Page 52 of My End
Freddie gave me a look like he didn’t believe a word of it. I didn’t blame him. I didn’t believe it either.
But I wasn’t about to lay it all out for him.
Instead, I focused on the passing cars. The guard logs. The mindless rotation of faces and vehicles. My ears tuned to every radio transmission. Every bit of chatter that might hint at what was going on.
Boone didn’t make moves without reason. If I was off his detail, it meant one of two things: he was getting paranoid, or he was about to make a move and didn’t want me close when it went down.
Neither was good.
The hours dragged. By early afternoon, the sun had turned the inside of the gatehouse into a goddamn oven. Freddie snored softly from the back corner while I leaned on the windowsill, my eyes scanning the curve of the drive.
No Tilly.
I hadn’t seen her all day. Not even a flash of wild hair or those soft, flowy skirts she liked to wear.
Last night, I’d shown up ready to spill whatever version of the truth I could manage, and she’d looked at me like I was exactly the man she’d been waiting for. She opened her studio to me, showed me that damn painting. A piece of her soul, really.
And I’d kissed her. Touched her. Made love to her like she was mine.
I had managed to tell her a little bit of truth about me, but she still saw me as Jake.
Jake was the man she trusted. The man she wanted.
Stretch was the one lying to her. Stretch was the one waiting to take down Boone and Gibbs to burn their whole operation to the ground.
If she ever found out the full truth of what I was doing and why I was here, she might never look at me the same way again.
I couldn’t lose her.
Which meant I had to finish what I started.
And fast.
By dusk, the air had cooled just enough that I could finally breathe without feeling like my lungs were boiling. Freddie passed me a lukewarm water bottle and let out a long sigh.
“You hear anything?” I asked casually.
“About what?”
“Just... anything new going on with Boone or Gibbs?”
Freddie raised a brow. “I hear a lot of things, Jake, but I don’t remember any of it. That’s part of our job, right?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I guess it just irks me that I’m out here and don’t know why. You sure you don’t know why?”
Freddie snorted. “Only thing I heard today is that Kevin’s been glued to Boone like white on rice. And Gibbs has been locked in the office making calls all damn afternoon. Something’s up, but it ain’t got nothing to do with us and this gate.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “You’re probably right.” I couldn’t press him anymore without raising suspicion. I was just going to have to figure out how to get back in the house and get my ass in gear before it was too late.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tilly
The soft glow of the bedside lamp cast warm shadows across the room, and the steady hum of the mansion beyond these walls faded into the background. We were in his bed with my head tucked against his chest, and our legs tangled under the thin sheet. His skin was warm against mine, his heart beating slow and steady, but… his silence wasn’t.
Jake was never much of a talker, not outside of our stolen moments, but tonight the quiet felt different. Heavy. Like there were words sitting on the edge of his tongue that he couldn’t quite let go of.
I curled my fingers over the slope of his chest and traced the line of a faint scar near his collarbone. “You’re quiet tonight.”
