Page 75 of Cryptic Curse

He clears his throat.“Can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course.”

I close and lock the door behind us.He looks around my living space.“This is really nice,” he says.

“Yeah, I love it.”I rub my arms against a sudden chill.“Although sometimes, I stay in the main house.In the guest room next to Belinda’s.Some days I like to be close to her.”

“Oh?”

“She’s become like a ch— I mean, little sister to me.”

I almost saidchild.

She’s the only child I’ll ever have.

“I’m sure you’ve been a good influence on her,” he says.“She hasn’t had it easy—” He shakes his head.“I’m so sorry.You haven’t had it easy either.”He rakes his fingers through his hair.“I swear to God, if your father weren’t already dead, I’d kill him myself.”

My cheeks warm.

“Same goes for McAllister,” he says.“For what he did to Belinda.For what his stupid son tried to do to Savannah.He deserved to be tortured to death, to suffer.That would have been a more just end than a clean gunshot.”

I look at Hawk’s handsome face.

I see the anger pulse through him.It’s not loud or messy.It’s the quiet kind, the kind that simmers just beneath the skin.His jaw tightens, a single muscle ticking.His ocean eyes—God, those eyes—darken to something stormy and sharp, like they’re trying to drown the rage before it drowns him.

He doesn’t speak.Not yet.Just breathes, slow and deliberate.But I feel it—his fury.It hums in the air between us, vibrating in my bones like a warning.

Still, I don’t look away.I can’t.

His anger is beautiful.

I never thought anger could be beautiful, but Hawk Bellamy makes it so.

Finally he speaks.“Let me take a look at the note you received.”

I pick it up from where I left it sitting on the small table in my kitchenette.A whiff of Pink Cadillac ice cream—strawberries and chocolate—drifts up from the sink where it still sits, melting in its container.

The paper seems to singe my skin as I hand the note to Hawk, our fingers slightly grazing, making a tingle flow through me.

“Can I see the envelope too?”

“I threw it out.”

“I need to see it, Daniela.It’s important.”

I’m not sure what he means, but I pull it out of my wastebasket and hand it to him.He takes a blue bandana out of his jeans pocket and ties it around his nose and mouth.Then he steps outside.

“You stay here,” he says.“Shut the door.I’ll knock when I’m done.”

“Uh…okay.”I do as he asks and shut the door, my heart racing.What’s he going on and on about?

A few moments later, he knocks on the door.The bandana is no longer on his face.

“What was all that about?”I ask.

“I had to determine that there was no powdered substance inside the envelope that you may have missed.”

I drop my jaw.“What?You mean like drugs?”