Page 92 of Perfect Pursuit

Thorn:

Don’t. Do. It. Give us another hour.

Ethan:

I need to tell her it’s over in person.

Thorn:

Let us confirm. That is an order.

I toss my phone back into the console. “Sorry, Thorn. There’s letting you confirm Devil’s Lair involvement and the fact my woman didn’t come to me before pimping herself out for money.”

That’s the part I can’t let go of. How am I supposed to move past it?

Rage, the likes I haven’t experienced since I found out my baby sister was seventeen, pregnant, and left behind in our small town by her boyfriend boils the blood in my veins. I punch the steering wheel repeatedly as she picks her way through the well-lit parking lot. “How could you do this, witch? How could you hide something like this when this was supposed to be it—our end game after five long fucking years?”

I’m almost grateful when Fallon drops her keys and bends down to pick them up because it gives me a moment to get myself under control, to let the cool mask of indifference slip over me. Ultimately, the why doesn’t matter. What matters is she did it to us. She torpedoed a hole in us before we ever began.

And I’m about to finish sinking our ship.

Reaching for the handle, I fling open the car door just as she approaches. It startles her into stumbling back, almost tripping over her sneaker-clad feet. I frown. She acts like a well-trained prostitute on the calls as Filia, yet she’s wearing a Seven Virtues University sweatshirt and jeans with a worn pair of Converse? Thorn’s words niggle at the back of my brain, but I shove them back. Instead, my voice is purely sardonic when I drawl, “Surprise.”

I’m taken aback by her reaction, though. Instead of being embarrassed or shocked, her eyes flood with tears. Her lip trembles. Her purse falls to the ground seconds before her body hits mine with the force of a full broadside, slamming me back up against the door of my open vehicle. Fallon’s voice warbles, “How did you know I needed you?” as her arms wrap around my waist.

Every protective instinct is telling me something happened inside Devil’s Lair, that Fallon’s in trouble. Begrudgingly, my arm pulls her closer, knowing that it is a final tribute to our long-lasting friendship more than the woman I believed I was in love with up until a few days ago. Fallon’s fingernails score against my back as tears wet my shirt. Instinctively, my arms wrap around her tighter.

Still, I can’t tell her everything’s going to be all right. I won’t offer her lies and platitudes.

Eventually, her weeping subsides and she pulls back enough to lift the hem of her shirt to dab at her eyes. Even having just cried a river of tears, her indigo blue eyes reflect the stars in the Appalachian Mountains. Her long blond hair is loose, flowing freely around her shoulders. I hate myself because a part of me wants nothing more than to sink my fingers into it as I lift her face up to mine to offer her solace.

But that’s not why I’m here.

I slide my hands around my back and grip her hands before unlatching them from behind my back. I hold her hands tightly and stare down into her bleak face. “Why, Fallon?”

Her nose scrunches up, transforming pain into confusion. “Why what, E.?”

Her pretend ignorance triggers my fury just as my watch sends me a message from Thorn, “DON’T DO IT! STOP!” I grip her fingers and press her back away from me before coldness seeps into my voice. “Or maybe I should call you Filia?”

All the color drains from her face. “You know.”

“You’re damn right I know.”

“I can explain.” The words are spoken so hurriedly, her tongue trips over them.

“What were you thinking, Fallon?” My voice erupts in an explosion of fury in the quiet night. As soon as it does, the squawking of birds interrupts my next words as they smartly flee. They obviously sense a predator has trapped its prey and is about to move in for the kill. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out you were working for those monsters?”

“Monsters?”

Her night-sky eyes widen before they liquify like the moon shining on water. “Please, let me tell you everything?—”

I interrupt her hotly. “I don’t want to hear your excuses, Fallon. You could have told me.”

“I couldn’t.”

I sneer. “Why? It isn’t part of their NDA.”

“How do you even know what’s part of their…never mind. There are other reasons.” She steps forward, hand lifted as if she’s going to touch me.

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