I wanted to argue the point that Lake had been my toy for years, and I knew exactly how to break her when I realized that breaking her was the last thing I wanted. I wanted Lake strong, but I didn’t want her fighting my battles. Hell, I didn’t even want her fighting her own.

While I struggled, Q stood and announced he was crashing in the basement. I laid my head back against the couch cushions and stared at the ceiling as if the answer to how to deal with my girlfriend was in the paint.

The next morning, after I’d showered, I found her sitting on the side of the bed staring down at her phone. “What’s up?” It was meant to sound casual. The way she’d jumped and her eyes widened, I knew I sounded anything but.

“Do you think we can reschedule our court appointment? I’m due for my birth control shot.” She looked down at my morning wood tenting my jeans. “It’s not something I should miss,” she admitted with flushed cheeks.

“We can’t reschedule. It’s too late. It was also a condition of your release, warrant or not.” I didn’t add that I was eager to get this handled so I could get her home alone where there would be nowhere for her to run and no one to interfere.

I expected her to argue but she simply nodded, grabbed her toiletry bag, and walked past me to leave the bedroom. She stopped in the threshold and said, “You can’t touch me.” She slammed the door, leaving me alone to stare after her. I could tell by her demeanor that I had fucked up royally last night, and if we ever got past this, I’d be paying for it for a long time.

I took her spot on the edge of the bed and waited until she finished her shower. When she returned, her eyes avoided me as she moved about the room, clutching the towel closely around her. She was hiding herself from me and it pissed me off more than her silence.

“Lake.”

She stiffened before giving me her full attention. “Yes?”

“Why did you go back?”

Chapter Eight

LAKE

“Why did you go back?” I was beginning to expect the unexpected so when he asked me a question that seemed out of the blue, I wasn’t really surprised, but I was confused. “Q said you slipped into the facility through the back entrance. You must have gone back because how else did your signature get on the logs?”

There was murder in his eyes, and I wasn’t sure if the truth would only provoke his bred nature to the surface. “I never left.”

“Explain,” he growled. I felt the single word like an ache in my bones.

“I waited until Q left and then went back.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“It’s what I said, Keiran.” God, I felt so exposed. Without clothes, I was even more vulnerable and he looked ready to either fuck me or murder me.

“What happened?”

“I got spooked. Q… he left a message on the wall that said ‘For John’—in blood.” The veiny throb I’d come to identify as an indicator of Keiran’s breaking point made its first appearance, and I wondered if I’d just made things worse. “I suppose he didn’t tell you.”

He didn’t bother to answer and continued to grill me. “And?”

“I ran down the wrong hallway. A nurse caught me. She knew I hadn’t signed in because I wasn’t wearing a visitor’s pass.”

“Why didn’t you run?”

“With a dead body down the hall? I would have been implicated months ago.” And maybe I would have if it hadn’t been for the company’s lack of foresight on effective filing. Months of logs were missing altogether or stored in the wrong places. If it hadn’t been for the investigation, the issue might never have been brought to light.

“Continue,” he ordered.

“There’s nothing else. I signed in, and when the coast was clear, I left.”

“It never occurred to you that the log would implicate you? That it was all one big fuck-up from the get go?”

“Every day since then, but he’s dead now. That’s all that matters.”

“Until you’re in prison and I—I—” He made a noise that terrified me and then shot up from the bed to pace.

“You what?”

“Forget it. So Quentin killed him, and you’re his accomplice. Where do we go from here, Lake?”

“You’re asking me?”

“You seem to think you’ve got the murder game all figured out. You tell me.”

“I never claimed this would be easy. I never wanted to lie to you, but if you want me to say it, then no, I couldn’t trust you. You’re violent, reckless, and unpredictable.”