Three Dirty Secrets (Blindfold Club #4) by Nikki Sloane Read Free Book Online Page A

together for a moment. It didn’t seem like this was news to him, he must have suspected it was a gunshot wound. “Ex-husband?”
    It was interesting that he immediately jumped to domestic violence, but that was the most likely assumption. “No, we weren’t married.”
    Assembling the words was difficult, but he said nothing. His shoulders lifted with a breath. My hand wrapped around his thick wrist, which rested on my chest.
    “If I’m going to keep talking, you have to keep working.”
    He nodded. The needle dug back in, but at least my focus was elsewhere, struggling to pick out what parts of the story I should tell. The pain was more uncomfortable rather than acute now.
    “His name was Paul. I was young, and naïve—” which was true, “ —and fell in love.” Which was not true.
    Not exactly.
    My feelings for Paul had been confusing. He’d been my point of entry into the separatist cell, which I’d wormed my way into acting as his girlfriend. I’d played him, compiling evidence against his family until we had enough to arrest.
    I spoke over the hum of Silas’s work. “I was too stupid to see he was into some shit, and way over his head, before it was too late.” Couldn’t the same have been said of me? I inhaled deeply and blew it out, mediating my breathing. “He came from a family that was anti-government, but I didn’t know how far Paul was willing to follow them until I caught him putting together pipe bombs.”
    That was definitely true.
    The forearm beneath my hand tensed and Silas froze. “What?”
    “I went straight to the authorities.” Not really a lie, I just left out that I was part of the authorities. “But I thought he was a good guy, whose family had twisted him into this person he wasn’t.”
    I couldn’t feel the scratches anymore. It was cold in the bay, and numbness took over as I thought about the morning in Paul’s garage.
    “I was so fucking stupid,” I admitted, “but I cared about him. I told him what I’d done, and my betrayal . . .” My heart slammed in my chest. “He lost it. You gotta understand, there’s a whole ‘you’ll never take me alive’ mentality with these people. Getting caught and going to prison is more of a failure than dying.”
    The expression on Silas’s face was hard to interpret as the hand he used to steady himself smoothed down across my skin, fingers trailing. All the way until his palm was pressed over my rapidly beating heart, just at the swell of my breast. The action was disorienting and exciting, and it created a warm spot in the numbness.
    “I fought him for the gun.” I’d been so sure there wasn’t anything stowed in the garage, and like everything else, I’d been wrong. “I don’t know if he was aiming for my heart and missed, or if he’d meant for me to live.”
    The pads of Silas’s fingers moved subtly, triggering a shiver from me. It got me to push through the end.
    “After he’d shot me, Paul put the gun to his head and . . . he was gone.”
    Silas jolted. I left out the part where Paul had been crying and cursing me for making him fall in love with a narc bitch, but hearing that I’d witnessed Paul’s suicide made the color drain from Silas’s face.
    “Fuck.” He pressed down subtly, like he wanted to strengthen the connection. “ Fuck , Regan.” Concern flooded his silver eyes.
    I’d grown bitter about people looking at me like I was pitiful. Yeah, I’d fucked up. I’d begged Paul not to do it. So not seeing pity, but instead concern from a near stranger, did something unexpected. The angry response I usually had was nowhere to be found. All I wanted was to reassure him I was okay and to make him feel comfortable. I’d spent so much time undercover, worried about my own ass, it was foreign and wonderful to think about someone else’s feelings for once.
    “It was rough.” My voice was unsteady. “I got through it. I want to put it behind me.” My fingers brushed up the length of his