Page 54 of Deceive Me
She looked back at her boss. “Are you here about Kivuli?”
Dain cocked his head. “No. Should I be?”
So they didn’t know. Good.
“What do you want then?”
He looked like he wanted to question her further, but something stopped him short. “It’s time for everything to come out in the open, Elliot.”
So he was keeping his promise, then. If she didn’t spill, he would. Except her personal demons—and what she chose to do about them—hadn’t been part of the deal.
From the fact that Dain had brought Elliot’s lover into her personal hell, she gathered they were now.
“Fucking bastard.”
He shrugged, though she couldn’t miss the way his gaze cataloged her body. No doubt he already had a list of injuries in his head. It didn’t matter, though; she wasn’t his problem anymore. Time to move on.
The agony that ripped through her at the thought was worse than any blow she’d taken today, but she managed—barely—to tuck it beneath the rest. She wouldn’t put her team in the line of fire just because she wanted to be with them. She wasn’t meant for a family.
“What do you want, Dain?”
“You won’t be fit to come back to duty if you keep this up.”
She dropped her focus to the tape on her wrists, picking at a ragged edge. Anything to keep from seeing Dain’s disappointment. “I’m not coming back.”
A heavy sigh. “Of course you are, little Otter. And I’d rather it be while you can still walk.”
“Oh, this is nothing.” She peeked up, barely catching his expression. “You should see the guys I fought this afternoon; now that was some serious damage.”
“You fought someone else today? Who?”
Dain’s tone was more exasperated parent than real concern. Wasn’t he in for a surprise. “Kivuli.”
“What the hell?”
But Elliot was already plowing on. “Well, not Kivuli himself. His goons. Kivuli booked it when witnesses arrived.”
“Elliot—”
Deacon broke in. “What the hell happened, Elliot?”
Was his voice hoarse? “What do you fucking care? I don’t work for you anymore, Mr. Walsh.”
A string of ugly curses left his mouth, low and angry and, Elliot had to admit, more inventive than her usual go-tos. She preferred vulgarity over variety.
Tilting her head playfully hurt like hell, but she managed. “What’s that, Mr. Walsh?”
The curses petered out as Deacon glared down at her. Elliot grinned, ignoring the shaft of pain through her lip.
“I’m not the one in the wrong here,” Deacon said.
And he wasn’t; she knew all too well that she was to blame, for everything. Still, “Again, I don’t work for you anymore, Mr. Walsh.”
Something volcanic ignited in his expression. “You weren’t calling me Mr. Walsh last night, were you? Or this morning in the shower.”
Elliot reached for a towel hanging over the ropes and used it to wipe her face, used the motion to wipe every ounce of expression away, every thought. It was the only way to stay upright. She turned toward the ref’s assistant, a slinky blonde in a costume more suited to pole dancing than a boxing ring. A quick slash of her hand across her throat told the woman she was done for the night.
Deacon didn’t step back when she slid her leg through the ropes to climb out of the ring. She didn’t let it intimidate her. Her ass brushed his thigh, her sweaty arm knocking his away as she moved past. She didn’t look back on the trip to the locker room.
