Page 38 of Web of Lies
Is that it? Just sorry? I search his face, trying to read whether he actually means it or if he's just trying to gloss over the mess he made.
"That’s all you’ve got for me? A sorry?"
"I mean it," he adds. "I've never felt this before. I know it’s irrational. I understand how our arrangement is supposed to work. But when I saw you with Hunt and then that jerk at the bar, my brain just—" He snaps his fingers. " It was like a switch flipped, and suddenly, I couldn’t breathe unless I acted out."
I keep my eyes on him as he rambles on until I can't help but let out a sigh. "You don’t get to call this acting out." His eyebrows furrow, but he doesn't argue. "You were out of line. You could have just talked to me instead of pulling this stunt." The confession of his jealousy stirs up butterflies in my stomach, making me feel giddy. But then he brings up our arrangement. The rules echo in my mind:no strings, no feelings.And so the butterflies drown as quickly as they came.
"I know."
"You want me to trust you, right?" I ask, meeting his gaze.
"Yes," he says.
"Then you have to trust me, too. Next time you feel like this, talk to me, and we'll work it out." I take a deep breath and reach for his hand. "You're lucky I don't hate it as much as I should."
"I'm lucky you kind of like me more than you should," he replies, holding onto my hand as he steps around the counter and comes to wrap his arms around me.
My eyes widen at his words, and my heart leaps in my chest. Heat rushes to my cheeks, and I scan his face for answers. Does he know? Panic flutters in my stomach, but I force myself to smile as my fingers grow slick around the spoon.
I lean into his embrace, tilting my head back to look up at him. "What do you mean by that?" I ask.
For a moment, a softness flickers beneath the usual mischief in his eyes. But then, his lips curl into his signature smirk. "Exactly what I said. Don’t overthink it, Freckles."
"You say things like that and expect me not to overthink them?"
"Maybe I like to keep you guessing," he says with a low chuckle, brushing his thumb in lazy circles against my hip.
"But maybe I don't want to play guessing games with you."
"Maybe it isn't a game." His shoulders lift with a shrug.
Damn him. It's always the same. He knows exactly when to throw in a joke or cocky line without fail. One second, I’m stressed out, angry, or anxious. Next, he has me smiling, blushing, or distracted enough to forget why I was upset. It’s infuriating how easily he does it. As if he has a list of all my buttons and knows exactly which ones to press and when.
"You're impossible," I mutter, rolling my eyes while the corners of my lips twitch upward.
"And yet, here you are." He leans closer, his lips brushing against my temple.
He’s right. I could have left the moment I realized this wasn't just a drunken dream. I could have gone home, blockedhis number, scheduled an appointment to get it covered, and pretended it never happened. But I didn't.
Instead, I stayed.
Chapter 19
Riley
I shove a fry into my mouth, eyes glued to the two screens in front of me. On my personal laptop, Evelyn's wedding mood board is open. Normally, I couldn't care less about all the frilly, cheesy things she dreams of for her big day. But here I am, clicking through flower arrangements, bridesmaid dresses, and fabric swatches, half-focused yet fully present. This isn't about me—it's about her. And for her, I'd scroll through a hundred satin swatches, a hundred color palettes, and still not complain.
She's been dreaming about this day since the moment we met, and she's never made a secret of what she wants out of life: to fall in love, have a fairytale wedding, and start a family, just like in all the romantic movies we've watched together over the years. I used to think that was silly. Even naïve. Nowadays, though, I admire her for it. She was one of the Hunt Corp.’s best killers. She can kill someone in cold blood without batting an eye, yet she always finds the positive in life. That's what fascinated me about her when I first joined Hunt. It wasn't just her strength; it was her ability to see the good in people and believe in it, despite all the terrible things she witnessed on a daily basis.
My gaze shifts to the second laptop beside me. On this one, something entirely different is happening—something much more unsettling and terrible. When I finally got home after dealing with Kyle, I launched a wide-scale search across both the public web and the dark net, and the device is still actively running it. It has been combing through data nonstop, collecting everything related to the Butcher that it can locate.
The progress bar is stuck at seventy-four percent, yet nothing remotely useful has turned up. I've only found mentions on old forums filled with rumors. People either talk about him as if he were a creepy pasta told to scare children or as if they are obsessively fascinated by his actions.
But I have this nagging gut feeling that I'm close to learning who he is. Why else would he have been so adamant about getting the folder back I found at the restaurant? There must be a clue in there that will direct me in the right direction.
My gaze shifts to the burner phone on my cluttered desk, surrounded by a stack of prepaid SIM cards. I've run every scan I could, tracked the calls, and traced which cell towers the devices pinged when active. The burner was always connected to one station near the restaurant. However, the numbers it dialed stretched across the city, sometimes to other burners and sometimes to payphones. I reviewed the city's security footage and searched for cameras near those locations, but the calls are too old, and the footage is no longer available.
Taking my eyes off my phone, I focus on the folder that stores the data from the web. I click through the latest additions, looking for anything that looks relevant or, at the very least, makes sense.
