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“The knife was meant for my face. Jasper stepped in front of me. He put his arm up. Please, Bishop. He saved my life.”

“He put you in danger.”

“I know, I know.” She squeezes my arm, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. “But he saved my life, too. That has to count for something. Right?”

I don’t want Jasper to leave unpunished. I want to make an example of him, break him into pieces until my name causes him physical pain.

But she’s standing in front of him with her hands on my arm, and I have to choose between what I want and what she’s asking me for.

It isn’t a choice at all.

My jaw clenches as I walk to the kneeling prospect and rip his patch off his cut. His gasp rings through the room. It’s the deepest insult you can hand a man hoping to make it into the club.

“Leave this place. Better yet, get out of my town, as far away as those cowardly little feet can carry you.” I drop to a crouch so the rest is for him alone. “I will cut you to pieces if you show your face here again or come anywhere near my woman. Your head chef is the only thing standing between you and something worse than death. Remember that.”

***

The ride up to my penthouse is silent.

Margot goes straight to the bathroom when we’re inside, and a few seconds later, I hear the shower running. I grab a robe and lean against the counter, watching her silhouette through the tempered glass.

I help her into the robe when she comes out, then stand near the sink and watch her dry her hair with a towel.

“I had his blood in my hands,” she whispers, dropping them to stare at her palms. She looks up when I take them. “He’s just a kid, you know.”

“He’s nineteen,” I say dryly.

“A kid,” she points out. “Barely an adult. They’re supposed to make stupid mistakes.”

“He’s not coming back, Margot. I won’t allow it.” She doesn’t argue, which means she’s saving it for another time, so I let it drop. “You thought it was me who was moving the drugs in your kitchen.”

“Yeah.” She lets out a breath. “I was angry and hurt and—”

“When did you find out?”

“The day you took me to the potluck. And then you walked in carrying one exactly like it, and asked me to put it in the cooler, and I opened it in front of you to see.”

“You opened it to see.”

“I had to know.” Her eyes come up. “And it was food. And I still couldn’t make it go away.”

“Three weeks.” I say it flatly because if I don’t hold it flat, I’m going to say something I can’t take back—not at her, at myself. “You were sleeping in my bed and still checking that shelf before you came up to my place.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?”

“Because you’re the only person in this building nobody says no to.” She says it quietly, without heat, and that’s what makes it land. “Where was I supposed to take it, Bishop? Half my prep line wears your patch. The police? And say what—that I found something in a building the Steel Aces own, and I’d like you to look into the man who owns it?”

I don’t have an answer for her. There isn’t one. She was right about every piece of it except the last.

“I’m sorry for accusing you,” she says. “For not just asking.”

I step up to her, cupping her jaw and stroking her cheek. “It was happening right under my nose. I should have known.”

She lets out a long sigh and drops her forehead to my chest. “You didn’t lie about the cocktail waitress, did you?”

“No.” I take my phone out of my pocket and hand it to her. She looks at me, then at the screen. “Gina asked me who I was seeing. I told her it wasn’t any of her business. She didn’t believe there was anyone, so I showed her.”