Page 198 of Push

Liam tore his glare from the distant spot on the grass.“Stop it!” His chest heaved. I’d shaken him. “Don’t.”

“I know you care about your sister. We’re going to ignore the fact that the way you watch over her is obsessive and kinda deranged for now, but you felt powerless, right? Me too. I can’t go through this again. Not after what happened to her the first time—”

“Whatfirsttime?” His eyes narrowed on me.

Oh, shit. Me and my big mouth. Gwen would never want me to blurt out her secrets. Uncomfortable under Liam’s ice-blue glare and the twist of my own guilty conscience, I wriggled on the lounge. “There’s, uh…history…” I swallowed. “Between them.”

“Whatkindof history?”

I could barely get the words out. “Ian…hurt her…b-before.”

“And you let him?” Liam spat at me. His fist clenched, and he rose slowly from the lounge. “You son of a b—”

“No!” I raised my palms, eyes darting everywhere, scoping out an escape route. I was about to get the Romeo treatment. I was a dead man. “I didn’t know!” That was no excuse. “I should have. I’ll never forgive myself for not realizing what he’d do, but Gwen kept it from me… She was… She was…”

“What?”

“Ashamed.”

He stared at me, his eyes hollow and no color left in his pale skin. “Are you saying Iantouchedher?”

I nodded. “It didn’t get far.” My stomach churned. Anything she didn’t want was too far. I scrubbed my palm down my face. “She…she fought him off.”

Slowly, Liam lowered back onto the lounge, crossing his ankle on his knee. “You’re lying.” He forced a smile, but it made me feel even more uneasy. “She didn’t mention it. There’s no police report. I’d know.”

“You don’t know shit. Gwen didn’t tell a soul when it happened. Not me. Not Marnie. She sure as hell didn’t go to the police to make a fuckingreport. She planned on taking that secret to the grave.”

“Gwen is the venerable champion of justice,” Liam said the words with a strange sort of pride. “Reckless but honorable. I’ve seen her stand up to bullies twice her size. She took on a crime syndicate and didn’t blink when they threatened her in the courtroom. She would never let a man get away with—”

“She did!” I dropped my head, fingers raking through my hair. I couldn’t breathe. The arrow Gwen had shot at me months ago landed squarely back in the middle of my chest, and ithurt. “My girl’s tough, and, yeah, she’ll fight for what’s right, butshe’s only human, Liam. You put her on this pedestal, and shit, so do I sometimes, but… She’s always blamed herself for what happened to her that morning.Always. You have no idea what it’s like to find out that I didn’t protect her from him. I let him in my house…around her…around my kid… I can’t sit around waiting for him to do it again. Iwon’t.” I swallowed down my fear and braced my hands on my knees. “That’s the reason I’m out here. I need your help.”

“As whimsical as I am, I can’t change the past.”

“No, but you have connections to—” I gulped another breath. “You know people. The type of people who make problems go away.” There it was, as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Liam’s lips thinned. “And you’re a good man who should talk to the police to make his problems go away.”

“The police?” I scoffed a bitter laugh. “You know where talking to the police has gotten me? Nowhere. It can take years to investigate and bring a case to court. And what’s going to happen to Ian? He’ll probably get a couple of years… And that’s assuming his lawyers don’t get him off completely. Then what? He comes after Gwen.”

“He won’t hurt her.”

“Like he didn’t hurt her today?”

Liam flinched.

“Exactly,” I said. “I want the guy. The one you said was going after my dad. The one Gwen says doesn’t exist. I’ve got money—”

“Stop.”

I shook my head. “I need to do something. Even if Ian gets the money, even if he goes to jail, my gut is telling me he won’t stop. He wants Gwen. I can’t risk her or my son like that.”

Liam rose. I thought he’d storm back to the house, but he closed the distance, his shadow looming to block out the twinkle of the lights above us. “Toby.” Warily, he sank on the lounge beside me. “What happened to Gwen today was unforgivable,and there will be consequences, but you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I’m not the fucking moron everyone thinks I am,” I bit back. “I know exactly what I’m asking. I want to pay the Widowmaker to get rid of Ian.Permanently.”

Liam sighed. “This isn’t the answer. You think the hopeless weight you’re carrying on your shoulders will lift because Gwen will be safe, but that’s not how it works. That worry disappears, but a different weight replaces it, one you can’t escape. The reality of taking a life will crush down on you until you’re lost in a place so dark you won’t recognize you were ever a man at all.”

“And what’s the feeling I have to live with if something happens to Gwen? The feeling of knowing I could’ve stopped it?”

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