My eyes close, and I remain silent, failing to prevent the guilty signs from charging forward.
“Tell me it meant nothing.”
I swallow hard, furiously debating my best angle. Confess. Or deny. My conscience gets the better of me. “He was trying to comfort me,” I blurt out quietly. “It went too far.”
“When?”
“After you took me to the hotel.”
He winces, pulling in a calming stretch of air.
“We didn’t have sex,” I continue nervously, keen to clear that little bit of suspicion up. I’m not liking the shakes that his body has developed. “A silly fumble, that’s all. We both regret it. Please don’t hurt him.”
His nostrils flare, like it’s taking every modicum of his waning strength not to explode. It undoubtedly is. “If I hurt him, I hurt you. I’ve hurt you enough already.” His teeth clench. “But it won’t happen again.”
That is a statement, not a question or a request for confirmation. It won’t be happening again. So I remain quiet until I eventually see his chest heaves begin to subside. He’s calming, but I still posed a question before we slipped off course, and I want an answer. “The envelope.”
“What about it?”
I chew on the inside of my mouth, deliberating whether to continue. He’s slipping into detachment. “What was inside?”
“A note from Charlie.”
I kind of knew that, but his willing reply surprises me. “What did it say?” The follow-up question slips out without hesitation this time.
“It told me how I can get out of this world.”
My mouth drops open. He has an out? Charlie’s going to release him from the invisible shackles? Oh my God! The potential of all this being over, of us getting on with our lives, is suddenly too much to comprehend. No wonder Miller looks to peaceful, but I soon pull up when a small point worms its way past my relief and happiness. Actually, a huge point. He read that letter in the kitchen at my house and looked completely stricken past the cool impassiveness of his mask. He was troubled, so what’s changed since then to make him seem so at ease? I steel myself and ask the question I should’ve asked before I let my excitement run away with me. “How can you get out of this world?” My instinct to hold my breath worries me. It tells me I’m not going to like the answer.
But my question still doesn’t make his finger falter across my skin, and he still isn’t looking at me. “It doesn’t matter because I’m not doing it.”
“Is it bad?”
“The worst,” he answers without thought, almost scowling before it drifts into disgust. “I have another way.”
“Like what?”
“I’ll kill him.”
“What?” I wriggle beneath him in a panic, but I don’t go anywhere, and I wonder if he positioned himself like this on purpose, knowing damn well I’d start pressing for answers and want to escape when he gave them to me. And I don’t know why I’m acting so shocked by his shocking, hateful promise. After what William said and Miller’s look, I had a bad feeling he would say that. What Charlie proposed is worse? How?
“Stay where you are.” He’s calm. Too calm, and it just makes me all the more freaked. He seizes my wrists and holds them above my head, and I’m now puffing exhausted bursts of air into his face. “It’s the only way.”
“No, it’s not!” I argue. “Charlie’s given you another way. Take it!”
He shakes his head adamantly. “No. And that’s the end of it!” His jaw is tight now, eyes darkening in warning. I don’t care. Nothing can be worse than killing someone. I won’t let him do it.
“It fucking isn’t!” I yell. “Get off me!” I heave and flip myself, all without success.
“Olivia, stop it!” He slams my wrists back to the floor above my head when I manage to fight them up a little. “Damn it! Stop fighting me!”
I finally relent, but only because of utter exhaustion, and pant in his face, trying to glare through my tiredness. “Nothing could be worse than killing someone.”
He draws in a deep breath. It’s a confidence-boosting breath, and it makes every muscle against him tense. “If I agree to what he wants, it will destroy you, Olivia. And there’s no guarantee that once I do this, he won’t ask me to come back and do something else. As long as he’s breathing, he’s a threat to our happiness.”
I shake my head adamantly. “It’s too dangerous. You’d never be able to pull it off—he must have dozens of heavies watching his back.” My panic is escalating. I heard Gregory mention guns. “And you can’t live with this on your conscience for the rest of your life.”