Page 32 of Reasons We Break

“Don’t do this.” He can’t keep the pleading note from his voice. There are zero coherent thoughts in his head right now; his nightmares are playing out in front of him. “Why—why isshehere—”

Simran shakes her head infinitesimally. He falls silent. Somehow, she doesn’t look panicked. She looks...Actually, she looks...

His brain blanks out, tuning out the danger of the situation and instead picking up completely irrelevant things about her appearance. Her lined eyes, appearing even bigger than usual. Her lips are fuller, too—no, it’s the colour, a deep maroon. And that fancy blue-patterned top, where’d she get that? It clings to her, and the V-collar goes nearly to her sternum, although she’s wearing something underneath that covers any cleavage—wait, why in the fuck is he lookingthere?

“Look at him,” Nick says to Zohra. “He’s found religion.”

That shakes him out of it. He tries again to step forward, but the gun pointed to his head is the more pressing concern. Rocking on his heels, he finally decides to stay put. “Are you okay?” he asks Simran urgently. She nods once, slowly.

Rajan forces a steady exhale even as his anger ignites again. First the setup, now this? They’ve crossed a line. But he can’t act like it. He’s already shown too much of his hand.

So he swallows every emotion he’s feeling and turns to Nick. “Want to explain what the fuck this is?”

“Just having a little chat with your girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” Rajan repeats. “Jesus Christ.” He should’ve thought of this possibility. Nick has seen him with Simran twice. They took her to try to throw him for a loop. Well, they definitely succeeded. Just not the way they probably thought.

Girlfriend. Simran...his girlfriend. Two ideas he’s never allowed himself to put together before. Now, they won’t get out of his head.

“Your intel sucks,” he says blandly. “This is my probation volunteering buddy.”

Nick looks unimpressed. “Yeah? Because the guys at your construction job say otherwise.”

Rajan blinks. His job...his probation officer set it up, saying a spot had just opened for a roofer and his timing couldn’t be better. But Rajan has a feeling it wouldn’t have mattered when he got out of juvie; his timing would’ve been spot-on no matter what.

Okay. So he works with Lions. And they saw him leave with Chandani that day. They put two and two together...and got five. “You know there are more than two brown girls in Kelowna, right? It’s not her. Let her go.”

Nick and Zohra exchange looks. Then they glance at Simran, who stares back unblinkingly. Rajan has a feeling he’s missing something as Nick says, “Okay, fine.”

Rajan waits for thebut. The next assignment. It doesn’t come. Instead, Zohra reaches into the freezer and hands Simran her kirpan, purse, and phone. Then she and Nick step out of their way.

It’s all too easy. Rajan stares at Nick, then at Zohra, hoping he can see through her facade again, but nope. She’s closed off, too. Fine. They’ll tell him thebutlater. For now, he has to get Simran out. The rest he’ll figure out on his own.

Rajan and Simran step into the cool night. Nick’s goons clamber into the back of the van, and Nick reaches for the doors to close them.

“Good night.” He grins at Rajan. “Talk soon.”

At the end of that statement, though, his eyes have slid to Simran’s.

SIMRAN WATCHES THEtruck rumble down the street, leaving them in the dust. The night seems too quiet suddenly. The only evidence that anything happened is the baseball bat in the gutter.

Based on what she just heard, Simran has some idea what Rajan might’ve done with that bat. She waits for horror to rise in her. But instead, she feels...nothing. At all.

Probably for the best. She busies herself sliding her kirpan back into its sheath. Her fingers fumble under the hem of her shirtdress. It’s not usually a problem, but her coordination is strangely shot right now.

Fingers wrap around her wrist, stopping her trembling. Rajan is silent as he guides the blade to its sheath. She stops breathing when his knuckles skim the skin of her waist, scalding her in the seconds before her shirtdress falls back into place.

Rajan drops her wrist. “I,” he says lowly, “am so fucking sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, it is. I should explain—”

“I need to go to the store,” she interrupts. He falters, and she takes advantage of it, brushing past him and marching into the night. She recognizes where they are from the IHOP sign across the road. There’s a Save-On-Foods two blocks over. She’s lost—an hour? two?—but she still needs those groceries.

She glances down at her silent phone. Normally she’d be peppered with texts from her parents if she was gone this long, but not tonight. “I’ll get a cab from there back to my car,” she tells Rajan, who’s keeping pace. “I can give you a ride home, too.”

“I don’t need a ride.” He grabs her arm. “Stopfor a second.”