The Silent Ones [✔️] (#2 in the Chilvati Series)

TWENTY-TWO

Jesus, no, why would she. "Wha . . . I—"

"Of course you don't." He shrugged. "Hell, I don't even know. I've lost count. But I can tell you this . . ." He suddenly moved closer, and she jerked her head back. Picking up a section of her hair, he rolled it between his fingers. "Every one of them was a brunette."

Her gaze shifted across the room. The bedroom door seemed miles away but it was the only choice. The bathroom behind her was an open archway, so barricading herself inside was not an—

"Look at me!" Dropping the strands, he clamped his hand over her jaw again, squeezing until her teeth hurt. "Ah, yes. A man could get lost in those eyes. Do you know how hard it is to find a brunette with green eyes?"

Fear washed over her. She shook her head as much as his tight grip would allow.

His smile was bitter. "Sometimes I had to improvise . . . I made them shut theirs while I fucked them."

Her blood ran cold. Oh, God.

"Or I blindfolded them." He let her go and stepped away. "They'd been willing, most of them anyway, thinking I was into the kinky stuff. It was all too fucking easy. They were all too fucking easy."

Her muscles twitched as she waited for the perfect moment to run. She needed to distract him, keep him talking until he let his guard down. Desperate, she tried to take advantage of his admitted obsession. "Enzo was going to kill me yesterday."

"Yeah, I know. My phone, remember?" he muttered as his gaze moved down her body.

She squeezed her arms tight against the towel, willing it to stay put. "I . . . you said it was stolen."

His focus snapped back to her face. "I thought the whole contract thing was excessive—I told Gus that—but it forced us together so I couldn't complain too much. I was willing to wait, to protect you, even when you told me there had been someone else."

"That's over." The lie tasted like bile as it rolled out of her mouth. "I told Mark about us, that we've been seeing each other. He wasn't pleased, but took pity on me and let me stay overnight. It was only for safety—"

"Liar!" He stepped closer, his bloodshot eyes bulging wide. "I know you had sex with him. I can smell it in the air." He turned up his nose. "All the dates we went on where you could barely stand to kiss me, but you spread your legs wide for a man who has already dumped you once at the first sign of adversity."

She winced at his brutal wording. Truth hurts, spouted in her head, the "coach" from the previous day having returned, a little more sullen with its counsel, acting less like a good conscience, more like a guilty one.

"I can tolerate a lot of things, but I am not interested in Spinelli's discards." Walt lifted his hands, rotating them in front of him as if inspecting the gloves for holes. "You know, I actually liked Jack."

Jack. She stopped breathing.

"He was pretty cool . . . until he thought he had a real chance with you." He rolled his eyes. "Then he got so whiny, wanting to quit all the time, had this huge guilt, kept threatening to go to Cap and confess what we were doing." He sighed. "I had to do something. His death was unfortunate, messy, expensive . . . yet necessary."

No! she screamed in her head with a vengeance, the anger clearing away some of the panic and helping her think. "Walt, I don't know what you mean. But it doesn't matter. I'm glad you're—"

He yanked the cap off to scratch an itch, revealing a completely shaved head.

Her voice faltered and she could only whisper, "Walt?"