Page 42 of Even if You Fall

My head slanted, but instead of responding, I lowered my voice and informed her, “We know you overhead something from our meeting.” Just as her eyebrows started drawing together in confusion that looked so genuine, I said, “Need you to stop lying to me, Bubbles. Need you to stop trying to play me.”

A heaving breath tumbled from her. “I’m not. Why do you keep insisting?—”

Her question abruptly cut off when I leaned closer and softly demanded, “Tell me how you’re any different than Vance with that mask you wear and the lies falling from your lips.”

Hurt tore across her features, quickly followed by a startling determination that was gone just as fast. “The mailer was urgent. I was bringing it to Asher when I heard someone say something about howI couldn’t know.” Her hazel eyes searched mine before falling away, her eyelashes brushing near her lightly freckled cheeks. “I heard you say I would fall for his lies and for something dangerous.”

“Into,” I corrected and watched as those eyes snapped back to mine. “Fallintosomething more dangerous.”

Worry, fear, and uncertainty danced across her features before abruptly giving way to unadulterated excitement. As if we’d been having a conversation about her favorite things the entire time. As if she truly couldn’t help but fall back to her default of this happy mask.

Once again, I found myself wondering what had happened in this girl’s life for her to force this persona until it’dbecomeher.

“Why do you do that?” I found myself asking, the curiosity growing too great. When her head tilted in question, I tipped my chin at her. “Why do you mask everything with joy?”

Chloe studied me for long moments before twisting in the chair and picking up her book. “That’s all I heard, and I don’t know anything about the courier. Sorry.”

“Thatch,” Briggs yelled from the back, but instead of immediately heading that way, I lingered, studying the girl in front of me; from the dusting of freckles to the messy knot of red hair on top of her head to her stunning features that drew me in a little more each day. This girl with her secrets and books and a style I looked forward to seeing each day. It wasn’t the jeans or the heels that still left her nearly a foot shorter than me, but the ridiculous graphic tees that showed just how much of a nerd she truly was, always knotted against her hip and accentuating those curves I normally didn’t care for.

Maybe because those nerdy shirts and the books she seemed to pull out of nowhere were the only things I knew wererealabout Chloe Whitlock.

“Bubbles,” I said in parting as I finally tore myself away from that veiled threat of a girl and headed back to where Briggs was standing against the conference room door.

With a glance toward the front, he asked everything without needing to say a thing.

“She heard us talking about how she couldn’t know about Vance,” I whispered as I got close. “About how she would fall into his lies again.”

Briggs shifted his jaw, but he just nodded in acknowledgment as I passed him. “This changes things,” he said once he followed me into the conference room, letting the door shut behind us. But I knew in an instant he wasn’t talking about what Chloe had overheard.

He was talking about the photos and notes carefully laid out on the table.

On the left were the two I’d already seen a week ago. But the rest? There were photos of all of us.

Briggs, Kaia, and Lainey out in Huntley Square—where the main street of the little town they lived in ended in a literal square filled with shops, restaurants, and outdoor tables for people to sit and enjoy food and live music under café lights. Chloe, Rush, Briggs, and Lainey eating food in the same place, but on a different day, given the clothes. Chloe and Lainey out shopping with Kaia and Wren. Gray walking out of Briggs’ house with Chloe. Lainey walking down a driveway with Kaia on her hip. Chloe leaning toward Gray’s open truck window, giving him that breathtaking smile.

Last night, I realized as dread gripped at my lungs until it felt hard to breathe as I finally looked at the remaining item on the table: a note.

Have I mentioned you have a beautiful family?

Shame.

I swallowed around the knot of fear and uncertainty in my throat as I quickly took everything in again, sure I was missing something.

“Doesn’t make sense,” I muttered. “They’re singling you out, Briggs. They’re letting you know this is about you. So, why Chloe? This can’t have to do with Vance.”

“I don’t think it does,” Briggs said, but Rush was the one who took over.

“They’ve been keeping tabs on us—Wells already let Briggs know that when they trashed the office this spring.”

Instinctively, I glanced Evans’ way at the mention of the Wreckers’ underboss, but as always when the mafia family was mentioned, his anger looked fueled by embarrassment and betrayal.

“Wells even said something about Kaia when he was here, so we knew there was a possibility of the Wreckers eventually trying to use at least her against Briggs,” Rush went on.

“With Lainey being in my life, that isn’t something they’d let go either,” Briggs added, sounding like he was contemplating how to take out an entire mafia family. “I think it’s all highly coincidental that Chloe knows Vance. Whatever they’re using him for, and whatever their intentions are with these vague threats, they have to be separate. Lainey just happened to move in with Chloe, so they?—”

“Did she?” I asked over him as those suspicions of the girl plaguing my thoughts became too much to ignore. Ignoring Briggs’ warning look, I continued. “Can we afford coincidences right now?”

“She isn’t a threat, Thatch,” Briggs said firmly, turning his anger on me. “Lainey’s known Chloe most her life. The only reason Chloe had a room for rent is because her best friend got married and moved out—also something Lainey can confirm because she’s known these people forever.”

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