Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
“Your ex-wife,” Jake corrects with a soft tone like he’s padding the insult.
I arch my brows. “I married her. We divorced—”
“She divorced you,” he cuts in to clarify. Annoyingly.
I glare. “And we’re back together. You want a detailed report of what I did to her in bed this morning, too?”
Phoebe’s brothers are overhearing this. My sister is listening in, too. None of them know I’m truly with Phoebe yet, and there is a ninety-nine percent chance they believe I’m just spouting bullshit to Jake.
It’s what we do.
Tell lies to get the mark where we want them.
Just another day at the office.
He works his jaw, and I can’t read him very well for a moment. Not until he says, “Don’t hurt her.”
Don’t hurt her?
Don’t hurt the one girl I’ve only ever loved. Don’t hurt the one girl I would give my life for on repeat. Don’t hurt the one girl who has burrowed so deep in me, I can’t cut her out without bleeding out.
Don’t hurt Phoebe.
My eyes burn. We’ve hurt each other through the years, by pulling away and pushing closer in a tortured, loving cycle. It’s been devotion and resistance. But that type of hurt isn’t what he’s referring to.
“I’d never harm Phoebe,” I say deeply, truthfully.
Jake must accept this honesty. He untenses. “About her,” he says, then checks his watch.
My pulse tries to spike.
He glances at the hatch we just climbed down.
I’m laser focused on him. “Expecting someone?”
He avoids my gaze. “We should go to the galley.” He’s already leading the way.
Fuck.
I have no choice but to follow.
Leveling my heartbeat, I concentrate on the weight of my jacket on my biceps. The tag skimming the back of my neck. It starts itching. So does the thin wire brushing against my chest. I force myself not to yank at it and throw it in the trash can.
We’re in the galley. It’s less sterile and industrial than I imagined. The floors are scuffed and worn, and ass indents concave the blue corduroy cushions of a U-shaped couch. Nautical magnets decorate the white fridge, holding up at least a dozen photos.
He must spend most of his time here.
I scan the pictures, only seeing one family member. I recognize her from news reports online.
Jake follows my gaze. “That’s Kate.” Grief clouds his eyes for a second. He’s lost in the memory of his little sister.
In the picture, her hair is the same light shade of brown as Jake’s, and they have the same ocean-blue eyes. She’s mid-laugh and trying to stand on her tiptoes to reach his height in the photo.
She looks no older than fifteen.
“You miss her.” I don’t ask. I can tell. Very few people would be able to fake this kind of raw emotion that throws you into the past. It’s genuine, his love for her.
“Every day. The only solace I have is knowing she’s safe and happy.”
I wonder where she is. Another state? Another country? “She can’t be walking around Texas or Montana as Kate Koning Waterford—a dead girl,” I tell him. “So what’d you do? Make her a new identity?”
Jake stiffens, clutching the handle to the fridge. “I did what I had to do.” He stares back at me. “Wouldn’t you for Hailey?”
Yes. But I was born into crime. The decision would’ve been easy for me. “You don’t want to know what I’d do for Hailey,” I mutter, taking a seat on the lumpy corduroy cushion. I lean back, getting comfortable enough, and I watch him tug open the fridge.
He plucks out two bottles of Koning Lite. “Are you all right with beer?”
At six in the morning? Not really, but I like the idea of having a glass bottle I can crack over his head if this really takes a turn.
“It’s five p.m. somewhere,” I say dryly, taking one from him.
With the other in hand, Jake slides into the booth, sitting across from me. After he pops off the cap with a gold bottle opener, he tosses it to me. I do the same, and the growing tension between us is splitting the air into a thousand fatal shards.
“About her,” I say, surfacing his statement, the one left unfinished from earlier.
“About her,” Jake parrots. He’s not blinking. He’s just as laser focused on me. Neither of us have taken off our jackets. He swigs his beer. I swig mine.
Jake isn’t that afraid of me in this moment. He has the confidence of someone who has the local sheriff in his pocket, but I also have dirt on him, so I’m not quaking in my boots.
“Why am I here, Jake?” I ask him.
“I need Phoebe, and you’re in the way.”
I’m barely breathing. I conceal it. “Yeah? What are you going to do? Tape my picture in your diary and scratch out my eyes? Complain to Mommy and Daddy that you didn’t get what you wanted? Cry in your million-dollar sandbox?”