Page 69 of Dirty Love

I stop. Just…dead. No, I would never.

He doesn’t blink, and he doesn’t move. “You can make it now. You can tell me to back off, and I’ll do my best to unravel what I’ve done. But this is what I do, Tabitha. I make bad people pay for shit.”

“Shit they haven’t done.”

He shrugs. “Minor detail. Would you rather he pay for horrifying domestic violence? Because I would. I want him hung in the public square for what he did to you, but I don’t want you to suffer through that. I don’t want you to have to talk about Keegan, or the life you left behind, or living on the streets. I want to make him disappear in a way that doesn’t touch you. And if that means inventing a financial crime, I’m good with that.”

I start to shake as he’s talking, and he leans in and wraps his arms around me.

“I’d do anything for you.”

“You know when people say that, they don’t usually mean it without any limits,” I whisper.

“Then they’re doing love the wrong way,” he whispers back.

A lump catches in my throat.

“Don’t go with him to the fight,” he grinds out as I lean into him.

I close my eyes. “Will you be there?”

“Don’t, Tabitha. It could get really dangerous.”

“Is Victor Best really going to be there?”

He hesitates. “No.”

“Okay.” I take a deep breath. “What can I do?”

“Nothing.”

That’s not going to fly with me. I try again, this time starting with a reassurance. “I’ll stay far away on Saturday night. But in the next two days…what can I do?”

He hesitates, then presses his lips against my temple. “It would help if he was unhinged. Reckless.”

I let out a shaky breath. “Unhinged and reckless are my specialities.”

—thirty-two—

Tabitha

We’re at the spa in the hotel, getting pedicures, but it’s not exactly relaxing because Ginnifer’s phone keeps going off.

Since Victor owns the hotel, the staff don’t say anything, but her stepdaughter does.

“You’re not supposed to be using that,” Clara says, complete with a bored sixteen-year-old eye roll.

“It’s your father.” Ginnifer chews on her lower lip. “We have to go to Washington tonight.”

A weird ribbon of relief curls through my stomach. I know that there was really no chance of her being affected by whatever’s going to go down tomorrow night—on the other side of the city, in a warehouse completely removed from this world of luxury—but I don’t want her involved.

There’s something fragile and innocent about her.

Clara makes a grumpy face, and Ginnifer just waves her off. “Oh, shush. You knew this was coming.”

“It’s going to be such adraghaving Secret Service protection.”

Ginnifer points at the hulking man standing at the far end of the hall. “We have bodyguards now.”

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