Page 142 of Bishop

His skin turns a more sickening shade of grey. “Is that what you meant when you said you didn’t like the picture she’d painted?” He grabs the bottom bedpost, holding himself upright. “That what she was telling us wasn’t true?”

“It was true enough.”

“But?”

I fight against the unwanted emotions I have no business feeling. Why do I give a shit about exposing her secrets? Why the hell do I even care?

“Everything in her life is worse than she makes out,” I admit.

He shuffles closer. “How much worse?”

“Put it this way—what I saved her from the night of the gala included a perverted old man, two of his henchmen, and not a whole lot of consent. She still has the bruises on her neck to prove it.”

“Salvatore thought you might have been responsible for those bruises.”

“Salvatore is a fucking idiot who deserves to be thrown in a wood chipper.”

Langston paces, the slow, shuffled scrape of his feet resembling the movement of someone in a hospice center. “I guess it’s safe to assume Emmanuel leveraged my niece against Abri.”

I scowl at him over my shoulder. “Sit the fuck down before you fall. I’m not scraping your face off the carpet if you nosedive.”

“I’m not going to nosedive.” He continues to hobble. “And I can’t sit. This shit has me furious.”

“Welcome to the club. It’s dark here with a growing kill list. I’ve only had the chance to cross off one name so far.”

“Who?”

“The guy who left the bruises.”

He nods, seeming slightly appeased. “We’ll get through the list soon enough once I’ve recovered.”

The list won’t last that long.

I’ll have Abri avenged the day she tells me the names of every son of a bitch who’s touched her.

“What else do I need to know?” he asks as a door opens somewhere in the house, footsteps following.

I glance back outside, some fucked up part of me hoping Abri has returned even though all we do is fight, but she remains on the bench, as ethereal as ever.

“Knock, knock.” Layla’s voice carries from the doorway. “Just checking to make sure you two haven’t killed each other.”

Langston slumps back onto the mattress, patting the coverings at his side to wordlessly beckon her forward. “We’ve come close.”

“Come close?” I raise a brow. “I don’t think your damaged ass could come at all even with two hands around your dick.”

Layla snickers, padding her way across the room. “Rest assured, that part of him still works just fine.”

“Great.” I roll my eyes. “I can stop worrying.”

She smirks as she climbs onto the bed, crawling her way to Langston who welcomes her with an open arm. “You’re awfully touchy today,” she directs my way. “Violent, too.”

“It’s not surprising that you’ve acknowledged my hostility but lack the sense to stop taunting me.”

Her smile widens. “And it’s not surprising you’ve caught feelings for a woman and responded to it with animosity and bitterness.”

“I haven’t caught anything.” I pin Langston with a hard stare, wordlessly warning him to tug on his woman’s leash.

“You’ve definitely caught something,” he mutters. “The most obvious being a shitty attitude. What I want to know is if you actually care about her.”

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