Chapter One
FIGHTING WITH MY ‘SORTA boyfriend’ in front of my ‘sorta father’ was like a nightmare come true. I wasn’t doing it.
Rage pounded through me so hard I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. And all I could do was adjust to the situation.
“Chief, do you mind I speak to Fin alone for a moment?” I asked, my tone careful and calm.
I kept my eyes locked on Fin as he leaned to the side on the blanket he lay upon, his hand pressed to his healing wound.
The Chief knew me better than anyone. He cast a glance between Fin and me, then stood and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Fin dropped his gaze as I took the seat the Chief had vacated.
He knew he was in trouble. That was clear.
“Is it true?” I asked. “Have you had this secret relationship with the Chief the entire time we’ve known each other?”
He let out a long sigh, then dragged his gaze to mine. “You’re overreacting, Zoey. We haven’t had a secret relationship. We met a couple of times over the years when I was working for the fae council.”
I couldn’t even touch that piece of information yet. “But you’d met before and you just left that tidbit out?”
“What do you want from me?” His tone was sharper than usual, likely caused by the pain from his wound, but I didn’t care.
People had been using that tone with me all my life.
“I want the truth. Why didn’t you tell me before? You had plenty of opportunity. Every single time I said, ‘Fin, no more secrets’ and you said, ‘okay, Zoey, I respect you enough to abide by that.’”
His pale lips folded in a thin line. “It never occurred to me it would matter. You said yourself that your relationship with the Chief was strained. I thought you two barely spoke to each other. He fired you, remember?”
“Well, what the hell was he supposed to do?” I asked, throwing my hands in the air. “Sometimes I’m an asshole.”
“Oh, I’m well aware.”
I narrowed my eyes. “If you’re using this opportunity to tell me I’m an asshole, then you have shitty timing.”
He hissed out a strained breath. “Oh, kettle, is that black you’re wearing? It looks just like mine.”
Touché.
We sat there staring at each other. It wasn’t really the fact that Fin knew the Chief and didn’t tell me that pissed me off, but the way he continually promised me that he was telling me everything and then around every corner, there was some new secret waiting to blindside me.
“What else?” I demanded. “What else are you keeping from me? I’m tired of the lies and the secrets and more lies as you tell me you don’t have any secrets.”
He surged to his feet, still clutching his side with his palm. “What do you want me to do? Roll out the decades of my life for you to inspect to ensure something won’t pop up and get me into trouble with you? I lived an entire lifetime before you were even born, Zoey, and part of that life might have overlapped with yours. How am I supposed to know which parts did that?”
I waved at the door. “The parts that are obvious. The parts that are so glaringly obvious they should have already been disclosed to me, like the fact you were at my parents’ crime scene and the fact that you and the Chief have a history.”