The last few days have passed in a haze. I go to work. I come home. I sit on the couch and stare blankly at my television screen, unable to comprehend the stupid sitcoms and reality shows that flash before my eyes. Eventually those eyes start to droop with sleep, and I curl up alone in my empty bed, staring at the wall until sheer exhaustion finally allows me to collapse into the sweet erase of sleep.

My stupid memories don’t help. They keep replaying, a constant loop of pain in my head.

“You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met.”

“I want to devour you.”

His words are a constant refrain in my head, and I can’t stop searching them for the broken thread, the clue that should have let me in on the fact that he was lying the whole time. What should I have doubted? What should I have ignored? Should I have disbelieved him the second he said he wanted me that much?

“You own me too.”

I let him have everything, every ounce I had to give, and he made me believe he felt the same way. He made me think I had his heart, the way he’d stolen mine. I know it was fast—ridiculously fast—and I know we were only just getting started, but the whole thing had felt right. Inevitable. Stone made me feel in a way no man I’ve ever been with before has. It was like coming home, or finding my path after a lifetime lost.

At the diner, I go through the motions. Serve my tables, smile robotically at all my regulars. Mr. Tim, the eighty-year-old who lives down the block from Monroe’s, asked me yesterday morning if I was all right, if something had happened to my family. Yeah, I wanted to say. My brother fucked up our lives permanently by gambling, and there’s no other family left to warn me away from ruining my own life too.

Instead I told him I had indigestion. That seemed to satisfy him, or at least distract him into an hour-long rant about his own struggles with digestive tract problems.

But at home, it’s impossible to escape the flood of memories. It doesn’t help that Stone and I went through every inch of this apartment in our handful of nights together. Bent over the couch. Splayed out across the bed. Even one morning in the kitchen, as I brewed coffee. He’d run his hands up my inner thigh to toy with my panties until we both abandoned the coffee and woke each other up with our mouths instead.

Ugh. Cringing at the memory, I give up on the pot of coffee I’d been in the middle of brewing on my countertop and wander over to curl up on the couch instead. Fuck it. It’s my day off today, I don’t have to wake my brain up. It’s probably better off half-asleep and un-caffeinated. Maybe then it will finally shut up.

That’s when a crash outside my door startles me to attention.

Great. What now? Probably my idiot brother coming to apologize and try to crawl back into my good graces. All while trying to explain that the only man I’ve ever felt truly myself with, the only man who’s ever made me feel like a goddess, doesn’t actually give a shit about me and was just using me to get to him.

This is definitely a conversation I’m looking forward to having.

Still, I can’t help but remember my brother’s words. These people are dangerous criminals. I pause halfway to my door and peer out the peephole instead of just throwing it open the way I normally would.

The hallway is empty. Which is odd, because I definitely heard a sound—and a loud one at that—just moments ago. I squint into the hallway. Maybe it was Amanda coming in or out? Even though it’s Thursday and she works a day job, maybe she’s running late.

A glint catches my eye. At the end of the hallway, through the window that leads out to the fire escape. A flash of brown that looked almost like…

A shoe.

Heart beating viciously, I keep my eye pressed to the peephole as a thought forms in the back of my head. If they sent Stone after me, surely he would just knock. He wouldn’t skulk around on fire escapes peering at me. He’d confront me head on. Right?

But then I look at the window again and see no movement at all and tell myself to relax. That I’m just imagining things because I’m running on very little sleep and too much to stress about.

Right, I’m just imagining things.

Grabbing the pepper spray keychain I bought after the pier incident, I return to my door, tugging my oversized sweater a bit tighter around my body as I watch the hallway like a hawk. Regardless of whether I’m overreacting, I can’t deny the sudden sensation of eyes watching me. It sends tingles down my spine and tangles sharp knots in the pit of my stomach.

Footsteps stomp up the staircase, sending my heart flying into my throat again, but before I have time to react my brother’s stupid head lifts into view. I breathe out a sigh of relief and roll my eyes, undoing the deadbolt at the same time. As angry as I am at Ian right now, I’m relieved to see him and not somebody else.

“What is it?” I crack the door wide enough to fit one eye through but leave the chain on. No way I’m just letting him waltz in here like nothing happened.

“We need to talk.” He glances over his shoulder at the hallway. Almost like he, too, can sense what I did. That weird second sense that there’s someone else here, someone else watching.

“We can talk here,” I say.

“It’s private,” he hisses.

“So is this. No one else is home. Unless there’s someone here I don’t know about,” I point out sharply.

A scowl darkens his features. Now that I look closely at him, my brother seems pale and tired. Nervous, too. Even more nervous than he usually is, which is saying something. “Skye, please just let me inside.”

“Tell me what it’s about first.”

“It’s about your fucking boyfriend,” he whispers sharply. “He met with me today. At the place where we’re doing the drop on Monday—”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to hear about this,” I interrupt. “If you can’t be one hundred percent truthful with me, do me a favor and don’t tell me anything. I’m not even kidding, Ian.”

I move to shut the door, but he presses a hand flat against it to stop me. “He says you’re being watched.”

The tingle along my spine increases twofold. I can’t help it. I actually shiver and cast a sideways glance at the window behind me. The blinds are still drawn shut. Thank god.

“By who, him?” I mutter, trying to keep my voice sarcastic. Because if I don’t remain sarcastic, the fear might set in that I’m in deep shit. A situation that’s not even my own making.

Ian moves his head from side-to-side . “By Rich’s other people—people Stone doesn’t trusts.” When I snort, he rushes to tell me, “Look, it’s not like I trust Stone either, but why would he tell us that? I don’t think he wants to see you get hurt.”

I hate the way something pierces my chest when Ian says those words. “Maybe he wants to make us paranoid. Spook us and see where we go running to.”

“Maybe.” Ian runs a hand along his jawline and cocks his head to the side. “Either way, I feel like shit for getting you involved in this. I booked a hotel up in Jersey City. If you leave tonight, you can stay through Tuesday, until all this is done.”

I plant my feet and stick my face closer to the door, closer to his. “Or you can come in and tell me everything so I can help you.” He opens his mouth, probably to point out that I said I was done helping, so I add, “I know what I said. But I know you’re my brother too. And I’ll do anything I can to protect you.”

“You’re in danger, Skye,” he grinds out through his teeth.

“Yeah, well, so are you.”

But it’s my own damn fault.” His blue eyes narrow into thin slits, so I challenge his glare with one of my own. “Just leave, okay. I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t tell me what to do, Ian,” I say softly. “You’re not my keeper, and you’re not going to treat me like some breakable porcelain doll just because shit’s getting real. I’m staying put, you’re going to tell me everything, and I’m going with you when you finish this thing.”

Nostrils flaring, Ian gives me a fierce shake of his head. “Fuck no, you’re not. Skye. Be mature here.”

“I am. And that’s my only offer, Ian. Take it or leave it. Call me when you’re ready to stop playing word games and talk about this.” Then I slam the door hard, so fast, he only barely manages to yank his hand away in time. As I turn the lock, I hear him through the hard wood.

“You’re not safe, Skye.”

“No one is,” I shout back. “That’s life.”

But after he’s gone, I do latch all three locks on my door and then circle my apartment, checking every window. I’m not running away from this, but I’m not planning on being an idiot, either.

Only a few more days, I tell myself as I pad to the kitchen to have that cup of coffee I’d decided against earlier. Just a few more days. Then this nightmare will be over.