Inflict: A Novel

Chapter Nineteen

Connor didn't even have to look up from his work to know Evelyn was standing in the doorway, watching him. Her presence was impossible to ignore, especially for him. He always felt her when she was near. It was one of the ways he knew that he loved her.

Since that morning, when she'd tricked him into a reaction, pretending she had wanted attention, he felt something was off with her. She kept her distance, as much as she could in the brownstone, but he knew something was wrong.

Connor just didn't know where to start, he figured Evelyn would come to him when she was ready.

"You need something, love?"

"No."

Her quiet response was punctuated with a soft sigh. Connor finally looked up from the design he was working on, one of the only things—beside her—that gave him any peace lately. He was learning that taking over a criminal organization, and stepping into the highest seat of said organization, was far from simple and easy.

Insubordinate men.

Ignorant arseholes.

Bad blood with other organizations.

It just never ended.

Connor's only moments of peace came when he was home, in his brownstone, locked away from the world and the men and the nonstop phone calls. Where he could take off the suit jackets he hated, roll up his sleeves, and get lost in a rainbow of colors with Evelyn nearby.

If heaven existed, that was it for Connor.

"What is it?" Connor asked.

Evelyn leaned in the doorway, her arms wrapped around her middle, though she looked swallowed whole in that oversized sweater of his she was wearing. "I need to do something, Connor."

He tipped his head to the side, confused. "All right. Do what, exactly?"

"I'm not sure ... I mean, I know, but I'm not sure you'll be okay with it. Except, it doesn't matter if you are okay with it or not, I have to do it now that I can, and I have the chance, because I made a promise."

Connor didn't like the sound of any of that at all. "You're not making any sense, lass."

Evelyn released a shaky sigh, and when she looked at him again, something frightening stared back at him. Connor thought he'd chased away all her monsters—everything that might hurt her, or take her from him again, he'd put them in a grave one by one. It was just him and her left, now, and they could be together, crazy if they needed, quiet if they wanted, but together.

The look on her face, sadness churned with fear, told him he was wrong.

So wrong.

"Evelyn?"

"Please don't be mad at me, Connor," she whispered.

"I'm not—I could never be, love."

He didn't get the chance to reassure her with more words before she was moving into the room, crossing the space between the door and his desk, and then resting down at his feet. There, she bent down on her knees, her head lying in his lap, and her hands tangling into his slacks as if to keep them both still.

Connor didn't understand what was happening, he didn't know why his usually unemotional, yet happy, lover was suddenly the exact opposite from her normal self. He wanted to push her, to demand she answer his questions if she was so determined something was wrong between them, but instead, he didn't.