I shook my head and placed a kiss over his heart, grateful that he’d been here with me. Even with my reassurance, his body was still tense under me.

“What has you biting your tongue?” I asked.

Riley froze, then blew out a laugh. “That obvious, huh?”

“To me? Yeah.”

He began rubbing circles on my bare hip with his thumb, and I settled farther into him, draping my leg over the top of one of his and tracing my fingers over his chest while I waited for him to tell me what was on his mind.

“You said you tried to tell your mom…”

That small handful of words made me stiffen in his arms. I couldn’t help it. It was funny how so few words could transport me right back to that day, an afternoon seemingly like any other, except it’d been the day when I’d finally worked up enough courage to talk to her. Tell her what was happening to me. Or try to, anyway.

I hadn’t even been able to tell her about anything more than the inappropriate touches and looks before she’d shut me down, saying I was confused or misreading things. I hadn’t corrected her, hadn’t told her the things he’d done to me that could in no way be misconstrued. Instead, I’d closed up again. All my confidence had vanished, extinguished in the blink of an eye. I’d swallowed it all, kept it locked up tight.

Until Riley.

I cleared my throat, hoping my voice came out sounding stronger than I felt at this moment. “Yeah.”

Riley continued caressing my skin, wherever he could reach. I didn’t know if it was to soothe him or me, but I appreciated the gesture all the same. “But you never told her more than about the … the looks and the touches?”

“No, she shut me down before I could. And I never tried again.”

“What about … I mean, have you ever gone to the cops? Have you filed a report?”

I closed my eyes, the words my father had said more times than I could count echoing in my memory. “He told me no one would believe me, and after my mom…” I blew out a shaky breath. While I’d opened up to Riley, shared my darkest past with him, that didn’t mean this was suddenly easy to talk about. It still clawed at me, my open wound raw and vulnerable, a thousand tiny paper cuts along every inch of my skin. And talking about it was like swimming in salt water.

Riley didn’t say anything more, didn’t do anything but tug me closer to his side. I relaxed into him, grateful that he’d taken my cues to let it drop. It was a lot to deal with in a short amount of time, and I was still reeling.

We lay there for long minutes before his phone buzzed on the makeshift nightstand, the small black rectangle sliding toward Riley as it vibrated. “Shit,” he said, reaching out and grabbing the phone before he glanced at the screen. “Gage called a couple times while you were sleeping. He’s gonna be pissed as hell I didn’t call back.” He blew out a deep breath, then pressed his thumb on the screen and answered the call. “Hey.”

I couldn’t hear Gage’s side of the conversation as Riley held the phone to his ear, just a low, unintelligible rumble, but when Riley’s muscles went taut under my roaming hands, I knew something was going on. Propping myself up on my elbow, the sheet clutched to my chest, I looked down at him. His brows were furrowed, his jaw clenched, eyes hard.

What is it? I mouthed. He gave a sharp shake of his head and looked away from me, but I wasn’t going to have any of that. I’d been the one to land us in this position—my problems, my actions—and if anyone was going to be in the know about what the hell was going on, it was going to be me.

With Riley’s attention diverted away from me, I quickly reached out and snatched the phone from his hand and pressed the speaker button. As soon as I did so, Gage’s voice filled the room. “Aaron confirmed it’s at least a dozen more.”

“What’s at least a dozen more?” I asked.

“Evie,” Riley snapped, sitting up and reaching out to try and get the phone from my hand. I held it away from him and scooted farther back on the bed, not caring about my nakedness.

“No way. You don’t get to have this conversation in private. This isn’t your problem, Riley. It’s mine. Now tell me what the hell’s going on. A dozen more what, Gage?”

Riley cursed under his breath, his eyes narrowed on me, at the same time Gage blew out a breath on the other end of the line. Then Gage said, “A dozen guys. Max isn’t fucking around anymore. When Frankie didn’t contain the … situation, Max moved on and sent out runts, just prospects for the crew who wanted to do something for him and ones he knew wouldn’t ask questions. Ones who weren’t around when you were, Evie, who didn’t know you. He’s turned the tables, though. Aaron let me know that Max had a meeting with the veterans—the ones who’ve been there the longest and have the most to lose—and … he sold you out. Told them you have evidence to bring down the entire crew and everyone in it. Now Max is mobilizing guys. Plans to send out a dozen more in the next couple of hours.”

“Which means we need to move now,” Riley interjected. He threw off the covers and stood, yanking on the pants he’d shed earlier. His hands were restless, tugging at his hair, the muscles in his back coiled as he paced at the foot of the bed. “Evie’s got all the evidence we need. We can get shit in place for a blast, if need be.” I knew he meant to have the evidence prepped and ready to send to any and all sources at once, should Max not comply with the threat. He turned to me. “Did you get everything on that flash drive?”

“Hell, yeah, I did. Every last bit of it. Aaron got copies, too.”

He gave a short nod. “Good.”

“What do you want to do, Ry?” Gage asked. “You want to wait until he comes here, just be ready for him?”

“Fuck, no.”

Gage snorted. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. If you time it right, wait for the green light from Aaron, you can hit Max in Chicago when all his top guys have been dispatched.”

“That’s what I was thinking. Catch him alone. I’ll probably head out tonight, so I’m in Chicago when I need to be, whenever Aaron gives the go-ahead.”

The words he was saying, how he and Gage held the conversation as if I wasn’t even in the room, had an uneasiness crawling over my skin. Narrowing my eyes at him, I said, “You mean we. We’ll head out.”

Riley turned to face me, his arms crossed over his bare chest. He was a statue, stoic and unmoving, his eyes hard as he leveled me with a stare. “No, I mean me.”

I could only sit and stare at him, my heart warring with my mind, because I’d known. Despite how badly my heart wanted to believe that he wouldn’t do something like this to me, intentionally strip me of any power I had over myself, my mind—my gut—had counted on it. I huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “You can’t be serious.”

“Evie,” Gage interrupted. “I know you want to be involved, but this is serious shit now. Shit we—”

“Never would’ve had to deal with if it weren’t for me,” I interrupted, my voice hard. “You are not blocking me on this. This isn’t either of your problems. It’s mine.”

“I don’t give a fuck if it’s your problem or not,” Riley said. “It became mine the second I saw you again, the second I got the call from Gage. You’re not going.” His words were hard, delivered like sharp jabs to the stomach.

I climbed out of the bed, jerking on my clothes as I glared at him. “I can’t believe you’re trying to pull this shit with me. This isn’t your decision to make, Riley, and you’re not my fucking keeper.”

Gage cleared his throat, the sound reminding me we had an audience. I’d forgotten he was on the phone. Riley and I both stared at the illuminated screen lying on the bed, our postures tense. “I’ll be by shortly. You guys get this figured out before I get there.”

The call disconnected, and Riley and I stared at each other, at a standoff.