Page 92 of The Burnt Heart

I shook my head, teeth grinding at the sharp twist in my stomach. How would Jonah and Ray react when they found out I wasn’t who I said I was? Beck pursed his lips at my mute denial, tucking his Chief badge into his pocket. He held his arms out for my inspection.

“Time to play the good guy again. How do I look?” He sniffed at the ill-fitting disguise he wore. His jacket was faded on the elbows and the hems of his pants crushed under the heel of his scuffed boots. But even the wardrobe couldn’t hide the power he exuded, the intense slash of his nose and gleaming gaze like sea glass. Smooth after toiling in the wild ocean.

“Exactly how a Chief of Police should.” My stomach curdled at how easy he made it look, knowing we were two sides of the same coin.

Both pretending to be something we weren’t.

“They’re going to hate me.” I snagged his sleeve as he brushed past me. Letting his cedarwood scent flood my nostrils, bitter with gunpowder. He ran a finger down my cheek, and the callouses centered me. He knew who I meant. The people who had snuck into my heart, Adelaide and the two other men who I had somehow fallen in love with.

Ray and Jonah would never forgive me, which was why I had never grown what we had.

I had come to Greenich Bay trying to flee my past but somehow, I’d become entangled again. Darkness clung to me like a curse.

“Better hated than dead. You’re lucky it was me who discovered you, if anyone else had been given this assignment they would have handed you in already. I’ve put The Unseen off your trail for now, but you can’t hide any longer. You have to rejoin the fold.”