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Finn’s shoulders ease back, a slow exhale leaving him, but his eyes stay locked on mine.

“I would’ve helped you,” he says quietly. “You didn’t have to do it alone.”

“I know.” The word breaks as it comes out. “I know that. It was spur of the moment. I would never just leave like that without…”

He’s moving before I even finish the sentence. I’m in his arms before I know what’s going on. He pulls me in tight, burying his face in the side of my neck. The way he clings to me, it’s like something inside him cracked open and I’m the only thing keeping it from spilling out.

I wrap my arms around him, fingers fisting in the back of his sweatshirt, then rubbing there without thinking. Back and forth. I don’t know if it’s for him or me.

His breath is warm where it hits my skin. We stay like that for a while, holding onto each other on the bedroom rug with clothes scattered at our feet and a pink dildo staring us down from beside the bed.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I whisper.

“You didn’t,” he lies into my neck.

I press my cheek to his hair and keep rubbing slow circles between his shoulders until I hear someone walk into the room behind us.

“Hi, yeah, sorry to interrupt.” Boone clears his throat, not sounding the least bit sorry. I didn’t even realize he’d left the room. “Family meeting.”

Finn turns. “What?”

“You heard me,” Boone says, backing out of the room. “Family meeting. Now. And, this time, you’re going to tell us everything, Ani.”

Finn doesn’t move. “Are you serious right now?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

He absolutely does not.

Chapter 16

Finn

We are all present and accounted for as dictated by Big Bad Boone. I know he called this meeting for a reason, but he hasn’t said a damn thing yet. And I want to know what spooked my girl enough to make her try to run on her own without even saying goodbye to me.

Boone is by the fireplace in his authoritative stance—his feet spread wide, his arms crossed over his chest, and this smug look on his stupid face.

Jonah isn’t sitting either. He looks like he’s one cup of coffee away from running a mile in five minutes flat. Ani and I are on the couch. Her hands are clasped in her lap, and she’s sitting up ramrod straight.

She hasn’t said a word since we sat down.

Boone’s waiting. He’s watching her the way he watches an oncoming storm.

Ani lifts her chin and stares straight at Boone.

“My name is Anoush Sarkissian,” she tells him, finally giving him the information he’s been demanding. “I’m from Brighton Hills, California.”

Boone’s expression doesn’t change.

“My father is Anoushavan Sarkissian,” she goes on. “He deals in real estate in Brighton Hills. If he doesn’t own the land, he owns the people who do. But that’s only what he does on the surface.”

Jonah braces himself. Boone doesn’t blink.

Ani keeps going.

“I was raised in a glass house—figuratively and literally. Cameras followed my every move and security followed right behind them. I lived by rules that applied only to me. I was kept far away from my father’s shadier business dealings but I wasn’t blind. It was always about control. Who had it, who didn’t, and what it cost to get more of it.”

She shifts her hands, unclasping them just to clasp them again.