Risking it All (Crossing the Line, #1)(77)

Yes, yes, yes . If he wouldn’t listen to her, this was her only hope. He couldn’t kiss her and not realize how she felt. She went up on her toes, threaded her fingers through his haphazard hair, and put her soul into the kiss. A broken noise in the back of his throat wrenched her heart in two, but she kept kissing his mouth, hoping to get past the wall he’d built. He framed her face with his hands and kissed her back with an aching thoroughness. A different kind of kiss.

No less passionate than before, but he wouldn’t give himself over to her completely. With a final blast of dread, she realized it felt like good-bye.

One hand dropped from her face to take her wrist. Before she could process what he intended to do, her hand had been secured to the wall. She broke away with a gasp, her gaze flying upward to see what he’d done. No. No.

He’d attached her to some kind of rack with an industrial-sized zip tie. A rack full of pool sticks. What was this place?

“Let me go. Please. You don’t know what you’re doing.” She implored him with her eyes. His breathing was labored, eyes more tortured than before.

She’d been damned since last night, hadn’t she? Damned by her silence. A sob worked its way free of her throat.

“Bowen—”

He clapped a hand over her mouth. “I don’t blame you, Ladybug. You did the right thing. I’m going to go somewhere I can’t hurt anyone else. Didn’t I tell you I’d always give you what you want?” He tucked a hair behind her ear. “No smoking, okay? Ever. You promised.

And stay out of dark alleys from now on.

I won’t be there to keep you safe.” His voice shook on the last word. As if he couldn’t help it, he pressed a final kiss to the center of her forehead. “You were the best part of my life, Sera. Even if it wasn’t real.”

She couldn’t see him through the tears clouding her vision, the denial rising in her throat. Defeat, thick and abhorrent, crashed into her as he turned and walked away. In a move of desperation, she reached out to grab him, but her imprisoned wrist prevented her and she only caught air. She’d lost. Somehow all the hope and resolve between them last night and this morning had been ripped to shreds. Helplessness shone through it all, the pain of knowing anything she said right now would be construed as a lie.

“Please don’t go,” she tried to scream, but it came out sounding strangled. “You asked me so many times if I trusted you.

I said yes and I meant it. Give me the same trust now.”

Bowen ignored her once again, pointing a finger at Ruby. “You tell Troy that if anything happens to her, I will burn that precinct to the ground. Tell him.”

Sera swiped at her eyes, turning her attention to Ruby. Bowen’s sister looked visibly shaken, tears coursing down her own cheeks. “I’ll tell him,” she shouted back, when he refused to budge without an answer. “You’re about to do something stupid, aren’t you? Ask me for help. Just ask and I’ll give it.”

The door slamming was his only answer. He hadn’t even looked back.

Sera sank to the ground, dimly registering another woman walking out of the back room. Bowen’s mother. Her face appeared stricken, but Sera couldn’t summon the will to care. So much unbearable pressure existed in her chest, she couldn’t believe it hadn’t cracked wide open yet so her insides could spill out. Any second, though, it would happen. She’d welcome it. Anything, anything, had to be better than this freezing sensation. Loss. She’d lost him.

He’d left her in danger. He was in danger. And he had no idea.

When Ruby reached into her pocket and drew out a cell phone, Sera came out of her stupor with a burst of adrenaline. “No. No, wait. Don’t make the call yet.”

Ruby spared her a disgusted glance. “I don’t break my word. Not to him.”

“You make that call, you’ll get him killed.”

She

stopped

dialing.

“Explain.

Quickly. Just because my boyfriend’s a cop doesn’t mean I trust all of you. From what I heard, you set him up.”

Sera stood on wobbly legs, taking in her surroundings vaguely. Pool sticks.

Everywhere. They were in some kind of factory. “I wasn’t setting him up, I was trying to save his life.” She sucked in a breath, gesturing toward the door. “I couldn’t get him to listen to me. He wasn’t in his right mind.”

The other girl considered her closely.

“I’ve never seen him act like that,” she admitted softly. “He wasn’t…there.”

More cold permeated her, making her feel brittle. Somehow that frozen feeling gave her a moment of clarity. She wouldn’t let anything happen to him. No way in hell. She’d broken him, and she would fix him. Fix herself. This entire situation.

Responsibility

weighed

heavily on her shoulders, but she accepted it gladly. It gave her something to focus on.

“Call Troy,” she directed Ruby, grateful for the steel in her voice. “Ask him to come here without letting anyone know. Just ask him for ten minutes to hear me out.” She tested the zip tie holding her hostage, had the feeling she’d be in it until they believed her. “I have a plan.”





CHAPTER


TWENTY-FIVE