Page 7 of Connor's Claim

“You’re awake.”

“No thanks to your apparent new career of kidnap and drugging.”

She didn’t know the half of it. Nor was I apologising for what I’d done. If she hadn’t threatened to scream, I wouldn’t have drugged her, so this was on her. “Do ye know where ye are?”

“The warehouse by the river. Are you going to take me home?”

I locked the door behind me then crossed the room to regard her. “No. Ye heard that arsehole who broke into your house. You’re not safe there.”

Her big brown eyes took me in. “We have a security patrol on the street. I’d have called them if you hadn’t shown up. I would’ve been okay by myself.”

“Aye, it looked like it with that man fucking mugging ye.”

“He said he wouldn’t hurt me.”

I scoffed, poking my tongue into my cheek. “Everly.”

“Connor.”

A beat passed. My blood swirled, heating up.

“Why were you there?” At my hesitation, she pressed on. “Because I’ve come here a number of times to speak to you, but never once did you allow it. Then all of a sudden, you’re at my house in the middle of the night and now I’m in your apartment.”

Too many thoughts collided in my head, but I needed to keep this simple, so I took a seat at the end of the sofa and tried to ignore the bare lengths of Everly’s legs as she settled at the other end. It was oddly cosy. “You’re aware of the murders that happened in the city in the past few weeks?”

Hesitantly, she nodded. “You mean the two women?”

“Exactly. The first, Cherry, bled out on the church steps where she worked, and the second, Natasha, was killed and dumped on our doorstep. The method of execution was identical. Both had their throats slit.”

Everly paled. “Those poor souls. How does that connect to you? Or to me?”

By my brain making leaps and pulling information together in a wild and uncontrolled way. Still, it felt real, particularly considering the events at her home. “At first, Arran thought the killer was targeting him. They copied the way his mother was executed. Then we got the post-mortem report back for Natasha, and she was drugged before her death.”

Everly’s fingertips drifted to the site behind her hip where I’d injected her. Fresh heat and some wave of unknown emotion passed over me at the shiver she tried to hide. She ought to fear me. What I’d become. I wasn’t the boy she’d once known.

“I’m not sure I follow,” she said weakly.

From my pocket, I extracted the small leather zip-up case, opening it to reveal the needles and vials. “Tools of my trade. The killer chose the identical drug I use. An unusual one. Then he brought the body here. With the first woman, I’d been there that night in the same churchyard she worked. It’s possible the killer followed me.”

Everly’s gaze intensified, surprise there, too. I’d wondered what her da had told her about me. “What trade, exactly, do you use that drug for?”

“Ye don’t want to ask me that.”

She pressed her lips together. “Okay then. So you think the murderer is targeting you instead. What does that have to do with me?”

A good question. “It puts ye in the crossfire because of our previous connection.”

Her gaze flew from the drugs kit to meet mine. Disbelief filled her eyes. “Because ten years ago our parents were temporarily married? How widely is that even known?”

Annoyed, I huffed out a breath. “Your beloved father tried to bury it, but enough people would remember to make this a credible threat.”

“Based on that, you broke into my house? You’re reaching.”

“And you’re dismissing it out of hand. Women have died, and the closest lass to me is still ye.”

Everly dropped the eye contact and hugged herself, my hoodie baggy on her but not concealing the swell of her breasts. “I feel awful for those women but I can’t see that I’m in any real danger. Shouldn’t you be squirrelling away your mother, or a girlfriend or three?”

I leapt up and paced away to the window, hiding my expression so she wouldn’t witness the denial that wanted out of my lips. “Let me worry about girlfriends.”

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