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 close the spreadsheet and open a new document. I begin to outline everything I have so far.
Lots of gaps, lots of questions… But the shape is there now. I can’t unsee it.
I push back from the table, stand, and stretch out the stiffness in my shoulders.
I turn slowly, scanning the space again.
Everything looks normal.
Except now I know better. Now I know how easy it is for someone to walk in here and touch what’s mine.
A shiver runs through me. I cross to the door and check the lock again. It’s still secure. I rest my forehead briefly against the wood.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Get it together.
I move to the window and look out over the street below. Early commuters. A delivery truck. A woman walking her dog like this is just another morning.
For them, it is.
For me it’s something else entirely.
I reach up and touch my lips without thinking.
That’s the other problem. The one I don’t want to name. The one that has nothing to do with contractors or shell companies or lock replacements.
Samson Vexley.
I should be afraid of him.
Of what he is.
Of what he represents.
Instead, I’m thinking about the way he didn’t go as far as he could have. The way he stopped. The way he warned me. Like that makes him something other than exactly what I already know he is.
I drop my hand and step back from the window.
No.
I won’t turn him into something he’s not just because I—
Because I what?
Because I wanted him to kiss me?
Because I didn’t pull away fast enough?
Because some part of me leaned into it instead of away?
I let out a sharp breath. He told me to stop. I haven’t. And none of that is relevant to the fact that I wanted him to do more than kiss me.
Much more.
I go back to the table, close my laptop, and grab my purse.
They came into my home to send a message.
Fine.
I’ll send one back.
17
SAMSON
Weakness.
The word stays with me all night.
Weakness.
Nate knew exactly what he was doing when he said it. He chose the word because it reaches farther than any accusation. It’s not about Delaney. Not really.
It’s about me.
About what she does to me.
What I let happen in her apartment.
My hands on her shoulders. Her back against the wall. The hot little catch in her breath when I took her mouth. The way she kept those lips shut like defiance could save her. The way her body gave her away anyway.
I should have walked out sooner.
I should have never gone there in the first place.
Instead I stood in her home and breathed her in like she was my oxygen.
That’s not weakness. That’s hunger.
I know the difference.
The trouble is that hunger can make a man do foolish things.
I head for the shower. Cold water. No steam. No comfort. I stand under it until my skin numbs, but it still doesn’t wash her away.
By dawn, I’ve stopped pretending I’m going to sleep.
I dress in dark clothes—black jeans and a black button-down. No suit. Not today. I take the ring from the dresser where I left it and slide it onto my finger. The black metal catches the pale morning light. The key cut into its face looks almost simple from a distance.
It isn’t.
Neither am I.
I leave before the sun fully comes up.
I tell myself I’m going to assess risk.
She found the contractor. Someone went into her apartment. Nate called her a weakness because he saw the line I crossed, not because he knows anything I don’t. This is about loose ends. Exposure. Knowing how much trouble she can still cause.
That’s the story I feed myself on the drive over. It would almost be convincing if I believed it.
Her building comes into view just as the sky starts to lighten for real. I park across the street and kill the engine.
A delivery truck idles at the curb. A jogger runs by. A man in a suit walks too fast, his coffee jostling.
I sit in the car and watch her window.
Her curtains are open but I see no movement.
I shouldn’t be here.
I stay anyway.
Weakness.
The word triggers something.
Not memory at first.
Instinct.
A tightening in my shoulders. A familiar readiness in my body, the kind that used to come when my father stepped into a room.
My father doesn’t believe in softness. Not in boys. Not in grown men. Not in himself. He believes in pressure. In finding the precise point where a person stops pretending and shows you what they really are.
I’m seventeen.
The room is concrete. Bright lights overhead. Too bright. A drain sits in the center of the floor. Its purpose? It makes the room easy to clean.
Nate stands just outside the ring, composed. Cain leans against the wall. He’s small yet, still waiting for puberty, but he watches everything with those dodgy gray eyes.
My father steps in front of me. “Don’t think,” he says. “Thinking comes before fear. Fear makes men hesitate.”