Page 98 of The Villain

I turned, a waft of lemon hitting me from the steaming cup of tea.

“Thank you.” I took the offered mug, scooting over on the couch as Rob took a seat. “Any news?”

Her pause told me everything I needed to know.Nothing yet.

“We’re still looking. The car will turn up eventually.”

I closed my eyes, frustration filling my chest. I used the pressured emotion to blow a steady stream of air over the cup, venturing in for a sip, even though I knew it wasn’t cool enough yet. Sure enough, the hot tea scorched the tip of my tongue, and I winced.

“One step forward and two steps back.”

“I know that feeling,” she admitted softly, toying with the chain around her neck. She was typically quiet but not soft-spoken. I didn’t realize the difference until I met her. Soft-spoken implied shy or unsure or hesitant. Rob was none of those things. She was determined and calculating and reserved, and she wasquietbecause she got more done that way with less interference.

Except right now, there was a softness to her voice that hadn’t been there before.

“I can’t imagine you ever sacrificing a step back.”

She smiled small. “Then I’ve done a good job.”

“At not being in danger?”

Her laugh was short and sad. “At hiding,” she confessed, brushing a strand of red hair back over her shoulder. “I’ve stepped back so far, I couldn’t tell you the way forward any longer.”

My chest tightened. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what to say—how to help her; I couldn’t even help myself.

“Don’t be sorry.” She patted my hand. “I’m telling you this because I’ve lived the better part of a decade in hiding; I won’t let that happen to you.”

“Why are you in hiding?” It didn’t make sense; she and Dare and the rest of them hunted down bad guys. No one had said anything about her being in danger.

She took a slow sip of her tea. “I did something stupid to try and catch the men who stole my parents’ legacy: Ivans, Sinclair, Wheaton, Wenner, Belmont…all of them.”

I winced as pain burst on the side of my head, there and gone in a second.

“You okay?”

I nodded. “Just some pain. Dare’s tackle probably wasn’t the best thing for my brain, but I guess it’s better than a bullet.”

She hummed in agreement. “You still don’t remember the rest of that morning?”

Slowly, I shook my head. “No.”

It was the only piece left. Those few hours…the hour, really, before the explosion. I still only remembered getting in the car with the paintings, and then nothing until after the explosion. Rorik said it would come back; that if my vision came back, the rest of it would, too, but the secondary trauma of Dare knocking me to the ground set my healing time back.

“It feels like I’m missing something,” I said and drank some more of the tea. “Maybe it’s just because that’s the last…part…of this whole thing I can’t get back, but…I don’t know. I just have this feeling that there’s something important there, and if I could just remember it…”

“You will,” she assured me, and then shrugged. “Or you won’t, and Dare will figure out who is threatening you regardless.”

The mention of his name made me shiver.

“I’m sure he will,” I said, my voice quiet. “Then I’ll be out of his hair for good.”

“You know he doesn’t want that.” She sounded so sure.

“Doesn’t he?”I hadn’t seen him since the night I showed him my drawings and demanded his trust. Three days. At first, I chalked it up to his injury and healing. I’d sit here—on the couch in the rec room—and listen to the steady stream of the other guys going down to see him. Rorik to check on his wound. Harm and Rhys and Ty to discuss various parts of the case. But not me.

And it was my own fault.

He’d offered me the truth, and I’d countered with my demand for trust. I was tired of men lying to me—for my better or for my worse. I was tired of their secrets. Tired of their guilt.

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