Beneath These Lies (Beneath, #5)(8)

That was true, but Trinity would have told me if he was taking her out. She’d been moping about him being gone before our conversation about love and penises, and Yve showing up to invite me to the bachelorette party.

“She didn’t say anything about it.”

“Not my problem.”

He might as well have held up a sign that read That’s all the information you’re getting from me. But I wasn’t satisfied.

“Where are they?”

His gaze drilled into mine as if he couldn’t believe I was still asking questions. Which explained why he ignored it.

“I’m gonna give you a piece of advice and suggest you take it. Leave the girl a voice mail like any normal boss. Don’t come ’round here knocking on doors. You might be the one needing a missing person’s report if you’re not careful.”

Banked fear curled around my spine, but I refused to succumb to it. The last several years, my life had been a constant battle to try to sort “good guys” into categories of actually good and pretending to be good.

I’d never faced someone in my sheltered little world who was unapologetically bad. It wasn’t inherently logical, but there was some comfort in the fact that he wasn’t pretending to be anything but what he was. It was the pretending to be good guys who struck the most fear into me because they presented an unknown danger.

Take the monster—he’d been a “good guy” from a good New Orleans family. And he’d terrorized both Yve and me.

This man in front of me was unequivocally dangerous.

“Is that a threat?” I asked, idiotically testing my theory. The good thing about unapologetically bad guys? They were usually pretty honest. They had nothing to hide.

“Call it a warning. This ain’t the job for you.” He tilted his head and watched me for my reaction, but I didn’t give him one. “You ain’t lettin’ this go, are you?”

“No.”

He shook his head slowly. “She’s probably holed up with D-Rock in some hotel room. The boy was going to take her somewhere romantic.” He made air quotes around the word romantic, and suddenly he was a little less scary and a little more human.

“Romantic?”

The boy gangbanger was into romance? So Trinity wasn’t missing due to some malevolent deed, she was a young girl being swept off her feet by her boyfriend. Could I have really missed the mark so widely?

Glancing back at the man watching my every change in expression, I knew I didn’t have a choice but to believe him. Which meant I didn’t need to be in this neighborhood at all, and it was time for me to go.

I dropped my gaze to the ground and debated how I was going to get out of this yard. He was blocking the only exit. Nothing to do but brazen this out too.

He’s not going to hurt me, I told myself. I’ll shoot him if he tries.

I stepped down from the porch, head held high, not showing a trace of fear except perhaps with how tightly I gripped my purse. “I appreciate the heads-up. I’ll be on my way then, if you’ll excuse me.”

When in doubt, choose manners. My mother would be so proud. Actually, she’d probably want to lock me up until I was fifty if she knew where I was.

He pushed off the gate, uncrossed his arms, and stepped toward me.

Good grief, he was even bigger up close. In my heels, I was nearly five eight, and I didn’t think the top of my head came to his eye level. Not important. I stepped off the path, my heels sinking into the dry grass of the front yard as I attempted to get around him.

“You ain’t leaving until I get a name from you.” His hand shot out and wrapped around my arm.

I froze at the contact. Strange men didn’t get to touch me. I waited for my skin to crawl . . . but it didn’t. All I registered was the heat of his hand on my skin and the light grip that kept me from taking another step.

“My name isn’t relevant,” I said. It was time to retreat to the safety of my car, get home, and leave Trinity another voice mail to call me with a sternly worded reprimand.

“It’s relevant as hell to me.”

The deep timbre of his voice sent shivers up the arm he held, but these strangely weren’t shivers of fear. My reaction surprised me, so I ignored it.

I tugged at my arm, but I couldn’t free myself. “Let go. You wanted me out of your neighborhood, and I’m leaving.”

“Give me your name, and you can walk right out that gate.”

My tugging was getting me nowhere, and I wanted to be gone. In my head I labeled it a form of self-defense when I snapped out, “Valentina. Now let me go.”

His touch was gone immediately, and the absence of the heat of his hand hit me.

“Valentina,” he repeated. “Last name?”

“No way,” I said.

“Don’t need it anyway.”

I said nothing, and I didn’t look at him. I wouldn’t look at him. And I absolutely wouldn’t think about the change in his tone when he’d said my name. Nope. I wouldn’t.

Keeping my gaze firmly glued to the cracked sidewalk as I walked, I reached for the latch. My fingers froze when he said, “This is my neighborhood. My world. You don’t belong here. Don’t come here again. You do, and you won’t like the consequences. You get that, Valentina?”

I straightened my spine, and despite my vow, I turned to face him. “I don’t plan on coming back. And as long as Trinity shows up at work tomorrow, I won’t have to.”