Page 12 of Forged in the Fire
Wild and confused, and her mouth popped open like she was looking for the appropriate retort.
I didn’t wait around for it. I grabbed her bags and stalked to the first door on the left. I shoved it open and tossed her things inside.
I felt her hovering at the doorway, peering in, that gaze burning up my back.
“This is your room while you’re here. It’s off-limits to anyone but you.”
Had to at least give her that assurance.
She blinked. Confused again as she wandered into the space.
Elena’d had a field day when she learned about ourguest. Descending on the square box in a furor of pink and confetti.
There was a new pink comforter on the full bed on the left wall, pink towels in the attached bathroom.
She had stocked the little bookshelf next to the door full of every kind of girly book you could imagine. Romances and self-help and what I was pretty sure were makeup manuals.
And on the desk, she’d left a handwritten note that said ‘Welcome’ like she was greeting a guest at the Ritz.
Bewildered, Brinley took a hardback, staring down at it as she edged deeper into the room, her attention snagging on the message Elena had left her.
I forced out, “I’ll have someone bring you dinner up here tonight so you can get settled. Breakfast is served downstairs at seven, then you’re due at the autobody shop at eight.”
I pulled the last one out of my ass right at that moment.
I’d asked Cash Cunningham, Sovereign Sanctum’s hacker over in Moonlit Ridge, for every detail he could get on Brinley Webber.
I remembered seeing that she worked as a bookkeeper in an accountant’s office, and I knew to survive this, I was going to need to keep the woman busy.
A frown knitted her brow.
Fuck me.
It shouldn’t be so damned appealing.
“The autobody shop?”
“Heard you were good with numbers. You’re going to be working in the office.”
That frown reached for the sky. “Are you serious? You have me staying here to work off my brother’s debt in your office?” Her voice was full of suspicion.
Yeah, it sounded like bullshit to me, too.
Her eyes narrowed as she shook her head. “This whole situation is truly messed up. I don’t know what you’re holding over my brother, but I’ve got some money saved up. You just need to take me back to my apartment, and I’ll get you whatever he owes.”
There was a hint of desperation that tinged her words. Worry and dread for her brother. Her care bleeding out.
My stomach twisted, sure that she really had no fucking clue the kind of danger she was in.
“You aren’t going anywhere, Brinley.” The words left me like barbs. Scraping my raw throat.
Anger rushed in to take her worry’s place. “You can’t keep me here. I’ll leave, and if you try to follow me, I’ll go to the police. You know this is extortion…or…or kidnapping.”
I had the urge to tell her what her brother was in, but it had been agreed upon that it was best if she wasn’t in the know.
Sometimes it was safest in the darkness.
I dumped her duffel onto the floor, and I took one step toward her, then another, until I was standing in her flames.
