Page 62 of Crown of Smoke

"The Keans will come after you now," I say quietly. "You were seen with Marshall right before he died. They'll assume you know something."

She wraps her arms around herself, shrinking further against the door. The distance between us feels like miles, though we're inches apart. The urge to reach for her, to comfort her, is overwhelming. But I've lost that right.

I pull out my phone while keeping one eye on the road, dialing Phoenix. My stomach twists as it rings. My oldest brother's always been the level-headed one, the strategist. And I've just blown a decade of careful planning sky-high.

"What?" Phoenix's voice cuts sharp through the speaker.

"I need a safehouse.”

“What happened?”

I don’t say anything for a moment, wondering if I should lead with I was protecting Lucy. Instead, I say, “I killed Marshall.”

Silence stretches across the line. "Jesus Christ, Flint. You had one job. Infiltrate. Observe. Learn how to get to these guys and?—”

"He recognized me." I glance at Lucy, who flinches at the movement. It guts me. “He was threatening to kill Lucy. She was there when it happened."

Phoenix's voice drops dangerously low. "The journalist?"

"I didn't have a choice." The more I replay it, the more I know it’s true. Had Marshall not recognized me, I could have rescued Lucy and we’d have gone our own way. But his threatening her life and recognizing me changed everything. “Like I said, he recognized me. He’d have told Hampton and Ronan.”

"You always have a choice. Now you've compromised everything." Phoenix's frustration reverberates through the phone. "Ten years of work blown because you couldn't keep it in your pants."

My grip tightens on the phone. "Just give me the address."

There’s another long pause and then he rattles off an address. The call ends abruptly, leaving me alone with my failure and a terrified woman who hates me. Some protector I turned out to be.

Lucy fumbles for her phone, her hands shaking. "I'm calling the police."

Fucking hell? It takes all my strength to resist the urge to grab her phone and toss it out the window. But I don’t want to scare her more than she already is. Then again, if she’s feeling brave enough to call the cops, she can’t be that afraid of me.

"And tell them what? That you were questioning a corrupt cop about his ties to organized crime before he was killed? When you tell them Flint Ifrinn committed the murder, will you include how you’d been sleeping with him?” Fuck, I’m being an ass again. “He threatened you, Lucy. I was protecting you.”

“You didn’t kill the other men who threatened me. No, you murdered him for your own sick reasons.”

“Sick?” I nearly choke on the word. “Marshall worked for us. Then he sold us out. You heard him. He admitted to being a part of my parents’ murder.”

"So you killed him." Her voice cracks.

"He deserved worse.” I shake my head. “You can’t call the police, Lucy. The moment you do, you're dead."

She gasps, and only then do I realize she thinks I’m threatening her. “Marshall isn’t the only one on the force in Kean’s pocket. They'll find you, and they'll make you disappear. You’ve researched enough to know they can make it happen and get away with it.”

"Like the Ifrinn brothers disappeared?" Her eyes narrow. "Except you didn't disappear, did you? You've been planning this."

"For ten years." I meet her gaze briefly before turning back to the road. “They took everything from us. Now they pay.”

We arrive at the safehouse, a tired looking bungalow in a blue-collar neighborhood outside the city.

I pull into the driveway and park, turning to her. "I'm sorry." I force my voice to be softer, gentler. "I don't mean to scare you. I just need you to understand why we can't go to the police. Why you have to trust me, even if you hate me right now."

I usher Lucy into the house, scanning the shadows before locking the door behind us. The space is sparse, but it'll keep her alive.

"You can't keep me here." Lucy whirls on me, eyes blazing. Even terrified, she's got more fire than sense.

"Actually, I can." I check the windows, then make sure the curtains are closed. "Unless you've got a death wish."

"What I have is a story to write." She jabs a finger at my chest. "People deserve to know the truth about the Keans. About Marshall. About you."

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