Page 287 of Power Play

The cold struck my wet face as I ran toward my car.

Ryan couldn’t be gone yet. His apartment was twenty minutes away, and he had left only minutes before me. If I drove fast enough, I could catch him.

I could explain that I had frozen. I could tell him my silence didn’t mean he mattered less than my father. I would say every word I should have said inside the study, and once Ryan heard them, he would understand.

He had to understand.

I fumbled the key twice before getting the car started. My tires spun against the thin layer of ice before catching, and I backed out so quickly that the rear of the car fishtailed toward the stone wall lining the driveway.

My mother appeared beneath the porch light. My father stood several feet behind her with one hand braced against the open door.

I drove away without looking back.

I called Ryan before reaching the gates. The call rang once before dropping into voicemail. I ended it and called again, only to hear his recorded voice.

“Please answer,” I whispered.

The streets blurred around me as I drove. I kept one hand clamped around the steering wheel while the other held my phone, calling him repeatedly until the sound of his voice became another form of torture.

He didn’t answer.

My thoughts raced faster than the car as I rehearsed everything I would tell him once I reached the apartment. Ryan was my person, and I loved him. I wasn’t ashamed of him. I would stand in front of my father and say it until Lance finally understood that Ryan belonged in my life because I had chosen him.

The words sounded so easy now.

They had been easy in the driveway too, once Ryan was no longer standing in front of me asking for them.

His truck sat crooked in its usual space when I pulled into the apartment complex. Relief struck so violently that my vision blackened around the edges. I barely managed to park before climbing out and running toward the stairs.

He was still here. I hadn’t lost him yet.

My boots struck the metal steps too loudly as I climbed. The cold railing burned beneath my palm, but I used it to drag myself faster, taking the final steps so recklessly that I stumbled onto the landing.

Ryan’s apartment door was open.

He stood inside with his back to me, shoving clothes into the black duffel stretched across the couch. His suit jacket was gone. The sleeves of his white dress shirt were rolled above his forearms, his tie hung loose around his neck, and the tattoos I had watched my family judge shifted across his skin as he ripped open a drawer and dragged everything inside it into the bag.

“Ryan.”

He stopped.

For one hopeful second, I believed hearing my voice had reached him. His shoulders lifted beneath a slow breath, and I stepped across the threshold before he turned around.

The man who looked at me wasn’t my Ryan.

His eyes were red-rimmed, and his jaw was locked so tightly that the muscles jumped beneath his skin. The fury I expected remained, but it had gone cold. Every warm and complicated thing I knew how to find inside his expression had disappeared behind something lethal.

This was El Cuchillo, the man whose nickname people lowered their voices to say after watching him fight or drive someone into the boards. This was the kid who had survived foster homes, slept wherever he could find shelter, and learned that being harder than everyone around him was sometimes the only way to stay alive.

“Get out.”

His voice was so quiet that I almost convinced myself I’d heard him wrong.

“Ryan, please let me explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain.”

“There is.” I stepped closer. “I froze. I know that doesn’t make it okay, but everything happened so quickly, and my father knew exactly what he was doing. He knew if he kept pushing—”