For a moment, I thought my heart had stopped.
The way he said my name...no, the way he demanded it, shook something inside me.
My knees wobbled, and I gripped my arms as though holding myself together could keep me from falling apart.
I wanted to scream at him to stop, to not look at me like that, not make me feel like a wounded animal under his scrutiny. But the words tangled like thorns in my throat.
Instead, my mind ran wild.
He can't know.
He definitely cannot know.
If he finds out, if he draws his own conclusions… no one will be able to stop him.
Not me, not anyone. He will burn it all down.
And maybe...maybe that should have comforted me.
Maybe I should have wanted his rage, his vengeance, to wash over Nicole, who had left me in this state. But it didn't comfort me. It terrified me.
Because the fire in Dave was never clean. It never burned just what deserved to burn. It spread. Consumed. Took everything.
