Page 64 of Shattered Hearts

“Because I’m dirty.”

He lifts me into his lap. “Stop saying that. We all have secrets and we all have dirt. I pushed you too hard and I’ll give you some space. You know I never want you scared of me, especially if I ask you to do something you don’t want to do.” Kissing my cheek, he says, “Call if you want to talk later.”

I don’t have the words to stop him. To tell him that I don’t want him to go. He dresses, and I sit on the floor in the bathroom until I hear the door click behind him. Wrapped in my robe, I crawl back into bed. The scent of his body saturates my sheets and invades my nose, and tears fill my eyes. I should have asked him to stay. I should have been brave enough to tell him that even if he made me, not mad, but, I don’t know. Appalled? Frightened? That he didn’t need to go.

Someone knocks on my door, and Stella slips into my room without permission. We’re past that. There’s nowhere in my life where I wouldn’t let her in.

“Hey. Gage asked me to come up and check on you.” She lies on my bed and props her head in her hand.

“I’m fine.”

“He told me what he asked you to do.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to do something else instead?”

I meet her eyes. “Like what?”

“Something that’s probably just as bad.”

I scoff. “Oh, please, yes. Thanks for asking.”

She smiles. “Shower and get dressed. I’ll meet you downstairs in an hour.”

“You’renot going to drive me out to Quiet Meadows, are you?”

“No, but you’re not going to like it any better. One hour.”

“Okay.”

All through my shower I wonder where she’s going to bring me.

I should have left with Gage because there’s no chance in hell I would have went there willingly, even with Stella.

Black Enterprises towers in front of us, the very top of the skyscraper disappearing into the clouds. The sight churns my stomach, but not because I have to bend my neck so far. Ash forced me to move in with him to keep me in his sights, to keep me available whenever one of his jobs demanded me. He let me out sometimes so I would look normal, so our relationship seemed normal, only, he sicced Hector on me and had him follow me around the city. Thank God Stella knew something was happening.

“Why are we here? Isn’t this hard on you?” I lived here a short time, but this is where Ash kept Stella prisoner. Her coming here is like me going to Quiet Meadows.

“Yes, but sometimes we have to look our nightmares right in the eyes and tell them to go back to hell. I’ve avoided this, and I think I know why now. I was meant to come here with you.”

“Can we get in?”

The FBI shut down Black Enterprises. Nothing the Blacks touched was legal, even the seemingly innocent businesses that had nothing to do with their foundations, sex trafficking, orselling arms on the black market were closed due to suspected money laundering. I don’t know when the FBI will conclude their investigations. They could need years to find everything the Blacks have done, though they have more than enough now to put both Clayton and Ash away for consecutive life sentences.

“I asked Zane to make a couple of phone calls. Come on.”

She waves at Douglas and he tips his hat and drifts into traffic.

We stop in front of the tinted glass doors, our reflections wavering in the weak winter sunlight. She’s dressed in jeans and her cream winter coat, her platinum blonde hair swirling around her shoulders.

I stand to her right, wearing a pair of jeggings and my black peacoat. My dark hair is a stark contrast to hers. We’re the same height, almost the same build, though she’s always been just a bit stockier than I am. In the looks department, we’re complete opposites down to her alabaster skin, mine coppery and glowing, even in the dull winter months.

I wonder if I saw that in her the first time we met. How opposite on the outside we are, how identical we are on the inside. If I somehow knew what she would become to Zane and me. How intricate a part of our lives she would become. I can’t tell you what made me invite her to the penthouse for wine and cheesecake except I felt a belonging, a kinship I didn’t want to let go of after I finished shadowing her that day.

She opens the door, jerking me out of my reverie, and the security team lets us through. Everyone turns to stare, but no one records our visit, not like at Willow’s building. A few wave or nod. They all know who we are, what we did. What Ash did to us.

“Where do we start?”

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