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He nodded and took a step inside the shed. “She does.”
I was confused now. He closed the door behind him. The only light came from the windows around the top. His gaze stayed on me as he moved closer to me. I took a step back. There was too much I didn’t know about him. What I did know should have been enough for me not to get in a relationship with him, but I’d lost my mind and my soul, it seemed.
“Don’t move away from me,” he warned.
“I’m not giving you this file.”
He cocked one eyebrow. “If I wanted it, you would,” he drawled.
He didn’t want it? Okay, was this something else? This was not the time for sex. I was all kinds of messed up in my head about things.
“You don’t need those papers,” he said as he stopped in front of me.
I swallowed hard. “Yes, I do.”
He lifted his hand, and I flinched, moving the file behind my back. When he ran his knuckles down my cheek, his eyes slowly drifted over my face.
“My gorgeous little siren,” he said in a husky whisper. “Sneaking around, looking for things.”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but what did I say? He was right. I had been.
When his eyes finally locked on mine, he tilted his head to one side. “Do you not trust me?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know,” I admitted.
Hurt flickered in his gaze, and dammit if I didn’t feel guilty. He didn’t deserve my trust. I had to remember that. Not feel bad that I’d said it.
“I’d move heaven and earth for you. Yet you don’t trust me.”
He was good at this, but I was holding a reason in my hand as proof as to why I shouldn’t trust him.
“Well, you were keeping papers from me that I desperately wanted,” I pointed out.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Yeah. But I had a good reason. You should have trusted me.”
I stiffened, but I kept my mouth shut. I was not throwing Bash under the literal bus. I couldn’t tell him I knew he’d lied to me about other things.
“I’d do anything to make you happy. Anything,” he said, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear.
“But these papers would make me happy.”
A brief frown touched his forehead. “Not really. Dovie would have to become someone else. Lose her name. Change her hair color, wear colored contacts. Always live with the fear that her mother might find her. That wouldn’t have truly made you happy.”
Okay, sure, it wasn’t perfect, but it was all we had.
“It is the only way.”
He shook his head as he continued caressing different spots along my face, my neck, wrapping a strand of hair around his finger, then bringing it to his nose to smell it. “Not the only way.”
“What other way is there?” I asked him, frustrated with myself for wanting to lean into his touch.
“You having custody of Dovie.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, in a perfect world.”
His eyes swung back to mine from where he’d been studying my ear as he ran his fingertip along it. “Didn’t I tell you that I’d give you all your dreams? You just need to trust me.”
There he was with the damn trust word again.
“You can’t get me custody of Dovie, Storm. That would mean letting Netta know I have her, and I can promise you, she would have my ass thrown in jail so fast. Not even the Mafia could keep me out.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Eh. The family kept Thatcher out of prison for snapping a guy’s neck when he was nineteen. We’d be able to keep you from jail too. But it won’t ever come to that.”
My eyes widened. I believed him, but I wasn’t going to test it. I was only important to Storm. The rest of the family didn’t care. Well, Maeme. She would care.
“I don’t think I want to test that.”
He ran the pad of his thumb over my lower lip. “You won’t have to. A dead woman can’t put you in prison.”
I gasped and grabbed Storm’s wrist. “You are not going to kill Netta, Storm Kingston. I am serious. I’ve got all the blood on my hands I will ever need.”
“Netta had a fall almost a month ago. It was down a very long flight of stairs. She was tripping on meth when it happened. She didn’t make it,” he told me as if it were a sad story he’d heard on the news. Almost as if he was detached from the situation.
Had he caused the fall? No. He’d said he didn’t kill her. But then he was known to lie.
“She’s dead.” I said the words aloud, trying to wrap my brain around it.
He nodded.
“How long have you known?”
His eyes met mine again. “Since shortly after it happened.”
