Page 31 of Twisted Trust

“Fine.”

8

LEVI

Her agreement is unexpected and I swallow the further arguments balancing on my tongue.

No need to make a bigger deal out of this than there is.

I should kill her.

I spent five years swearing that if I ever saw her again then I would make sure to kill her slowly, but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to do it.

Every time I consider it as she trails behind Chip and me, the face of that child bursts into my mind like some kind of warning.

Am I being guilt-tripped by my own thoughts?

Or something more?

I called Naz last night hoping to talk it over with him, but he’s been too busy to return my calls.

Anyone else I speak to will tell me to kill her straight for the honor of the Syndicate.

But something stops me.

I blame the child haunting my mind but maybe it’s something else.

Maeve walks after us with her arms wrapped around her middle and her breathing pace seemingly matching her steps.

She doesn’t speed up even as we draw away from her and in the end, we have to wait for her to catch up by the car.

She doesn’t even look at me when Chip opens the door for her and she slides inside.

He raises one brow at me as I pass him, and a brief, silent conversation passes between us.

He thinks I’m about to off her in the back of the car.

I’d never do that to the leather.

Maeve sits as far away from me as she can reach, which is pressed right back against the panel separating us from Chip in the driving section of the limo.

She appears to quickly register her error of getting in first because her eyes dart between me and the door, her only means of escape, that I’m now sitting beside.

Defiant, her chin lifts and she turns her gaze out the window to the city streets passing us by.

“You never used to get panic attacks.” In all my months of obsessing over every detail of her, I surely would have noticed.

“Things change,” she replies shortly.

The skin across her chest visible through the gap in her shirt is flushed pink and hot, with crimson lines clawing up her elegant throat.

A throat I’ve mapped countless times with my lips and teeth.

She used to melt under me each time I kissed up to underneath her left ear.

Her most sensitive spot.

“Why?”