Page 54 of Sinner
“Well, we’ll know soon enough.” He patted the box in his pocket.
“That’s if Beck kept anything incriminating on his laptop.”
“Of course he did.” Nix gave him a look that screamed he thought he was an idiot.
Lake pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. West’s car was there as well. “All right. What are we doing first, then? Checking the files, or—”
Nix was already out of the car and slamming the door in his face midsentence before he could finish.
“Confronting West it is.”
Chapter 18:
Nix stormed into the house like hellfire was hot on his heels and made a beeline for the kitchen, where he knew West would be.
Because no matter how sporadic and fleeting West’s emotions were, his patterns were hella predictable.
Sure enough, he found him in the kitchen making tea, and Nix’s mood must have been obvious, because the second West looked up, he froze.
“Nixie—” He let out an oomph sound when Nix shoved him away from the island and up against the counter, but he didn’t fight back or complain about the violent outburst.
Almost like he knew exactly why Nix was so pissed.
Which only made it worse.
“You better have a fucking phenomenal explanation,” Nix snapped, barely registering Lake finally entering after him.“How would you feel if Grady confessed his undying devotion to me and I kept that shit from you?”
West’s shoulders tensed. “Did he?”
“Seriously?”
“Right. Sorry.”
“About which part?!”
“All of it?” He cleared his throat and repeated with more certainty. “All of it.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Lake crossed his arms and glared.
“I didn’t know how to.”
“Bullshit.” Nix hated this feeling. This weird, twisting discomfort in his gut. He wanted to punch something, but that reaction was so unlike him that he held back. The worst part was not understanding why he was feeling this way in the first place.
It wasn’t like anything had actually happened. West had clearly rebuffed Beck’s advances, and it didn’t sound like Beck had done anything more than confess, and yet…
“Beck thought you told us,” Nix explained. “He thought that, because that’s the expected reaction from someone in a relationship. Learning that you were threatened by the person who’d done the threatening isn’t how this is meant to go.”
West winced. “He told you that part, too?”
“I’m going to toss this hot tea in your face.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Hold on. Let me explain.”
“What do you think we’re doing here?!”
“I really didn’t know how to bring it up,” West said. “Or what to say. It was so unexpected, I felt blindsided by the whole thing.”
“Yejun’s known about Beck’s thing for you for a while now.”
