Risking it All (Crossing the Line, #1)(76)

“Don’t.”

Sera’s knees almost buckled under the weight of that single word. “You’re scaring me,” she whispered. “This isn’t you.”

“Oh, God, please just drop the act.”

His head dropped forward, hair obscuring his face. “I can’t take anymore.”

“W-what act?” Her mind whirled at the implication of that statement. When he wouldn’t answer her, she had no choice but to follow him in a daze as he led her to a metal door, located in an alcove on the side of what looked to be some kind converted factory. Confusion and panic assailed her. This man was unrecognizable to her, and his tight grip on her wrist did nothing to alleviate her worry. He hadn’t told her where they were going. A wild card was in play that he wouldn’t share with her. She couldn’t just walk in there with him. Not with so many unknowns lying between them. Not until he calmed down enough to listen.

Bowen pounded on the metal door with his fist. Seeing he was momentarily distracted, she tried to wrench her hand free. Midmorning in Manhattan, people were rushing to work around them, ignoring everything but the sidewalk in front of them and their cell phones.

Bowen’s eyes shot wide, as if he couldn’t believe she was trying to get away from him, but he didn’t release her wrist. Instead, he yanked her back up against him.

“Let me go,” she demanded.

He searched her face. “Why? What are you worried about?”

When she tried to free herself with a twist of her arm, she watched something inside him break. It made her go completely still, breath trapped in her lungs. An answering rupture in her own body occurred, swift and painful.

Looking

wild,

he

gripped

her

shoulders and shook her. “You think I could hurt you? ” His voice had risen to a shout, bringing people to a stop on the sidewalk around them. “I f*cking love you, Sera. You can do anything to me.

Anything. Lie to me, lock me up, treat me like a monster, and I will still f*cking love you. And you’re killing me.”

Her body went limp, his words on repeat in her head. I love you. I love you. It was all she could hear, her heart rejoicing and breaking at the same time.

Finding out he loved her shouldn’t feel like a tragedy, but it did. And she still had no idea why, dammit. Oh, God, she loved him back. If she could still feel this overwhelming, consuming pull toward him when he stood in front of her, stripped bare, with all his faults in plain view, these feelings would never, ever go away.

A throat cleared in the doorway and Sera turned to find a familiar girl standing there. In her muddled state, it took a moment to place her. Ruby.

Bowen’s sister looked between them, her expression leaving no room for doubt she’d heard every shouted word.

She laid a hand on Bowen’s shoulder and he turned his tortured expression on her, making her visibly flinch.

“Come on.” Ruby nudged Bowen gently. “Let’s get you off the street.”

Sera grabbed Bowen’s arm as he turned to follow Ruby inside, but he pulled away. “Come on, Sera.” His outburst seemed to have sucked the remaining life out of him. “Let’s make this quick.”

She didn’t pause to take in her surroundings as she followed him inside, only registering the smell of wood, sawdust, oil. Her full attention was centered on Bowen’s stiff back. Then he started talking and her world came to a grinding halt.

“Give me a head start, then call Troy.

Tell him Sera is here and to come pick her up. He needs to take her directly to the station. To her uncle, the f*cking police commissioner.” He pulled at his hair as he addressed a horrified Ruby.

“All right? Can you do that for me?”

Devastation rolled over Sera in a wave. You can lie to me, lock me up…

Lock me up. She thought of her uncle in the alley last night, his parting words of “this isn’t over . ” Bowen thought she wanted him locked up and there was only one way he could have come to that conclusion. That had been her uncle on the phone. She’d never been so sure of anything in her life. For the first time, it occurred to her she had reason to be scared of her uncle. He would sabotage her life, the lives of others, to protect his prestigious position.

And Bowen was sending her right into his hands, where her future would be his to dictate. Where he would find a way to keep her quiet about what she knew.

No, this couldn’t be happening. She should have told Bowen everything last night. The conversation between him and her uncle had mentally sent him packing, out of her reach. Made him incapable of being reasonable. She could see it in his jerky movements, the thousand-yard stare he kept directing at her. Could she even get through to him at this point? Or had every ounce of trust between them been destroyed?

“Bowen.” She planted herself in front of him, but he fixated on some spot on the wall behind her. “You don’t know what you’re doing. There so much you don’t know, about my brother—”

“Did you tell your uncle you wanted me arrested?”

She swallowed hard. No more lies.

“Yes, but obviously not for the reason you think.”

He’d stopped listening after she confirmed it, his expression slamming shut, jaw hardening. She opened her mouth to keep going, to explain she only wanted him safe from the men who wanted him gone, even though his face told her nothing she said would get through. Before she could speak, he silenced her with his mouth.