Bad Boy

Ingrid plucked an iris from the basket and tore its petals off, one by one.

Tam’s gaze bounced between us. “What’s Crito’s motive to hurt you, Ren?”

“Aside from me existing? And breaking into his apartment, and letting you shoot him? He’s Adam’s best friend. In the past, Jay . . . encouraged Adam. Egged him on. To do things he didn’t—” I raked my hair, wishing I could claw the spiderwebs out of my brain. I was this close to defending Adam as a victim of Jay’s manipulation. “They’re fucking bros. You hurt one, you hurt the other. For all I know Adam’s told him some fucked-up version of our history, and now Crito wants my blood.”

I grimaced, hearing myself articulate exactly what Laney had been trying to tell me: if I went after Adam, it would tip off Jay. And she wanted Crito to pay for his sins fully. I couldn’t touch either of them till her whole plan came to fruition.

Whatever the fuck it was.

What was she waiting for, anyway? What more did we need to take him out? Tam could’ve killed him that first night, and the world would’ve instantly become a better place.

Ingrid crushed the nude stem in her fist. “How do we know these came from Jay?”

“It’s his signature move,” I said.

“Right. So if someone wanted to make you think he was after you . . .”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying there’s only one person who knows your old name, and that you’re part of Black Iris, and that you have a history with Adam and Jay, and who’s gone behind your back to do God knows what with them.”

The Little Wolf.

“No,” I said automatically. “That’s nuts. Laney wouldn’t screw me over.”

She couldn’t. I had collateral.

“She already did. She fucked you over when you asked for her help.”

“But now I think I know why. She’s got some long-term plan. Something she hasn’t told me yet.”

“So? Couldn’t she at least tell you that she found Adam, that you weren’t crazy, instead of letting you doubt yourself? That’s basically gaslighting.”

The term made me stiffen. “That’s a comforting way to look at it.”

“I’m not trying to comfort you, asshole. Don’t be stupid—consider all possibilities.”

“He’s just had a terrible fright,” Tam snapped. “You might be kinder.”

Inge unveiled her trademark frosty glare. Then she said, “I’ll go for a coffee run. Be kind to each other while I’m gone.”

The door slammed. I rubbed my hands over my face.

“I think she likes me,” Tamsin said wryly.

“Inge hates every woman in my life. It’s nothing personal.”

“Ah, the jealous ex.”

I turned the kitchen tap on. “What makes you think she’s my ex?”

“The way she looks at you.” Tam hopped onto the counter beside me. “Odd, though. Thought you said she was a lesbian.”

“She is. It’s—” Water spilled over my cupped hands.

“Complicated?”

I doused my face. “God, what isn’t. I’d kill for some fucking simplicity.”

“Here’s something simple: Ingrid is lying to you.”

Tap off. Pause. “About?”

“Adam, among other things. How does she know he’s back?”

The night was a whirlwind of factoids and details, a jumbled dossier. “Some friend of hers saw him. Took a pic. She showed me.”

“Saw him where?”

“Cubs game.”

“Right. Now, I’m no American, thank God, but according to the Internet”—Tam scrolled her phone—“baseball season ended in September. More than a month ago.”

My brain could not process numbers. “So?”

“So her timeline doesn’t match up. She only told you last week.”

“There could be a million reasons. Maybe she didn’t know till then. Maybe it slipped her—”

Tamsin pushed off the counter, crossed swiftly to the whiteboard. Rapped it hard with a fist. The noise startled Bell out of the room.

“Does this look like the work of a careless mind?”

“Tam, you don’t know her.”

“That’s why I can see her clearly. Your eyes are clouded by history.”

“Believe me, they’re not. There’s a reason we’re exes.”

“Look at the board. Read it to me.”

“Tamsin—”

“Read it.”

I moved toward her, our shadows thrown long in the colorless dawn. Ingrid’s scalpel-sharp handwriting slashed impeccably across the whiteboard. I recited the words.

“And what didn’t she write once,” Tam said softly, “in this massive plot against Renard Grant?”

My name.

“Tam, it’s complicated.”

“So you say. But I think it’s rather simple, really.”

“Let’s not do this. The clichéd love triangle, the emotional tug-of-war. I trust both of you.”

“How bloody presumptuous.”

“Should I not trust you?”

“Trust the person who sees you as you are, not as you were. And don’t presume to know my emotions.”

I leaned closer. “Am I wrong? Am I the only one who feels this?”

Our breath mingled, tinged with the beer we’d drunk. The wash of metallic light darkened, and a whiff of wet stone and copper filtered through an open window. Rain coming.

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