Page 174 of Under the Lies

I tear my eyes away from the glass. “What do you mean?”

“Never been arrested, but that doesn’t mean everything has been all sunshine and rainbows.”

I frown.

“You look good, baby.” Harlow’s voice snaps my attention back to the room. She can’t see us through the glass from her side of the room, but she stares at the exact spot I’m standing and her lips pull into a smile.

“And you look like you’re deranged.” Noah sounds almost bored. The tautness in his shoulders says otherwise.

The chilling smile drops to a frown. “She’s turned you against me. I always knew this would happen.”

She.

Harlow means me.

We’re all tense, waiting to see what happens now. This has been the entire point of everything, Noah and me, but now that it’s here the pill is almost too big for me to swallow.

My sister is back.

My sister is the one who sent the letter, the pictures.

My sister was behind it all.

I know we never got along and there’s no love lost between us, but I never knew the hatred she had for me was so strong. Ran so deep.

When Noah brought me into this room, he and I didn’t exchange words. We didn’t have to. He let me in by dropping the screen that’s always present behind his eyes. He was gaging to see where I’m at, how I’m holding up.

He’s been doing that all morning. Taking care of me.

After going down on me in the shower, he haphazardly dried us off before picking me up and carried me toward his bed. He tossed me down and made sure no thoughts occupied my head but him and us and the amazing heights he was bringing me to.

Noah ravished me to the point of the bed sheets popping off the mattress and made me question if I’d be walking funny after.

Harlow reaches across the table toward Noah. Gabe stops her, grabbing her wrist and pinning it to the table.

No touching.

My sister simply smiles up at Gabe’s sullen face. Gabe does nothing but keep her arm flat on the table. She looks back to Noah. “So you have me. Congratulations. What’re you going to do with me, now?”

“I’ve spent countless hours since you were gone imagining seeing you again.” Noah shifts forward.

Harlow smiles, not listening to the malice in his tone, only his words.

“Would I wrap my hands around that dainty neck and shake you until I heard a snap?” I shiver at the darkness that’s crept into his tone. “Would I tie you under the pier and let the tide decide your fate? Hours, Harlow. I’ve spent hours trying to decide what to do with you, but now that you’re here I can’t do any of those things. Care to guess why?”

I thought I knew all the sides of Noah Kincaid, but hearing his voice and the dark pleasure in which he speaks makes it clear that there are still some layers I’ve yet to peel back. And right now I’m seeing the mastermind, the ringleader of The Underground at work.

He should frighten me right now, the voice he’s using is one of nightmares, but if anything, my body hums with seeing him in this position. In power.

Harlow and I were born with many differences, but it seems we have one thing in common.

Our reaction to Noah Kincaid.

She’s staring at him the same way I do, like he’s a mystery waiting to be solved, a magnet we want stuck to our side. “Because you don’t have the ledger,” she sings, pride clear in her words. She still has the upper hand.

The room goes quiet.

“As long as I have it,” she continues. “You can’t do anything.”

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