Page 84 of Wicked Sin

I turn red. “Uh…”

“Taylor.” He catches me by the wrist and pulls me close, his other hand trapping my chin.

The truth spills out. “Wilson gave me a pager. He promised he wouldn’t use it to violate my privacy, and I believed him.”

“What the fuck?”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not. You have a pager here after I expressly told you no electronics?”

“If it’s from 1993, does it really count?”

“Yes.” He glowers at me. “You are fucking lucky that Cole seems to genuinely have no idea where you are.”

“Good.”

“Go get it for me.”

“It’s—”

He lets me go and points upstairs. “You need to get me that fucking pager right fucking now.”

I run, my feet slipping on the stairs. My heart is pounding, out of control, but as I rifle through my bag to get it, I realize I’m not scared.

Luke isn’t going to hurt me, no matter what I do.

I’m upset because I’ve disappointed him. He’s shaking mad because he thought he could trust me, and he was wrong.

Stricken, I take the pager to him.

He clicks on the button. “Where are the messages?”

“They delete after they’re read.”

“And he gets a digital read-receipt of that, I’m guessing?”

“Something like that.”

“Does it have a GPS tracker in it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Do you care?”

“No? I don’t, I guess. I also thought…this was a way for him to kind of know that I’m okay.”

“He’s a hacker.”

“And you’ve never met a principled crook before? He has a code. Hurting me is not in it.”

Luke turns the pager over, then takes it apart, carefully looking it over for any electronic additions. Finally, he puts it back together and hands it to me. “There you go.”

“You aren’t going to smash it to bits?”

He shakes his head. “It’s fine. You need a little tether to that world. That’s fine. You don’t trust me. That’s fine, too.”

“Idotrust you.”

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