Page 68 of Man of Lies

I stared at him incredulously. “So that’s it? You’re just going to leave?”

“I don’t have time to explain it to you,” he said, already turning. “And you don’t have time to stop me.”

The front door creaked open behind him, a gust of humid air rushing in like the house itself was exhaling rot.

I glanced over my shoulder at Gator’s body, lying twisted on the floor, mouth open, eyes fixed on the ceiling like he was looking for what hit him. His blood had soaked into the wood, dark and sticky, congealing at the edges as it started to dry.

It wasn’t the sight or smell that turned my stomach; it was the emptiness of leaving another human like that, no matter who he was or what he’d done.

I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and turned away, one hand jammed in my pocket to make sure the watch was still there.

Rain slapped me the second I stepped outside. It pounded against the tin roof, rolled down the back of my neck, and soaked straight through the cotton of my shirt. Mud sucked at my boots as I stepped off the porch and into the yard, chasing the dark blur of Dominic’s retreating figure.

I caught up to him as he reached the far edge of the house, where his Jaguar sat half-hidden behind a curtain of hanging moss, engine idling like it had been waiting for this moment.

“Dominic!” I shouted, my voice barely carrying over the rain. “You don’t get to do this alone!”

He didn’t even turn around. Like I wasn’t standing ten feet behind him, soaked to the bone and ready to throw fists if that’s what it took to keep him from disappearing again. He was already in the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut witha muffled, expensive thud. The windows were tinted. Opaque. Like the rest of him. All I saw was the ghost of his silhouette as the engine revved and the car peeled off down the narrow drive, tires throwing up muddy spray like a middle finger aimed straight at me.

“Goddamn it, Dominic!” I broke into a run, boots sliding in the muck as I tore back toward the front of the house. The Ducati sat where I left it, red paint streaked with rain and mud, water dripping from the tank, pooling dark beneath the frame.

I kicked it into gear and throttled hard, tires spitting mud as I spun onto the road.

Rain lashed my face like a hundred tiny needles. I could still feel the press of the watch in my pocket, hear the hollow creak of that rotted floorboard behind me, and see Gator’s lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling.

No. Hell no.

Wherever Dominic was going, I was right behind him.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

SILAS

The red blurhit the turn too fast, back tire fishtailing through mud before vanishing into the trees. Mason. Goddamn it, and I was too late to stop him. Just in time to watch him make another mistake at ninety miles an hour.

Rain pounded me, drumming on my helmet as I killed the throttle and coasted up the rutted drive. I was late. I knew it before I even pulled up to the house listing sideways in the rain.

I’d been elbow-deep in fresh gauze and blood when the call from Sylvia came through. Her cynical, streetwise shell had been shot full of holes, and she was hysterical, barely able to choke out a string of words between gasps. All I picked up was that Gator was dead and Dominic was already there.

I was standing in the bathroom, one foot braced on the tub, making a sloppy attempt to tape up my side while wearing a pair of pants I’d stolen from Dominic’s closet once I realized all my clothes were trashed.

Mason had left me with no ride and no way to contact my backup. My gun was still locked in Dominic’s safe. I had nothing but a seeping wound and a borrowed button-down.

By the time I’d cabbed it back to the bar to get my bike and punched the throttle hard enough to make my wound scream, too much time had passed. I pulled up just in time to watch Mason tear off down the highway.

He hadn’t learned a damn thing—he’d kill himself at those speeds.

I didn’t have time to chase him. Not yet.

I swung the Scout off the drive, tires crunching through broken beer bottles and half-buried junk as I circled toward the north side of the yard—toward the hiding place Sylvia had gasped out between sobs. The gutted remains of a storage shed sat half-collapsed against the tree line, its rusted tin roof peeled back like a busted jaw. I killed the engine and dismounted hard, boots slipping in the churned mud as I ran the last few steps.

She was crouched in the shadows, knees tucked to her chest, soaked clean through. Pajamas clung to her like wet tissue, printed with faded stars that looked like they belonged to a child, not a grown woman living with a man like Gator. Her mascara had run in thick black streaks down her face, smeared by rain and panic, and she looked up at me with wide, glassy eyes—like a sad fucking clown left behind after the circus packed up and burned down.

I dropped to a crouch and grabbed her by the shoulders. Not gentle. I didn’t have the luxury. “Sylvia. Look at me.”

She blinked like she didn’t understand English anymore. Her teeth were chattering hard enough that I could hear the clatter.

“Talk to me,” I snapped, giving her a hard shake. “What the hell happened?”

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