was prowling back and forth in front of me like an angry animal, and all I wanted to do was reach out a hand and try and soothe him. He was coiled so tightly I could see the ropes of tension in all the hard lines of his muscular build and stamped across his face.
I shrugged lightly when that electric-blue gaze finally landed on me. “Conner isn’t stupid. He’s going to be right on my tail, so I couldn’t risk going home. My folks have had a hard enough time with things in the last few years. They don’t need to be in the middle of all this.”
“Isn’t he going to look for you there first?” He moved like he was going to sit on the edge of the bed and then made a face when he caught sight of just how gross the mustard-yellow comforter was upon closer inspection. Instead he crossed his arms over his broad chest and faced off against where I was leaning.
“I don’t think so. We weren’t close after Rissa died. I was suffering so much and I guess I felt like they weren’t suffering enough. I haven’t really spoken to them in years.”
Titus grunted at me and wrinkled his nose as the people in the room next door decided to start a bout of noisy morning sex that shook the entire wall behind the bed.
“You don’t have friends, any other relatives, no one that can give you a place to hide out while we figure out to handle Roark? The state attorney general is going to think you skipped out on WITSEC. You’re going to be a fugitive until we catch him and put this all to rights and until I can hand over the proof that he’s dirty to the right people.”
I let my head fall back until it thunked against the door. “Tell the feds I’ll still testify; I just don’t want to be in protective custody anymore. They did that for Bax and Race. Besides him being dirty, he slept with me and broke protocol. Why do I have to prove I’m on the up-and-up?” I could see the answer in his eyes. They would believe the best of Conner because he had a respectable job even if he had used it to break the law, and I was just some girl that kept making bad choices.
“Bax and Race weren’t involved in a murder-for-hire plot with Novak and his goons.”
I cringed involuntarily. “No, but they were involved in his other criminal enterprises. I’m still going to hold up my end of the deal, I’m just going to do it here.”
“That’s not safe. I saw the texts on his phone. Roark isn’t done with his rampage and he’s unhinged. He furious about something and it’s driving him to do what he’s doing. He wants the Point to fall and he’s going after everyone involved in holding it up after Novak went down. I’m sure he realizes you’re the one that turned him in and took the evidence needed to nail him. Things are going to be really bad for you.”
I laughed drily and lifted an eyebrow at him. I wished I had the nerve to walk up to him and wrap him up in a hug. I think we both really could have used one. “Things are always really bad for me. I had a few minutes of peace when I was pretending to be someone else and her skin never quite fit right. This is what my life looks like, Detective.”
His eyebrows pulled together and there was a noticeable tick in his jaw. “You do understand Conner will more than likely murder you when he gets his hands on you for double-crossing him? He burned down Nassir’s fight club on a night it was full of people. We pulled ten bodies out of the debris. Most of them were younger than you.”
I didn’t need a lecture about how cruel and coldblooded Conner was. I knew. The bastard had tossed the word love at me like I was an idiot. Like I was some simple girl that hadn’t grown up on the streets knowing what a chore it would be to love someone like me. A good man, a man with a purpose and a cause, would never throw the L-word so carelessly at a woman with a past like mine. Right then and there I knew he was up to something I wanted no part of. He thought he could tell