Page 74 of Inside the Wicked

“Let’s go!” Rix hollers.

It’s then I look up and see Adam Sullevan getting out the back and slipping into the front.

“You have seconds to give me one good reason why my hands shouldn’t wrap around his throat from the back seat,” I say darkly, pulling Ana toward the SUV.

“You’re not the only one with a ruse,” she says. “I mean, his is simply the asshole ruse, and I guess it was kind of genuine, but he apologized and has actually been a good friend since, well, you died.”

I cast her an unamused look as she slips into the car giving me an innocent smile.

“Too soon?”

I’m worried about her. I’m terrifyingly, obsessively worried about her. At least it keeps my mind off my own shit. I think she’s deflecting her trauma, and I can’t figure out the right way to mend us together until I know every piece of the story fromhersince the day I left. I want to believe it’s just time I need to give, but after three months away from her, time has become too precious to me.

“I’m glad you’re alive for Ana’s sake, Kaiser, but I’m not apologizing to you,” Adam says as Rix takes off.

“Good, because I’d shove it back down your fucking throat, Sullevan.”

He huffs a laugh, but his smile falls to fear the instant he looks back and catches my glare. Ana scoots over to the middle seat, and her hand on my thigh calms the beast wanting to reach for Adam. I was too lost in my drive to find Ana the first time I saw him, and now I have her, I have the headspace to loathe the fact he’s here.

“Be nice,” Ana says, tipping her head back and trying her best pleading eyes.

“This is my nice.”

I’ll admit, that look could get me to kneel on hot coals for her, but I haven’t forgotten a single word or look Adam gave Ana over the semester to pin him high on my list of people to give hell to.

“I missed your graduation,” I mutter absentmindedly at the thought of college.

“So did I,” she says nonchalantly.

That disturbs me, but I don’t let it show. Her smile is tinted with sadness, but she merely inches closer, tucking her arm around mine and leaning her head on my shoulder. It’s fucking bliss. After all the torment, I feared something would be amiss, different, when I got to her again. I’m going to find out what the fuck happened to her in that time of seclusion, and I’m going to burn every one of Alistair’s evil lairs to the fucking ground.

CHAPTER 29

Rhett

“You didn’t tell me you succeeded in getting Balenheizer on your side.” Rix complains to Ana from his surveillance table in the Den.

She says, “Ididn’t know he was on my side. I’m surprised he came. The last I saw of him, he all but said he wouldn’t get involved unless Kenna was a part of it.”

My eyes slide from the feeds to her. “Who?”

Ana looks at me, and her face relaxes as she realizes something. “Kenna Radley. She said she knew you from when you were with Alistair.”

I’ve never understood what people mean when they say their world stops spinning. Until right now. My world stops and fucking reverses at a speed I find dizzying. I have to walk away to think.

Kenna Radley.

It has to be a coincidence.

“Who was she to you?” Ana asks carefully as she approaches.

“She was ... a friend, I guess. In the most tragic sense.”

That’s not her real name.

I doubt Ana knows that.

“What does she look like?” I ask, dread rising from the pit of my stomach. I’m a fucking coward for hoping her description won’t match, because I tried years ago to find her, and I was led to believe she was dead.

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