Page 57 of Sinner's Secret

He managed to speak before she could, “Why do you do dangerous things?”

“I’m a police officer, and I don’t work alone. I prepare for an operation, and I go in armed with my team.” She was nearly shouting the words at him now.

“Where was your team when you were taken from your home?” he shouted back, throwing a hand in the air to punctuate his question. “Where were they when I showed up, alone, to get you away from those repulsive, kidnapping, animals?”

“Why didn’t you call Smith and ask for help?” she asked with a snarl, stepping into his personal space.

“Because an hour after I left your team, someone tried to kill me with a couple of very large trucks.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he winced. He was trying to keep her from seeing too much, from suspecting too much, from knowing too much. That damned assassination attempt wasn’t going to help convince her he was just a regular guy with a shady family.

She blinked and her jaw dropped open. “What?” She stepped back so she could look him up and down. “How long have you been wearing a paramedic’s uniform?” She put her hands on his chest and ran them down to his hips.

Her touch ignited a fire in his gut, a hunger he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. He wanted her hands on his bare skin and his hands on hers. He wanted her skin under his tongue and her blood—no.

He jerked back, refusing to give in to the hungry need simmering in every cell of his body. But she held him still with surprising strength, checking his arms, and even spinning him around slowly so she could look at his back.

“Were you injured?” She kept looking, but she wasn’t going to find anything. He’d already healed. “Tell me about these large trucks and why you think they were trying to kill you.”

Maybe he could spin the story so it sounded believable. He opened his mouth to give her a highly sanitized version of the incident, but an image of the inside of the ambulance as he’d left it popped into his head. Blood had been splattered over nearly every surface, including the two bodies he’d left behind. One whose throat had been torn out.

She was a cop, she’d have access to crime scene photos. If he lied...she’d eventually see the truth.

Then she’d know he really was the biggest monster of them all. And a liar.

He tried not to lie. Not even to himself. Misdirect, distract, and downplay, yes. Lie, no.

“I was in my cab, driving, when a transport truck blew through a red light and t-boned my car.”

She gasped. “How are you not injured?”

“Oh, it hurt,” he replied. “But that’s the great thing about airbags.”

“That old car had side panel airbags?”

He waved her question off. “My point is, the attempt to squish me flat happened an hour after getting yelled at and accused of kidnapping you by Thomas. I think he sees me as a convenient fall guy.”

She snorted. “You are the least convenient man I’ve ever met.” She shook her head, stepped back a couple more paces, then covered her face with both hands. “I don’t understand how we got here, hiding in a motel owned by a crime boss.”

“Nika,” he began, but she cut him off.

“Stop,” she said, putting both hands up, palms facing out. “Just stop for a second and let me think.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he muttered.

She pointed a finger at him. “Do not pretend to be the asshole, not now, not with me. I know the truth.”

“Nika,” he said, his tone gentle. “I am an asshole and a monster.”

She threw her hands in the air like he’d told her a bald-faced lie, and paced away from him, only to turn and stride over to stand in front of him again.

“Stop saying that.” She smacked his chest with both hands and shoved him.

He swayed, but didn’t otherwise move.

She growled and shoved him again.

This time he allowed momentum to make him take a step backward.

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