Page 150 of The Rust in Her Hair

Whatever Crispin wants, I’ll handle it. Alone.

"I was surprised, frankly," Crispin goes on, conversationally, "to watch you leave that party with Lyra. All of you. One big happy group." He tugs at the edge of his cuff. "I keep turning it over."

"Lyra's mated to a relative of mine," I say simply. "We carpooled. That’s all."

"Carpooled?" Crispin snorts, then his eyes narrow. "Which one?"

I frown. "Which one…what?"

"Which relative?"

"Adrian," I say my mate’s name. "Adrian Bennett."

Crispin leans forward, elbows on his knees, and his voice sharpens to a point. "And how, exactly, are you and Adrian Bennett related?"

My mind goes blank.

Because it would take exactly two minutes for Crispin to check my family tree, and see that there’s no Adrian Bennett anywhere on it. Anything I say now is a rope he can hang me with later.

I swallow, trying to hide it as a sigh. "What can I help you with, Mr. Maleth?"

Crispin stares at me, completely still, then the corner of his bruised mouth twitches like he's pleased I didn't answer.

Then his gaze drifts across my desk and stops on the framed photo beside my monitor. He reaches over and picks it up without asking, turning it toward the light.

It's an old one. The four of us on the dock up at the lake, shirtless and sunburned, Nico in the middle with his arms slung around Adrian and Mack, all of us squinting and laughing at whoever held the camera. Just four men on a summer afternoon.

Nothing in it a stranger could read too much into…I hope.

Crispin studies it a long moment anyway.

"Handsome group." He sets the frame back down on my desk, but not where it was. He turns it a few degrees so it faces his chair instead of mine. "You all look very close."

A cold knot of dread tightens in my stomach. He knows. He has to know. Every instinct screams at me to keep my mouth shut, to not give him anything else.

"I want to talk to Bennett," he finally says.

I frown then shake my head. "I'm not sure how I'd get ahold of him right now," I say carefully.

"Bullshit," he says simply. "I know exactly where you live, Dr. Cruz. You share a house with your husband and two other alphas, including Adrian Bennett. And now, it seems, an omega." He tips his head. "That's an awful lot of people for a two-bedroom house on the edge of town. Don't you think?"

My heart is slamming so hard I'm sure he can see it moving my shirt.

Crispin settles back in the chair like we have all afternoon.

"You want to know the part that eats at me?" He tips his head, studying me from the side. "I saw it. That night at the gala. I saw the way you looked at Lyra when you thought no one was watching." His bruised mouth pulls tight. "Like she was already yours. Like you'd made up your mind about her."

I keep my face still and say nothing, because there is nothing safe to say.

"I told Aldric to point that investigator at you first." A short breath pushes out through his nose. "He wouldn't hear it. A soft little library beta, sniffing after his daughter? He was insulted I'd even suggest she'd lower herself that far." His eyes stay flat on mine. "But I trusted my gut. I always do."

He leans in, elbows on his knees, and drops his voice until it's almost intimate.

"I drove out to your street. More than once. I'd sit at the end of that gravel road with my engine off and look at that sad little house of yours." His thumb moves slow across his bruised knuckles. "And I swear to you, I could feel her in there. Behind those walls. Close enough to touch,” he snarls and I have to fight the urge to look away. “I should have put that door off its hinges and carried her out that first night. I should have taken back what belongs to me and been done with the lot of you."

The blood drains out of my face.

He was there. He sat outside our home with Lyra a hundred feet away, and the only thing that saved her was his own arrogance.