Page 99 of Fall Into Me

I didn’t even take my eyes off her when Dallas asked me to let him know if anything changed and if he needed to come back.

They stayed right on her when she reached her hand out to me, and I wrapped my hands around hers until she fell asleep.

The door to her room opened and closed.

“How is she?” Ash asked from the foot of her bed.

“She’ll be okay,” I murmured. That’s what I kept repeating.She’ll be okay, she’ll be okay, she’ll be okay.“What did you find?” I pulled my eyes away from Cali’s sleeping form at last and leaned back in my chair, my body aching from being in one position for so long.

“His truck was ditched a couple miles outside of town, burned out. I put a call out, but I don’t have a lot of people this…”

“Rural?”

Ash gave me one of his classic pretty boy smiles. “Yeah.”

“Thanks for your help.” I turned my attention back to Cali.

“There’s one more thing.” He walked around Cali’s bed and handed me a crumpled note. “Found it in Cali’s car.”

I unfolded the note, the messy, unrefined scrawl glaring up at me like a taunt.

My eyes shot to Ash’s, the words choking in my throat. I’d seen the look on her face when she picked that note off her dash. Like she’d seen a fucking ghost.

And I’d let it go.

Because I’d been too damn scared I’d push her away to push her at all.

“My guess is he messed with her brakes,” Ashton said, his voice low. “She’d been leaking brake fluid for a while, but the hole was tiny—small enough that it would’ve taken days for herto notice anything. Probably couldn’t make up his mind on what he was going to do, judging by the shitload of tools in the back of his truck. They matched the description of the missing gear from Gus’s shop.”

“She hasn’t been using her car,” I told him, still staring at the note in my hand.

“You think this is because of the bar thing?”

“He said something to her at Sunshine too,” I muttered, “She never said anything more about it.”

Another thing I hadn’t wanted to push her on.

“The guy’s a fucking psycho, Fane. It’s not the first time I’ve seen someone like him lose his shit because he was turned down by a girl.”

“And if it’s more than that?”

Ashton’s gaze hardened. The glint in his eyes spoke to the darkness he harbored like a secret beneath his humor and his wit. “Then we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“Ashton—”

“For now,” he interrupted, eyes piercing and focused on me. “She needs you not to lose your shit. Don’t make this about you. The moment you start blaming yourself, it all falls apart.”

“I’m the one who fuckingbroughtus here,” I seethed at him between gritted teeth, low and pained. Leave it to him to know exactly what I was thinking.

“Yep.” He nodded, unflinching. “But news flash, Fane. They were coming here whether you stepped in or not. They would have sent a crew in with or without your permission, and where would we be then if not halfway through tearing apart this fucking town?” He lifted his eyebrows at me, daring me to argue with him.

I stayed silent, jaw clenched.

“That’s what I thought.” He crossed his arms. “The guys just got into town after their leave last week. I’m going to have themdo evaluations of the outer zones for the next two days before sending them home to work on those presentations.”

“We don’t need anything else. It’s done. We have everything we need to shoot down the project. You know that.”

“Yep, but you need time.” He looked pointedly at Cali before looking back to me. “I’ll stay in town, message a few guys to come out to help for a while.”

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