I turned, expecting to find Libby behind me, and tensed.
Eyes locked on me and filled with rage. Hands clenched into fists.
How hadn’t I seen him sitting there?
Like he belonged here.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked with all the venom I possessed.
“I was just wondering the same thing.”
He stood, slowly unfurling to his full height.
The guy was tall. Fucking massive. Built like a damn brick wall.
“And what do you think you’re doing here?” he continued. “I’ll give you three seconds before or I suggest you run.”
“No, man. That’s not how this works. I live here. And the last thing you’re gonna do is scare me out of here with a bullshit threat.”
He stared at me with open amusement before his face lit with recognition. “Fuck me . . . you’re the guy. Uh . . . shit, I can’t remember. But the rock star. Right?”
My hands fisted when he slowly stalked toward me.
“See, I’m the guy who was here while you were out playing rock star.” He stopped in front of me and stared down at me. “I’m the guy who took care of Libby when you couldn’t be bothered to.”
My chest pitched with ragged breaths. “That right?”
“And I’m the guy she’s choosing over you.” He cut a look at the locksmith and flashed a grin. “Clearly.”
“See, I’m gonna call bullshit on everything you just said.” I stepped closer and tried to get in his face. “I know Libby. She tells me shit. I’ve also been here nearly every day for the last month, and you haven’t been around.”
His grin widened. “You sure about that?” When I didn’t immediately respond, he laughed and walked over to the waiting locksmith. “Thanks. We appreciate it.”
I hurried over, trying to take the keys from them. “No. I don’t know who the hell you think you are. But you need to go.”
The locksmith held the keys away from me. “I’m sorry, sir. Ms. Borello told me to leave them with him.”
My stomach dropped when I watched the keys drop into the stranger’s hand.
I was too stunned to react.
“See, you might not know me. But I know everything about you.”
I blinked slowly and looked away from the open door. I clenched my teeth and demanded, “Who the fuck are you?”
He shrugged. “I’m every hesitation you’ve noticed. I’m every inch of space between you and Libby.”
“Bullshit.”
“Do cameras mean anything to you?” he asked with a snide grin. “Because they mean something to us.”
My head slowly lifted as images rushed through my mind: Libby asking if I had a Polaroid camera . . . Libby finding one at the party.
She’d been horrified when we found it. Cold.
I knew she had.
“Leave before I make you,” I growled. “Come near my girl again, we won’t be talking.”
He looked me over and huffed a laugh. “You’re gonna make me?”
I didn’t care that he had half a foot on me. And probably a hundred pounds of muscle.
I didn’t care if he was in the goddamn mob.
If he was the reason behind the changes in Libby lately, I would go round for round with him until I won.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped on the screen a few times. A few seconds later, Libby’s voice came through the speaker, soft and familiar. “Hey.”
“Locks are changed. There’s a guy here wanting my spot in your life.”
“Seriously, who the fuck do you think you are?” I demanded.
“Shit.” She sighed heavily. “Just . . . just give him a key and leave him there. He has stuff he needs to move out.”
“Libby,” I barked.
“Maxon, don’t be like this. I’ll have someone get the key from you later.”
“Libby.”
The guy murmured something and ended the call, but I was too stunned to listen.
“Just give him a key and leave him there.”
“What did you do to her?” I asked when he tried handing me a key. “What the fuck did you do to her?”
“Apparently what you didn’t.” He let the key fall to the floor when I didn’t reach for it and leaned close. “You try to pull any shit in here or with Libby, I’ll find you.”
“He has stuff he needs to move out.”
This wasn’t happening.
Something was wrong.
She’d been acting differently. She’d been distant. But this?
“Maxon, don’t be like this. I’ll have someone get the key from you later.”
“The ring you gave her?” the guy said as he stepped outside. I looked up in time to see the condescending look. “It was a nice effort.”
I don’t remember the door shutting.
Moving.
Or time passing.
But I was now lying on the floor of the living room, strumming my acoustic and murmuring words that meant everything and nothing, trying to get my head around what the fuck had happened.
Words about a girl with hair dark as night and teasing eyes.
A girl who warned me long ago that I couldn’t keep her.
But loving her had been the only thing that made sense in my world.
I’d been sure this was our time. We’d waited long enough for this.
What had I missed? What was I missing?
Because there wasn’t a chance in hell another guy was it.
I thought back over the last month, trying to find the day where it all started changing, and kept coming back to the hours after I asked her to marry me.
She’d pushed me away even then . . . but I’d ignored it because she was fighting to keep me just as hard.
My fingers stilled, then slowly resumed when I remembered walking out—the fight I was sure had ended us. And it had changed everything. I learned more about her through that fight—more about why she’d always pushed me away—than I had in a lifetime of trying to figure her out.
“No more secrets between us. No more hiding anything.”
Something dark flashed in her eyes. “What if it keeps you safe?”
I sat up and dropped the guitar to the floor beside me.
My mind raced, thinking of the days leading up to then, and all the days after.
“I love you and want to marry you because you’re my home. You’re my calm. I would do anything to be with you—even if it meant keeping us apart.”
I looked to the side so quickly I thought I’d get whiplash.
Because I knew in my gut that every answer was waiting at the end of that hall.
There’d been days lately where I’d felt I didn’t know her at all. On those days, she always ran for her bedroom and tried to keep me from it. Even today, she’d been banging around in there and had stripped her bed . . . then left all the sheets and pillows on the floor.
Before my thoughts had fully formed, I found myself running to her room and trying to recreate the sounds I’d heard that morning.
I opened every drawer in the room, searched her closet, stripped the bed I’d made, and flipped the mattress. But in the end, I was more pissed off than before.
I dropped to the mattress and hung my head for a few moments, then lifted it slowly and looked around the room.
“No more secrets between us. No more hiding anything.”
“What if it keeps you safe?”
“What are you hiding from me, Libby?”
I looked at the dresser in front of me, then glanced behind me to the bathroom.
Every drawer and door had been open in the bathroom when I’d walked in to take a shower.
The dresser drawers had been shut and she’d been standing next to it when I’d come in.
I stood slowly and walked toward it.
I wanted to jerk the drawers open again, but my movements were agonizingly slow as I opened the drawers and searched through all her clothes methodically.
My blood ran
cold when I grabbed a pair of jeans and an envelope fell out of them.
I didn’t need to know what was in it to know this was what she’d been hiding—this was what she’d been trying to protect me from.
I bent to pick it up, my movements faltering when I saw her name printed on the back and pictures spilling out.
Polaroids.
My pulse quickened and my heart thundered.
“Do cameras mean anything to you? Because they mean something to us.”
“Shit.”
I stood with the envelope and pictures and dropped them onto the top of the dresser so I could study them.
When I realized what I was seeing, what was on there, I started shaking.
There was a picture of Libby in the shower.
. . . but you’ve always belonged to me. was written on the bottom.
I quickly looked to the second Polaroid. It was a picture of a picture . . . of me. My face was crossed out in red, and below was the note:
You’re every lyric he’s written . . .
“Jesus Christ.”
I wanted to find that guy and beat the shit out of him.
I wanted to find her. Tell her I wouldn’t let her do this to us.
All I could do was stand there, staring at the pictures, and wonder what the hell I was actually going to do.
Libby
I JOLTED WHEN FINGERS BRUSHED my arm, pulling me back to the present, and looked up into bright blue eyes.
It took me a second to recognize who I was looking at, to realize where I was standing. I shook my head when all sense came flooding back. Conor was standing directly in front of me, on the other side of the bar, with a mixture of frustration and worry on his face.
“Hey. Hi, how did it . . . Is he okay?”
He studied me for a second. “Are you okay?”
“Of course.” My reply was weak and quick. Too quick.
I was wrecked.
Broken.
I’d spent every moment of the last two hours consumed by grief.
After the phone call from Conor, I’d laid in the back seat of my car and sobbed until the pain became too much.
Conor nodded slowly. I knew from his expression he didn’t believe me for a second. Just like I knew he wouldn’t push me.
“Libby, I care about you a lot. After all the shit our gangs went through, it means everything that you guys took me into the family.” He rested his hands on the bar top and leaned close. “But if you ever ask me to do that again . . .”
I glanced at him and ground my jaw to stop it from wavering.
“I’ve done bad things without a thought. We all have. We had to. But I hated myself earlier. Maxon was gonna try to take me on. Me, Libby. For you. That guy fucking loves you. And I had to stand there and pretend like I was enjoying crushing him. Don’t ever make me do that shit again.”
“You think any of this is easy for me?” I bit out. “It’s necessary, Conor. It’s the only chance I have of making him leave.”
“No, I get that it’s necessary. But I can’t help you break him the way I did today. Fuck, if he would’ve swung, I would’ve let him. And I wouldn’t have fought back, because I hated what I was doing to him.” He reached into his pocket and slid three keys over to me. “I’ll do anything else you need for this case, Libby. Not that.”
I stared at the keys until I was no longer in The Jack again, and all I was seeing was Maxon’s broken expression.
“I love you, Rebel.”
Over and over.
I cleared my throat and worked one of the keys off the ring before handing it back to Conor. “Can you switch out Einstein’s key without her noticing?”
He blew out a harsh breath and twirled the key between his fingers. “Fuck,” he murmured, drawing out the word. “I can try.”
“I need you to.”
Conor’s expression shifted into frustration. “This is what Kieran and Jessica do. They sneak in and out of places undetected. Einstein hacks and creates fake identities. I protect people. You’re having me do everyone else’s job, Libby. There’s a reason I don’t.”
I leaned over the bar and dropped my voice so it could barely be heard over the other voices in The Jack. “Consider this part of protecting me—protecting Einstein. I need you to switch out those keys.”
He looked like he was going to argue, but continued to stare me down for a few moments before clenching his teeth. “And if she catches me?”
I wanted to tell him not to get caught.
I wanted to tell him to lie.
I wanted to tell him so many things so long as it kept Einstein in the dark.
“Then tell her the truth.” The words were out before I could begin to take them back. I lifted my hand to point at him. “Only if she catches you.”
He dipped his head in understanding, but relief rolled from him in waves.
I looked down the bar, trying to distract myself with the very few customers we had at the early hour of the evening, but felt the question pulling me toward Conor. Ripping from me. Begging to be freed.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” I asked quickly without looking at him.
“I don’t know,” he answered after a pause. “He was sure I was lying until I called you. He looked blindsided.”
The air rushed from my body, escaping me on a near-silent cry before I was able to cover my mouth.
“Libby . . .”
I shook my head . . . slowly at first, then quickly. “I’m fine,” I said thickly, then looked to him. “I’m fine. I just . . . I need you to replace Einstein’s key. Please.”
“What about everyone else? Dare and the twins?”
“What about them?”
“Don’t you all have keys to each other’s places?”
I shrugged. “It’s taken care of. Dare gave me his when I told him I lost mine, and the twins won’t go there when Maverick and Einstein are fighting the way they are.”
Conor looked at me warily. “For how much you’re going through to prevent anyone from finding out something’s wrong, you’re banking a lot on that guess.”
I offered him a mocking smile. “I could always have you go steal their keys . . .”
He rolled his eyes and pushed away from the bar, but I called his name before he could take a step away.
“I’m sorry. For today . . . what you had to do. For all of this.”
He dipped his head in a nod and turned to head out of The Jack.
I busied my mind and my hands with prepping for when the rush came flooding in, thankful I only had to make it through a short shift before I could break down at home.
Not five minutes later, a massive shadow towered over me.
“Libby.” His tone was pure grit and steel. As always.
“Zeke.”
“Do it again, I’m keeping your tips for a week.”
I stopped slicing the lime and slowly looked over my shoulder in time to see my boss chuck a cardboard box near me.
“What—”
“This ain’t your house,” he said, stalking off.
I glanced at the box for only a second before the knife clattered to the cutting board.
I shakily tore into the gently taped box. My gaze went to Zeke’s back . . . to the other bartenders . . . to the few people drinking throughout the bar.
No one was watching me. No one seemed suspect.
There wasn’t a soul in the bar radiating malicious energy or twitching anxiously. There weren’t eyes casting eager glances in my direction or carefully ignoring my stare.
But there was a box in my hands addressed to Elizabeth Borello, without a return address or single barcode . . .
And inside was a black Polaroid camera.
Maxon
I WAS SITTING ON THE edge of the coffee table when she came home that night.
When she came back.
I roughed my hands through my hair and heaved out a breath that shook my body when I heard the key in the lock.
I’d gon
e over it all dozens of times.
The change in Libby.
Everything the guy said earlier.
The pictures.
I’d even convinced myself to leave at one point . . . I knew it was what she wanted.
But something still wasn’t adding up.
So I was the idiot. Waiting to get my heart ripped out all over again.
I glanced up in time to see her stumble when she noticed me. Her eyes widened and her body shifted like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue walking in or walk back out the door.
“Maxon,” she said, my name just above a breath. “You’re here.”
Her eyes darted everywhere before settling on the floor not far from where she stood.
A pained laugh forced from my chest. “I’m sure that’s a shock considering what I woke to.”
“I’m sorry. I . . . I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry.” Her voice was thick with emotion and I could see she was trembling.
She started to speak again, but stopped and pushed from the door, her long legs taking her to her room.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I begged in a hopeless, last-ditch effort.
“I’m going to my room.”
I clenched my teeth. “With us.”
“Thought it was obvious.”
If it weren’t for the slight hitch in her voice, I might’ve believed her careless tone.
My gaze caught on the small cardboard box in her hands she was trying to keep hidden, and my mind instantly went to the pictures I found earlier.
“You gonna add that to your jeans drawer?”
She stopped so suddenly I thought she’d fall forward.
For a few seconds, she stood staring straight ahead before turning to look at me. “What?”
“What’s in the box, Libby? More pictures?”
Her face paled and her legs gave.
Terror flashed through her eyes . . . and then it was gone.
All of it.
She was standing tall. Steady. Staring at me, horrified.
I wasn’t sure if I’d blinked or imagined it.
“You went through my stuff?” she demanded.
I’m losing my fucking mind.
“You were supposed to grab your stuff and go, not search my things.”
I huffed and reached behind me for the envelope. I threw it in her direction and said, “I want you to tell me who took those.”