“You warned me, too,” she shouted. “And so did Tobias. I’m the one who pushed to get together with him. It was my decision, and confronting him should have been mine, too. When are you going to understand that I’m not a child? How did you even know I was seeing him?”

“Gunner saw Kent at the gym this morning,” Zeke, always the calm to her brothers’ storms, explained. “Kent told him you came by the shop to have lunch with Tobias and that you two looked cozy. Gunner called Blaine, and Blaine looked into the guy. It didn’t take much to find out the truth.”

Fresh tears slid down her cheeks, the truth hurting more than it had the first time, which made her even angrier at herself. “You should’ve given me the chance to end things my way. You humiliated me.”

“You didn’t answer your damn phone,” Blaine said gruffly.

Zeke shot him a narrow-eyed stare, turning a softer gaze on Madigan. “We were worried about you, and maybe you have a right to be pissed. I’m sorry, but we love you, and we’ll take the heat of your wrath to keep you safe.”

She snapped her mouth shut, emotions swamping her. She turned away, pushing her door as she stepped inside.

“Mads,” Blaine said.

It was all she could do to close and relock the door before her legs gave out, and she crumpled to the floor in an agonizing heap.

MADIGAN WASN’T ONE for pity parties.

After a good, hard cry, disgusted with herself for falling apart and for allowing herself to get hurt again, she scraped herself off the floor and tried to pull herself together. She changed into sweats and a tank top and threw her hair up in a bun. She debated burning the T-shirt of Tobias’s she’d worn home and had even held it over a flame on the stove.

But she couldn’t do it.

He’d killed someone. Taken a life.

She should be able to burn that shirt and walk away.

What was wrong with her that she couldn’t hate him?

How did this happen? He’d warned her, and he’d been just as clear about not wanting to share his life as she’d been about not wanting more than a little fun. And she didn’t want more. Or at least she hadn’t. She hadn’t expected that with every kiss, touch, and laugh, every stolen moment, quiet confession, and mind-numbing orgasm, he’d been weaseling his way into her stupid heart. But she needed to get him out of her heart.

He was a killer.

Why couldn’t she believe it?

She was in denial. That’s what this was. Denial.

Her phone buzzed for the millionth time. The damn thing had been buzzing like a vibrator on speed all morning. She silenced it and threw herself into work.