Page 167 of Under the Lies

But it’s the other part of me that’s holding me back. The need, the promise, to protect Sayer.

I try to step practically in front of her. But in typical Sayer fashion, she has to be stubborn and fight me, stepping around my provided shield so we’re standing shoulder to shoulder.

“Aw, don’t let me interrupt. This is so sweet I might throw up.” Harlow sneers at us.

“Where have you been, Harlow?” I try to keep my temper even as I probe her for questions. I fail.

“Oh, around.” She turns her blue, almost indigo, eyes on me. “But I got tired of waiting for you to come get me, baby, so I decided to come find you.”

Sayer bristles at baby.

I want to reach out, to reassure Sayer but I don’t.

Can’t.

Not when I have to keep my focus on Harlow.

“You kept running when I’d get close,” I remind her. Every lead I followed was cold. She had been there but was always gone by the time I showed up.

“I was hurt,” she pouts. “I wasn’t ready to see you yet. You replaced me with her.” Harlow casts a scalding glare at her sister. “Just like everyone else.”

“Not Granddad,” Sayer says quietly, but confidently. “He never replaced you with me.”

“Look who’s finally clued in.” Harlow raises a brow, coming closer. “I bet you just hate knowing that. Knowing he chose me over you. You idolized that man and he was nothing more than me.”

No. He was better than Harlow will ever be. “He loved Sayer,” I remind her.

“But he loved you most of all, didn’t he, Noah.” She turns that hateful stare to me. “He left you everything.”

“Is that why you stole my ledger?”

“It’s supposed to be mine!” she snaps, shouting. “Everything of his was supposed to be mine! I was his family! Not you.”

“That’s not true and we both know it.” She hasn’t been able to get past this. Not since Baron gave me The Underground and all that inhabits it.

Harlow wasn’t happy then. And she sure as hell isn’t happy now. “Where’s my ledger, Harlow?”

She could’ve taken anything else and I wouldn’t have given a damn. But that’s why she took it. It’s the only thing I keep that could incriminate me. My friends. Sayer says I have everyone in my back pocket, but that’s only in this city.

Everywhere else I’m fair game and depending on who Harlow showed that information to, it could send me away for a long time.

It’s a record of all our illicit dealings, all the fencing we’ve done, all the paintings and art pieces we intend to fence. It’s a record of our trades essentially.

And I’m going to need it back.

“In a place where only I can find it.” She bats her eyes. “I needed to have some kind of bargaining chip with me.”

“Some kind of bargaining chip,” I repeat, rolling my eyes. “It’s not going to make me give you The Underground.”

What she wants goes hand in hand with the ledger. It does nothing for me to give her that. Not that I would. She could steal anything, and I still wouldn’t give her The Underground.

Not when it’s been entrusted to me.

“I’m not talking about that.” There’s a rogue look on Harlow’s face. A smug smile. “I’m talking about her.” She points to Sayer and before either of us can react, a bald man materializes from the trees behind us, seizing Sayer.

His arms constrict around her, hand covering her mouth as she lets out an ear-splitting, barren tree branch-shaking scream.

Lunging for them, my hand goes for the holster strapped along my back.

---