Page 29 of The Love Obsession (Bloody Desires #11)

ZAYN

For a few seconds, time stopped.

Keaton’s attention danced around my face, looking for clues I didn’t want to give him. Couldn’t give him. How had I not considered he might think I’d murdered his asshole ex when it flashed all over the news? Why didn’t I quietly make him disappear without a trace?

Because I wanted him to suffer. What’s done is done.

As far as that went, did anyone know Keaton had dated Roger? For the first time since I’d started this adventure in removing drug dealers from the face of the earth, I’d deviated off script.

If I ever got caught, this was going to be the body that buried me. Roger goddamned Postman.

“What brought this on, boy?” I forced a smile and tried to ignore the sensation that I’d been punched in the chest as I walked up to him.

“Why is this door locked?” He tapped on the wood.

My heart lurched, but I turned up the wattage on my grin. “I haven’t had time to move my gun collection yet, and you were concerned about Ginny being near weapons. Seemed prudent.” He was so cute when his nose wrinkled.

His eyebrows danced upward as his lips pursed. “Oh?” The seed of doubt, of distrust, was there, spreading. It made the line on his brow deeper.

I shooed him aside. The last thing I wanted to do was lie to him, but what choice did I have? I was pretty sure I could trust Keaton with some run-of-the-mill illegal crap, but murder was murder.

After the lock clicked, I pushed open the door and strode inside.

Keaton’s steps hesitated as he followed me in.

The room was my home office, so there were no big surprises.

Desk. An ergonomic leather chair. Artwork of windmills in the Danish countryside.

The only out of place aspect was the shiny black gun safe sitting against the far wall in a corner to the right of the bay window.

The number pad on the front glowed an eerie green.

“See?” I gestured at the safe and leaned up to kiss him, but he took a step away. My heart skipped three beats as his lips drew back in a grimace. “Why do you think I killed him?”

“You had no problem with the blood and guts at the fights.”

“Neither did you.” I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from suggesting that perhaps he’d done it.

I wanted to throw suspicion off me, but I didn’t want to upset him.

He was still my boy. That wasn’t the direction I wanted this conversation to take.

I stepped closer, and he mirrored me in a dance that had my head reeling.

He was creating distance between us. Mentally, I floundered. I needed to make it stop.

“You had no problem pummeling Peanut,” he said softly.

I snorted. “The guy at the trailer park who was going to put a brick through your skull was named Peanut?”

“Well, not by his mom or nothin’, but yeah.” The corner of his mouth turned up in a weak smile.

“So? Wouldn’t you have done the same for me?” The desperation I’d been attempting to quash was brash in my voice.

His nostrils flared. “Yes.”

Relief swamped me. “Then, let’s forget about this. It’s—” I edged into a kiss again, and he darted back, leaning out of range like I was a snake striking.

“Where were you last night?” he murmured.

It felt as if the floor shifted under my feet.

“Right here. With you.” My teeth hurt from clenching my jaw.

I wasn’t a liar on purpose—most of the time.

I could justify lying in pursuit of my game.

But I’d never had a boyfriend. I’d never had to bullshit someone I cared about.

Someone whose opinion of me I wanted to be good.

And judging by the way Keaton was looking at me, I wasn’t great at it.

“You were gone for a while.” He took another step toward the door, and I wanted to grab him and drag him back.

“Bernadette.” I couldn’t form the lie. The dog’s name barely made it past my lips.

He had one foot out the door when I caught his hand. My head was a fucking mess and I couldn’t decide what I should do or say. All I knew was that I didn’t want this to blow up in my face. “Anything I did, it was for you,” I hissed.

Yanking away, he bared his teeth. “So, you did kill him? You’re a killer?”

My hands shook as I dragged them down my face. “You could accidentally kill someone in the ring.”

We stared at each other.

“Did you purposely kill someone? Tell me.”

I wanted to fix this. Be his Daddy. Tell him everything would be okay. But depending on what he thought about this whole fucking Roger thing, nothing would be all right ever again.

I shook my head, and he stormed down the stairs.

“Fucking liars are as bad as meth dealers,” he called over his shoulder.

The barb hit its mark. I grabbed my chest and sagged against the doorframe.

“They’re not!” I yelled.

A door slammed on the second floor. The one to our room?

“Shit,” I whispered. Would he head for the police? Would he report me? My mind spun, but I couldn’t cover my ass the way any sane person would. I didn’t rush for a gun to shoot Keaton. Couldn’t imagine causing Ginny another ounce of pain. She’d been through too much in her short life already.

Ginny’s voice carried upstairs, high and excited and happy. The front door closed. Silence filled the house, turning it into a tomb. It took me a long time to start having real thoughts again, other than “oh fuck, my boy left.”

I had several contingency plans in place to burn my life down if things came to that, but no part of me truly believed Keaton would go to the cops.

Perhaps that was wishful thinking.

I spent a nerve-racking half hour cooking chicken no one was here to eat.

I went so far as to set the dining room table, but when everything was on plates and the police hadn’t kicked in my door and Keaton hadn’t come home with Ginny, I had to give in and deal with the fact that he wasn’t just blowing off steam for a few minutes.

He was gone.

But I couldn’t leave it this way. I ran out to my car. The first thing I noticed was the missing booster seat. Fuck, where had they gone? And how in the hell did they get there?

My mind sizzled with static and zero good ideas as I went back inside and paced. Waited. Perhaps this excruciating passage of time, which dragged past like handfuls of rocks scraping glass, was exactly how my victims felt while waiting to die.

Part of me envied them because at least I always put them out of their misery. I had no idea where to find Keaton and Ginny. How the hell could I fix this?