Page 22 of A Lethal Game of Trust

7

Pain is Pain

Dom

Leonie was prancing around her open-plan living room kitchen in those ridiculous pyjamas. Could you call them pyjamas? They were more like lingerie.

When she finally announced she was showering, I’d never been more grateful. I’d grab her the towel, help remove that dark silk I’d wanted to rip off her last night. I’d open the shower screen door for her if she needed any help. Just to get her out of my sight.

I tried to distract myself with my uncle’s texts. Anton was paranoid about some shipments coming into our port and tensions rising between a low-level gang with far too many drugs. They weren’t giving up any details, though.

I should be there. I’d get them to talk.

But the second the gushing water sounded from the bathroom, Issy put down her Nintendo Switch and turned to me on the sofa with an expectant stare. “Well?”

“Well, what?” I asked and sipped at my drink.

Leonie had it right with these smoothies. The honey really was the best secret ingredient. She’d gone on about it one weekend when I came home from university, but I hadn’t tried it until I made hers. I’d been missing out.

“Well, are you going to go and help her or what?”

Help her… help her shower?

“Excuse me?” I asked, trying to keep my tone low and bored, my gaze flickering towards the TV. The news. I’d tried to pick something Leonie might watch but couldn’t find a thriller this early in the day.

Issy groaned and moved from the armchair to the sofa beside me. “Go with her. To Jared’s. Please. I’ve got to go to the bakery.”

“Why would I do that?”

“You two could be friends,” she pleaded, leaning before me to get in the way of the TV screen. I turned to my phone instead. “You were once. There was a point I worried you two liked each other more than you liked me.”

There was a point where IadoredLeonie. I would do anything for her. I probably still would if it wouldn’t make her like me. She had to continue to picture me as the teenage boy who fucked her over and hated her.

My feelings for her were like a lethal live-wire close to being exposed. The only fatality would be her if she got too close.

If she learned the truth.

I snorted. “Yeah, when you were like thirteen.”

“When you were like seventeen,” she countered. “You had cooler friends and still hung out with us.”

“I learned my lesson,” I said quickly and finished the smoothie.

If we hadn’t been friends, if I hadn’t loved her as I did… herlife would be so different. She would be happy.

Issy held my gaze for so long that her big, hazel eyes had to dry out. A move she played on Dad all the time. It worked on him. “Go with her, please, Dom.”

“No,” I said, my voice brimming with grit. I couldn’t be alone with her. Not again. Not after last night. “I don’t want to see that fucker.”

“Please. She’s like a sister to you.”

She had never said anything more false. Leonie had never been like a sister to me. Sure, I wanted to protect her. I couldn’t let anything hurt her.

I scoffed. “She isnotlike a sister to me.”

“What else have you got to do?”

A lot. Anton was dangerous left alone, far too happy to pull the trigger and not deal with the consequences later, but…