come in with you, in case he tries to come back?”
Every part of me wanted to say no, but only because the walls behind that door were my safe space. And yet, this was still part of the plan.
“Is he leaving?” I asked under my breath.
A second passed before the sound of a truck door shutting answered for me, but then Davis said, “He . . . I’m not sure. It doesn’t look like he plans to go anywhere.”
I tilted my head just enough to show Davis that I was fine, because I’d never shown Davis anything less. “I can handle myself.”
His head bobbed as he shuffled his weight. “Yeah. I, uh . . . I’ve been told.” He glanced briefly in the direction of Gray’s idling truck. “Still, if you want . . .” He cleared his throat and scratched nervously at his temple, hesitation tugging at his mouth.
This Davis really was good. I wondered if the others were too.
“I know I don’t look like it, but I can handle myself too,” he finally said. “And I know guys like that. They come back.” When I let one of my eyebrows tick up in question, Davis met my stare. “My mom didn’t make the best choices.”
From the chilling darkness that wove into his eyes, I believed him. I also knew in the calm, calculated look that briefly settled over him as he spoke about his mom that he truly wasn’t just my awkward, too-nice neighbor.
I made a show of glancing over my shoulder just enough to see Gray’s truck reversing out of the spot before studying my door.
“Hey, are you going to be okay?”
No, because I could still feel Gray’s true hesitation and worry clinging to me. I could still hear his plea in my ears.
I wasn’t going to be okay because I was—no!
Stop thinking about it. Stop—just . . . force it back, Mallory.
Funny. That had always been so much easier to do.
“Of course,” I finally muttered to Davis just as I managed to open the door. With another quick glance over my shoulder to make sure Gray’s truck was already out of sight, I added, “You can come in.”
We hadn’t been inside my condo for a full five seconds before I knew something was wrong.
It wasn’t the near-silent sound of my deadbolt sliding home as Davis shut the door, as if he hadn’t wanted me to know he was locking the door behind us.
It wasn’t the way every part of me instinctively wanted to stop him from taking in the walls when he let out a low whistle and said, “Wow, did you do all this?” It was the feeling like I’d missed something.
Heavy. Suffocating. Wrong.
Lifting the hair on the back of my neck and sending an ominous chill down my spine that had me aching to reach for my loaded gun, but I forced my hands to remain at my sides and kept my steps casual.
Until I faltered over one as mine and Gray’s conversation that afternoon came rushing back to me.
“David home?” he asked softly, suspicion wrapping around the short question.
“Davis,” I shot back in frustration, sure he was trying to get a rise out of me. But even still, I looked around the parking lot for Davis’ car when I noticed his designated parking space was empty. “Why?”
A few beats of silence passed as Gray continued staring at the condo next to mine, as if expecting the man in question to appear. “Thought one of the slats on his blinds was lifted.”
Not something, I realized as the weighted silence pressed harder and harder against my chest. Someone.
We hadn’t known about the Davis Shaws at that time, but we’d known about the new, blended family. We’d known about the club. We’d known about Tessa . . .
It wasn’t a stretch to think they’d send an extra person to be lying in wait. And now I had a feeling that person was in my condo.
I tilted my head as I tried listening for anyone else, but Davis’ awkward and too-polite ramble about my walls was distracting me from focusing on anything other than him and the deafening silence filling my condo.
And I was supposed to be doing something.
Subdue Davis. Let Gray in. The other person . . . no, wait to let Gray in. Two pink lines—
Mallory, focus!
Horror surged through my veins when I realized I was just standing there with the tips of my fingers lightly pressed to my stomach, instead of doing any of the things I was supposed to. Like subduing the guy I could still hear talking.