Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77171 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I back out and try another. Same thing. It’s incomplete. Why log something if you’re not going to finish it?
Unless—
You don’t want a record.
I go back further, filtering by date. I’m looking for that single night fifteen years ago.
The screen fills with entries, most of them routine. Weather-related damage. Dock checks. Minor repairs.
Then—
It’s so small that I nearly scroll past it.
A maintenance request that was filed late but timestamped within the same window as everything else that night.
I click on it. For a second, I think it’s another dead end with minimal detail, no follow-up, and no closure.
Then I see it.
Lock replacement.
I scan the entry again.
Location field is blank. Request origin is internal. No technician was assigned and there’s no completion report. It was just filed…and left.
I sit back slightly, staring at the screen.
A lock was replaced the same night Victor Halstead went over the edge.
A lock…
Vexley House. The symbol. The key worked into the walls, the railing, the stone.
Clearly it means something. Does it open something? Or close something?
I lean back in my chair. A lock was changed that night, which means…
Something was accessed…or something was sealed.
Or maybe this is insignificant. I mean, locks are changed all the time, right?
Except I can’t let it go.
My heart pounds. I inhale slowly, but it doesn’t stop. I press my thumb to my wrist where he touched me. Like I maybe can override it if I try hard enough, press hard enough.
It doesn’t work.
My body doesn’t care what I want.
It remembers him anyway.
The way he leaned in.
The way he almost—
I exhale sharply and snap the laptop shut.
“Focus,” I say under my breath.
This is what matters.
The lock.
The request.
The timing.
Victor Halstead didn’t just die that night.
Something else happened.
Something someone didn’t want documented.
I lean forward again, reopen the laptop, and pull the file back up.
Lock replacement.
I sit there and stare at the screen. I’m missing something. Or am I seeing something that isn’t there?
“Christ,” I mutter, closing the laptop again.
I need sleep.
I head to my bedroom, wash my face, and change into my silk pajamas. I slide under the covers of my bed and turn onto my side. Then onto my back. Then the other side.
I adjust the pillow.
Shift again.
My body won’t relax.
Every time I close my eyes, I see Samson Vexley. Feel his hand on my wrist. See the danger in his amber eyes, know that I should stay away, that I shouldn’t want…
That I shouldn’t want that kiss. And everything else. Especially not when my research has led me to him.
I roll onto my back and drag a hand over my face. This is ridiculous. I should be thinking about the lock. About the report. About what really happened that night. About where I’m going tomorrow.
Instead—
All I can think about is Samson Vexley, his large muscled body hovering over me. His lips on mine, his hands touching me, pleasuring me…
Sleep doesn’t come.
Not for a long time.
13
SAMSON
I watch her come out of the municipal records building just after four the next day.
She doesn’t linger on the steps. Doesn’t check her phone.
I stay where I am across the street, one shoulder against a building, and watch her walk briskly, a brown messenger bag slung across her body. She cuts toward the subway entrance on the corner.
I push off the wall and cross the street. She’s halfway down the stairs when I catch up.
The station air is warmer than the street and smells like something I don’t ever want to smell again. When was the last time I was on the subway? Seems like forever, though it was probably only a few months ago. We Vexleys use the subway when it works for us.
A train screams somewhere below. She hears me before I say anything. I know because her shoulders shift, just slightly.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she says dryly.
“You don’t know when to stop,” I say.
She keeps walking. “Neither do you.”
I fall into step beside her as we descend the stairs and reach the platform. It’s not empty—it never is—but rush hour hasn’t quite started yet.
Delaney moves farther down the platform. I go with her.
“You went digging again,” I say.
She finally turns her head to look at me. “And you followed me again.”
“Yes.” No point lying.
She lifts an eyebrow. “You don’t get to do that.”
“I do what I want. Especially when you’re making a mistake.”
“Do you ever make mistakes, Samson?”
“No.”
That’s a fucking lie, and I’m pretty sure she knows it because she stops walking.
So do I.
Now we’re standing near a tiled pillar halfway down the platform, far enough from the others to have a bit of privacy but not enough for anything to look unusual from a distance.
She faces me. “Are you going to tell me what you were really doing at the marina last night?”
“Watching you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I smirk. “It’s the only one you’re getting.”