Finally, she soothes my anxiousness, turning around to face me and she leans against the dresser. She’s gorgeous when she’s full of accusations.

“Why?”

I can’t help but smile at her. Years … she knows. But how many years? is the question she’s still lacking.

I answer her the only way I know how. “If only I could tell you.” Why do any of us torture ourselves with the things we can’t have?

“Tell me something.” For the first time, she gives me a demand and it makes me harder for her than I’ve ever been.

“And you’ll tell me something in return?” There’s only a slight movement from me in response to my eagerness. The tips of my fingers slip against the bedsheets. As if that would be enough to ground me … as if it would hold me back.

“Of course,” she says, whispering her answer and then bites down on her bottom lip. My cock stirs at the motion. I’ve never been a giving soul. There’s always a selfish reason.

“You saw them for what they were.” I speak without thinking.

“What do you mean?” Curiosity knits her brow.

“Just like the case last month … Ross Brass.” At the mention of his name, Delilah stops the cup midway to her lips. A coldness flickers in her gaze.

“It’s not all black and white. It’s covered in as much gray as it is blood. But once you see them for what they are, you don’t let go.”

Perhaps she’d rather I talk about anything other than herself because her mind wanders. I’m certain she thinks of her mother again. Or her father. It’s given away by the drop of her gaze and the slower rate of her breathing.

“Do you want to know what I think?” I ask her and my throat is suddenly tight.

Confusion is apparent in her dark brown eyes and I’m certain she almost asks, about what?, but instead she only nods a yes. Maybe two cups has already been two too many.

“I think it will all be all right but it will take a few days and you’ll be just as anxious every day. Each day more anxious than the last until they have another name. Someone else to blame for your father’s death. I think that’s what you’ll need to move past the worry.”

“It will be all right?” Skepticism laces her question. It’s almost sarcastic.

“With the note I left, no one will want to pin it on your mother. They’ll have someone else in mind.”

“Who?” she asks in a single breath.

“Someone who deserves to die.”

“You’re an angel of death,” she says as if it’s fact and I can only laugh. “That’s what they tell me.”

My amusement is a short but deep rumble in my chest. Her hips sway slightly and I pat the bed next to me, getting her attention.

I wait for her as she walks slowly to the very end of the bed and sits. I’m well aware she can see me, really see me if she looked up. Her eyes would have adjusted to the dark by now. My pulse races and just as she’s about to, just as her thick lashes raise, I tell her to go turn off the light first.