Page 88 of Things We Hide from the Light
“I don’t believe she’s being truthful. I have concerns she could take advantage of you when you’re…like this. She shows up in town a day before Hugo made a move on Naomi and Waylay. She didn’t tell you about her real job. She moves in next door. And she just so happens to have a history with the marshal assigned to you.”
“She also picked my ass up off the floor, got me upstairs, and helped me through a fucking panic attack two nights ago. I don’t know what the fuck it is about her but the closer I am to her, the better I feel. The easier it is to get out of bed and force myself to go through the motions. So while Iappreciateyour concern, I’llpoint out that she’s been there for me in a way no one else has been. Not you. Not Knox. No one.”
Lina made me feel like a man, not like the broken shell of one.
Lucian’s jaw tightened beneath his neatly trimmed beard.
“Two smoked salmon eggs Benedicts.” The server appeared with our breakfast.
“Thanks,” I said flatly when it became clear Lucian wasn’t going to.
“Can I get you anything else right now? More coffee? Napkins to mop up any future bloodshed? No? Okay then.”
“She’s lying to you,” Lucian insisted. “She’s here because of you.”
“You both need to shut your damn mouths now,” Knox ordered. “Lina is one of the fucking good ones.”
“You don’t trust her with your brother either,” Lucian pointed out.
“Because he’s gonna get his stupid heart broken, that’s why,” my brother said in exasperation. “Not because she’s taking advantage or whatever bullshit you made up in that suspicious-ass mind of yours. She isn’t gonna settle down and be a cop’s wife and chase after a bunch of kids. So if you go fallin’ head over heels for her and she kicks you in the gut on the way out the door, I’m the one who’s gonna have to deal with your bitching and moaning about it.”
I was oddly touched, but still mostly pissed off.
I faced them both. My brother and my best friend thought I was too weak to survive this.
“Go near her again and I will make you regret it,” I said, my knuckles going white on the handle of my mug.
“I’m sayin’ the same thing to you,” Knox said to me.
“Not your call to make,” I reminded him.
“I don’t trust her,” Lucian said stubbornly.
“Yeah? And I didn’t trust that dental hygienist you dated for a month three years ago.”
“You were right not to. She stole my watch and my bathrobe,” my friend admitted.
“Lina isn’t after me for my watch and I don’t have a bathrobe.”
“No. But she’s after something. A liar can smell a lie.”
“Stop looking into her.”
“If you get your head on straight, I’ll stop keeping tabs,” Lucian said.
When Lucian Rollins kept tabs, that meant he knew what was in your garbage before it went out to the curb. It meant he knew what you were going to have for dinner before you did. The man had a gift for information gathering, and I shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d wield it against me. Especially if he thought it was for my own good.
“I don’t need to be hearing this.”
“Yes, you do,” he insisted. “I’m hearing more rumors that Duncan Hugo didn’t run off with his tail between his legs.”
“So what?” I shot back.
“You’re a loose end. A direct threat to him. You can’t hide in the blanks in your memory forever. I need you to be operating at one hundred percent. Because if he does get to you again, if he does manage to take you out…that leaves me with only Knox as a friend.”
“Hilarious.”
“Fuck you,” Knox muttered.
