Chapter Eight #3
Another rumble of thunder shook the windows.
The rain fell in sheets now, a solid wall of water visible through the glass.
I could barely make out the shapes of people running for cover on the sidewalk outside.
My body wouldn’t stop trembling. I felt like I might shake apart, come undone completely right there in the middle of the café with everyone here to witness.
Marcus’ hand tightened around mine, trying to still the violent shaking, but it was useless. I was coming apart at the seams.
“There’s more,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “They gave me three. I only planted one. The others --”
My purse, which had been balanced precariously on the edge of the table, chose that moment to slide off.
It hit the floor with a soft thud, the contents spilling across the worn wooden planks.
Rolling out like an accusation, two small objects that looked innocent enough to anyone else but unmistakable to Marcus. The remaining listening devices.
Time seemed to stop. The café noise receded to a distant hum.
I watched Marcus’ gaze lock onto the tiny betrayals lying exposed on the floor between us.
His expression didn’t change. Not a flicker of surprise, not a flash of anger.
Instead, a stillness came over him more frightening than any rage could have been.
The kind of stillness preceding violence in nature.
Slowly, with deliberate movements reminding me of a predator trying not to startle its prey, Marcus released my hand and bent down.
He gathered my scattered belongings, carefully setting each item on the table between us.
Then, with the same measured control, he picked up one of the listening devices between his thumb and forefinger, straightening to examine it in the light.
Around us, the café continued its normal rhythm.
The barista called out drink orders. The college students laughed at something on a phone screen.
The musician switched to a new song, something with a faster tempo, clashing with the frozen moment at our table.
None of them noticed the crisis unfolding in their midst.
Marcus turned the small device over in his fingers, his dark eyes assessing it with clinical detachment.
“Knight said these were expensive,” he said, his voice so quiet I had to strain to hear it over the ambient noise and the blood rushing in my ears.
His gaze shifted from the bug to my face, his expression unreadable.
“Makes sense Reeves would have access to them.”
I remained frozen, unable to move or speak, waiting for his anger, his disgust, his rejection.
My heart hammered so loudly in my chest I was certain he could hear it across the table.
Outside, the storm reached a crescendo. Rain pelted the windows with such force it sounded like hail.
Lightning flashed again, closer this time, casting stark shadows across Marcus’s face, highlighting the scar I’d once traced in a gentle exploration.
Thunder followed almost immediately, the crash so loud several café patrons jumped in their seats.
Marcus set the device on the table beside my other belongings, then bent again to retrieve the second bug.
This one he placed beside the first. I waited, breath caught in my lungs, for his judgment.
For him to walk away. For him to expose me to everyone in the café as the traitor I was.
For something, anything, to break the terrible, weighted silence between us.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low, measured, betraying none of the emotions that must have been churning beneath his controlled exterior.
“Reeves has been after me since I got out,” he said.
“This isn’t about the club. It’s personal.
If Reeves has been watching us all this time, then my interest in you has put you in his crosshairs. ”
I blinked, struggling to process his words through the fog of fear clouding my thoughts. “What?”
“His son,” Marcus said, still not looking at me, his eyes fixed on the listening devices.
I wondered briefly if they were active and Reeves was listening to everything we said.
Marcus would know and would assume he was listening so, I guess, fuck it.
It wasn’t like Reeves and Mercer weren’t going to figure out I hadn’t done what they’d asked.
I was at their mercy no matter how I looked at it.
“The man I killed. The one who murdered Sarah.” He picked up one of the bugs again, rolling it between his fingers contemplatively.
“He was Kurt Reeves Jr. Detective Reeves’s only child. ”
The revelation hit me with physical force, driving what little air remained from my lungs. Suddenly, Reeves’ fixation, his willingness to fabricate evidence, his determination to use me against the club, all of it made a terrible kind of sense.
“He’s using you to get to me,” Marcus said, finally raising his eyes to meet mine. “And I led him right to you.”
The guilt in his voice, the self-recrimination in his eyes, wasn’t what I’d expected. I’d brought danger to his door, betrayed his trust, planted a listening device in his home, and somehow he was taking the blame?
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the words hopelessly inadequate. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
Marcus swept the bugs into his palm and closed his fingers around them. His expression shifted, hardened into something resolute and dangerous. “You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “I’ll handle Reeves.”
The calm certainty in his voice sent a chill down my spine. “What are you going to do?”
Marcus slipped the bugs into his pocket, then reached across the table to brush a tear from my cheek that I hadn’t realized was there.
His touch was gentle despite the lethal promise in his eyes.
“This time, I’m going to protect what’s mine,” he said simply.
“And then I’m going to make sure Detective Reeves never threatens you again. ”
The storm raged on outside, matching the intensity of what passed between us in that moment. Fear and relief and something deeper, something I wasn’t prepared to name yet, hummed in the air between us.
And despite everything, the danger, the uncertainty, the knowledge that things would likely get worse before they got better, I found myself believing him.