Page 201 of You Might Be Bad for Me

“What’d they say?” I ask her, trying to hide the adrenaline and rage that mixes in a deadly concoction. I walk carefully to her, watching as she rubs her eyes. Sitting close to her and pulling her into me, I try to calm her down so she’ll just talk to me. And she lets me, which is already a relief. “Just tell me what happened,” I say, and the words come out even and calm. Deadly calm.

“I feel like… Bastian.” Her words are choked as she buries her head in her knees, pulling away from me.

The only thing I focus on is keeping my hands on her. She’s here with me. My Chloe Rose is right here, and I’ve got her.

“Whoever it was just wanted to freak me out, but I don’t know how they know about the list unless they overheard at the butcher shop. But I didn’t say the names out loud, did I?” Her words come one after the other, stumbling over each other, but the second she’s done, she breathes in deep and rubs her eyes. “I know I didn’t.” She answers her own question before I can say anything. My blood is hot with rage, wanting to know exactly who messaged her and why the fuck they’d get in my way.

Still not looking at me, she apologizes. “I’m sorry.”

Frozen and struggling to push the command through clenched teeth, I repeat my question, “Who texted you?” If they’re fucking with her, they’re fucking with me.

“They said Jeff Adler’s dead. I don’t know who it is. I don’t…” She doesn’t finish. Instead, she shakes out her hands and grabs onto her knees, burying her head so she doesn’t have to look at me.

My blood runs cold. He’s next on the list. She knows it. I know it. Only two left.

With a deep exhalation, she finally looks up at me and she apologizes again. “I’m sorry,” she says, and her voice is soft. “I feel like I’m being crazy, but I’m scared.”

She has no idea how ridiculous those words are coming from her mouth.

“I saw,” I tell her, knowing she needs to be told enough so she thinks it’s okay. That everything is okay. “On my way back from Carter’s, there’s a bunch of people around the site. Looks like a car hit him.” Her mouth drops slowly as I give her the partial truth.

“What? No.” Her first reaction is denial and she reaches for her phone, but I take it from her, hellbent on finding the number and who it belongs to. “I looked, no one was saying anything.”

I don’t respond to her and she stays stiff at my side as I look up the number and put it in my own phone. Nothing. Reading the texts, I know who sent it. I just don’t know why and every thought that comes up makes my knuckles turn white as I try not to break the fucking phone in my hand.

Anger is a deadly thing.

“He’s dead.” Her voice shakes with fear and it’s that sound that pulls me back to her.

“It was an accident.” I’m firm with her, pulling her in closer to me. “Word gets around.” I start coming up with an explanation. “I think people know you’re freaked is all, Chlo.” I feel her eyes on me, but I can’t look down at her. If she looks into my eyes, she’ll know I’m lying.

I have to stand up and start walking to the bedroom, stripping down and making it look like I’m anything but on the brink of tearing this place apart.

“People know what?” she calls out and I hear her get off the sofa to come after me, her footsteps echoing down the hall.

I need to calm the fuck down. If for no other reason than to calm her down, so she stops thinking about it all. She can’t do anything to fuck this up.

With my jaw hard and my back stiff, I turn to her slowly, seeing her prettily framed in the doorway. I force a small smile to my lips. “It’s no one, Chlo, but it’s okay. I’d be freaked out too. Whoever it was, wasn’t thinking.”

I have to hide my shock at how well I just lied. How easy it came out. Desperation is an ugly thing.

Her distraught expression slowly fades, replaced with hesitant relief. Her lips stay parted as she lets my words sink in, slowly believing the little lies I’m feeding her.

And it fucking kills me. What I’m doing to her destroys everything in me.

“Come here,” I tell her as I tear my shirt off over my head and toss it carelessly on the floor. My three steps take up the entire space of the room as I go to her, wrapping her in my arms and kissing her temple. Her fingers wrap around my forearm and she looks up at me, eyes wide and wanting so badly to believe what I’m telling her.

“I’m sorry you got spooked, but it’s nothing. An accident.”

“Another coincidence?” she questions me, but her tone isn’t a question. My heart thrums and a chill spread over my body.

“It was an accident,” I repeat, making my tone a little harder and staring into her eyes until she believes me.

“I don’t know… that text and--“

I huff, cutting her off and staring past her. She squirms in my periphery and I’m a fucking asshole. I’m an asshole for making her think this is all in her head.

“This isn’t how I wanted tonight to go,” I say softly, thinking about last night and how easy it was to get lost in her. If I could live in that moment, I would.

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