“No.”

I just can’t believe this guy. “What the hell do you want from me? You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t want to be around me, so why—”

He makes a derisive sound at the back of his throat. Couples the sound with a crooked eyebrow. “How have I made that abundantly clear?”

“I think the whole, don’t ever fucking kiss me again, thing and then vanishing for two weeks speaks for itself, don’t you? Your attitude speaks for itself.”

This whole conversation seems to be entertaining him greatly. He battles the beginnings of a smirk as he says, “I don’t have an attitude. I just have me.” This statement doesn’t makes things any better. I consider hitting him with my purse. “Ask me where I’ve been the last two weeks,” he says.

Damn him. I exhale, trying to keep my temper under wraps. “Where have you been?”

“I’ve been making the necessary arrangements to go and collect your sister.”

Oh. I stop struggling a little.

Alexis.

A deep wave of grief washes over me. It’s like a small part of me has convinced itself that she’s dead and every time he says her name, it’s preparing me for the moment he returns without her. The moment when he tells me he was mistaken. That this person he’s found isn’t her at all, and that Alexis is already dead. I let the grief sink deep, back into my bones, and then say the only thing I can say, since he’s been working to help me. “Well. Thank you. I guess.”

“You’re welcome. Now ask me why I stayed away.”

I really don’t want to play this game anymore. I don’t want to feel so powerless, crushed up against him, unable to get away, either. I also don’t like how, thus far, he’s coming out of this smelling of roses. “Fine.” I fix defiant eyes on him. “Why have you stayed away?”

“I stayed away because you needed time to not feel stupid over me rejecting you.”

Whoa! What. The. Fuck? He is…he is un-fucking-believable! “You did not reject me. You’d just screwed me, asshole!”

“I know that. But you felt rejected at the time, right? If I’d come to see you two weeks ago, you still would have felt like that.”

“So you wait two weeks until I’m fucking furious at you instead?”

He shrugs. “Furious is easier to fix.”

I want to castrate the motherfucker. I want to literally kick him in the balls repeatedly until there’s no chance he’ll ever reproduce. At least that way the future of younger female generations will be safe from the possibility that there will ever be anyone as dangerously manipulative and clever as him.

He’s right. I hate that he is, but he’s right. I did feel rejected, and I would have hated to see him fourteen days ago. Urgh. I’m suddenly gripped by an extreme exhaustion that turns my limbs to lead.

“I need to go home, Zeth. I can’t do this with you right now.”

He doesn’t say another word. He releases me from his grip, keeping hold of one hand so that he can guide me through the maze of hallways on the ground floor; the ease with which he does this makes me think he knows this place. Knows it a little better than I might like. He keeps his head down at least, eyes to the floor until we reach the exit. Gracie, the head nurse on shift, gives me a wave as we leave but apart from that we aren’t stopped.

Outside, Zeth leads me away from the brightly lit area of the lot where I parked my Volvo to the far back section. The shady, dark corner of the lot where the security cameras don’t work.

“What are you doing?” I try to pull my hand free but he has a solid grip on me. “Zeth. Zeth!” He stops. Turns. When I have his attention, I ask for the information I need to know before I can go a single step farther with him. “Did you shoot that kid?”

“No.”

“But you do work for a crime boss, don’t you? Don’t you!”

Zeth doesn’t reply. He gives me a worn look. “Sloane, I need you to look after Lacey.” We glare at one another for a long time while I try to work out if I should be trying to hide with him or calling for help. This feels like a pivotal moment right now. He’s denied shooting someone, yes, but he hasn’t denied being on a seriously dangerous criminal’s payroll. I know what that means. Whatever this man may be—murderer, thug, criminal—he is honest. With me, I know he is honest. Our bizarre little conversation in the hallway has only highlighted that. By not giving me an answer, he’s found a way around lying to me. He gives me a loaded look; it’s almost pleading. And then he actually does plead.

“Just…please. Please, Sloane. I’m going to fetch your sister. You can do this for me.”

“Yeah. About that. Where is she? I should come with you. She’s shy, Zeth, she won’t just leave with you.”

He shakes his head. “She’s somewhere you can’t come. Somewhere dangerous. I want you and Lacey here, where I can have people keep an eye on you.”

“Zeth! She’s my sister!”

“You wanna fight me on this, I won’t bother fucking going at all,” he growls. “Either I get her outta there alone, or I stay put and you can keep on missing your sister.”

Oh my God. He knows. He knows how badly I want to get her back and he’s using that to get his own damn way. “Okay. Fine!”

He looks away quickly. No expression of relief. No thank you. No nothing. Walking briskly, he brings me to a gleaming, matte-black Camaro, parked in perhaps the darkest corner of the entire lot. Through the window on the back seat Lacey stares worriedly back at us, knees tucked up under her chin.