Page 52 of The Next Lie

“And if that wasn’t enough?”

Silence, and I see something move behind his eyes. I won’t call it doubt—I know him too well for that. Ever does not give doubt much room to breathe. But something small and dark and useful enough for me to twist.

I take hold of it.

“If it had gone wrong,” I say, “you would have had to bury her beside the house you decided she needed to see.”

His mouth tightens. I am not being fair. I don’t care. There is a point past fear where a man stops being fair, and I hit it sometime between finding out she had left this house and imagining every possible way she might not return to it.

“She asked me,” Ever says.

“She is twenty-two and traumatized.”

“She is not a child.”

“No,” I snap. “She is a woman with fifteen years of lies under her skin and a target painted on her back.”

Ever takes one step closer. “We can’t just keep her locked up here forever,” he says. “She’s not yours to keep in a glass house.”

He aims for the tenderest place and, damn him, finds it.

“She is mine to keep alive.”

“Then fucking do it without making her a prisoner.”

The room goes very still. A lesser man would step back. Ever is not a lesser man. That is why I trust him with her. It’s also why I want to break his jaw.

The contradiction sits between us, ugly and familiar.

From above, faint movement carries through the old bones of the house. Floorboards. A door. She’s moving around up there. My attention snaps toward the ceiling before I can stop it, and Ever notices, his gaze following mine.

His expression changes, the fight draining out of him. “She’s trying, Nash.”

My throat works around something I don’t want to name. “I know.”

“She went back there because she needed to know if any part of her own mind could still be trusted.”

“I know that.”

“She came out.”

I look at him.

Ever’s voice lowers. “That matters.”

It does. God help me, it does. But so does the fact that she might not have. I turn away before I do something that cannot be taken back.

“You need to go somewhere.”

Ever doesn’t answer immediately. For one dangerous second, I think he’s going to refuse. Then his boots move against the floor. He passes me, shoulders tight, violence locked into every inch of him and held there by will alone.

At the doorway, he stops. “I’d do it again,” he says.

I look over my shoulder. His face is blank, but his eyes are hot. He strides across the foyer. The front door opens. Slams.

I stand in the doorway of my study with my shirt sleeves rolled up and my temper held in both fists.

I hear her before I see her. Soft steps at the top of the stairs. Careful, but not hesitant. Reva does not know how to do hesitant for long. Even when she is afraid, she gets angry fast enough to make fear chase her.