Page 117 of Ice Cold Liar

“The hell she did.”His hands pressed to the wounds on Madeline’s body.“You’re not dying, you hear me?You’re going to answer for what you’ve done.You’llpayfor hurting Naomi.You will pay.”

Then the other cars rushed onto the scene.Patrol cars.Unmarked vehicles.Hunter jumped from one.Colson Reid was right with him.A woman in a gray suit.So many cops.

“Put your hands up!”A fierce order from an older cop.

Eb raised his hands.His blood-covered hands.“I’m not the bad guy.”

No, he wasn’t.

Naomi rose.Moved to stand in front of him.“He’s the hero.”Henry bumped her.“They both are,” Naomi corrected.

“Fuck that,” Eb snapped from behind her.“You are, slugger.”

Aw, had he seen her killer swing?

“Drop the wrench, ma’am!” the cop blasted.

Oh, right.

She dropped the wrench.It clattered to the ground.“For the record, I didn’t killanyone.”

“I believe you,” Eb said.

With her hands still up, she looked back at him.

“I believe you,” he said.

I believe you.

Strange because it felt like…

I love you.

“Say it again,” she whispered.

And he opened his mouth and said…

“I love you.”

The best words she’d ever heard in her life.

ChapterTwenty-Five

One month later.

“Peoplelike us don’t get happy endings.Pretty sure I warned you about that before.”

Eb lifted his brows as he stared across the table at the prisoner.Her dark hair slid across her cheeks when she shook her head, and the garish orange uniform washed out her once vibrant skin.

“No one really wants to spend forever with a monster,” Madeline continued in a musing tone.“We’re fun in bed, at least at first.We have that dangerous edge.But over time, the monster loses its appeal.Ordinary people want safety.They want truth.They want the picket fences and the growing old together routine.”

“You killed Hudson.”

“Hudson was a traitor.To his country.To me.”A pause.“To you.He only went after Naomi in the first place because he wanted to take something away from you.It took him a long time to woo her, but in the end—after he’d learned her secrets and used them against her in order to make Naomi believe he was her perfect match—he got her to marry him.”

“And that pissed you off.”

She put her hands on top of the table.Her cuffed hands.And leaned toward him.“Yes.It pissed me off.So I stabbed him in the heart.Itoldhim not to go through with the ceremony.But he—like you—thought he could pull off a happy ending.But as soon as Hudson showed her his true colors, it was over.”

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