Page 18 of Cruel Kiss

I shrug. "How well does anyone know another person in this life?"

Mercer chuckles. "You tell me. You've been seen around town with him quite a bit lately. You two getting chummy?"

It'd be so easy to feed him to her. She'd take it greedily, and with the proof I've compiled, I think even the high and mighty Ronan Akov would have a hard time escaping the FBI's jaws.There's an entire computer just a stone's throw away that would incriminate him for many consecutive life sentences.

Ghost clients and shell corps, money coming, money going. Goodness knows he lied to my face enough to deserve the fate this woman deals him.

Do it. Give him up. Let her take him, so she doesn't take you and Hayden and Isabella instead.

I mean, my God—I stood in his office yesterday afternoon and told him I hoped I never saw him again! I meant it, right? I think I meant it.

But my heart decides my answer long before my head does. Is it smart? No idea. Will I regret it? Almost certainly. But is it ever a conscious choice to defend him?

No.

It's just a series of memories.

A man on his knees on the floor of my daughter's bedroom, saying goodnight to a caterpillar.

A blue swimming pool in an aquarium with the world at our feet.

A dark staircase and the shadow flying between me and the man who meant to hurt me.

It's a mess, all of it. But one thing I know for sure is this: I'll decide what happens to Ronan Akov. Not her. Not Todd.Me.

"Chummy?" I laugh merrily. "Not even a little bit. As far as I can tell, I hate the man's guts. I don't think there's a future for him and me, I'm afraid."

It's not defending Ronan. I want that on the record, even if the only record is the one inside my own skull. I don't sayhe's a good man.I don't sayhe'd never do the things you're accusing me of.

I just say,Not yet.

Not yet.

Not until I know exactly what he is.

Mercer studies me for a long moment. The garbage truck comes back down the street, grinding, and her eyes flick to it, then back to me, and I get the sense she clocks the man in the dark coat standing guard at the corner without ever quite looking at him.

"You know," she remarks finally, "in fifteen years in this gig, I've gotten pretty good at telling the difference between somebody who doesn't know anything, and somebody who knows a great deal and has decided not to say it." She tips her head. "You strike me as the second kind."

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Agent Mercer," I say icily. "But I have pancakes getting cold."

"I'm sure you do." She reaches into her jacket again—I don't flinch this time—but all she produces is a second card. When I don't reach out to take it, she sets it on the top step. "Just in case you misplace the first one. Remember, Ms. Meadows: Windows close."

Then she goes. Down my steps, past my hydrant, past my shrub, past the man in the dark coat who very deliberately does not look at her as she passes. She doesn't get in a car on my block. She just walks around the corner and is gone.

I stand there with two identical business cards for a woman I have no way of confirming is who she says she is, even though everything about herfelttrue.

Which is exactly the problem.

Everything about Ronan once felt true, too.

I go back inside. It's like night and day, because in here, the hall smells like breakfast and there's a kid laughing somewhere. Such a violently ordinary morning that I want to sit down on the floor and never, ever get up.

Ronan is at the stove when I come into the kitchen, but his body is angled toward the doorway and his ears are perked. He looks at me and clocks every minuscule detail of my body language in a second. He frowns.

But before he can ask, Bella brightens up.

"Mommy, look!" Isabella holds up a pancake with two lumpy ears. "It's Minnie!"