Seven years ago, Sloane left Gabriel Rourke’s ring on his pillow because of one photo of him with another woman. Now a loan shark’s men have been in her kitchen, and Gabe is the only man dangerous enough to hide her. But the proof that he never cheated was in her own handwriting all along. She put the cast on his hand herself.
“Seven years, Sloane. You left my ring on the pillow and never let me explain. Now you want me to hide you?”
Gabriel Rourke stood at his gate at two in the morning with rain on his shoulders and a gun he didn’t bother to hide.
Sloane was still in her ER scrubs. “My stepbrother forged my name on a loan. Eighty thousand dollars, with my house as collateral. A man named Kessler sent two guys into my kitchen tonight.”
“Brent.” His jaw locked.
“Call the police, then. I just need somewhere to sleep.”
“Men like me don’t call the police. We collect.” He opened the gate. “You stay in my house. You don’t leave without me. You don’t answer Brent. Those are the rules.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then go home and wait for Kessler.” His eyes went black. “Say no, Sloane. I dare you.”
She walked in.
At three a.m., while she slept, Gabe stood in the dark hall with his phone.
“Wire Kessler the eighty. Tonight. Her name comes off that paper by morning.”
A pause.
“No. She never hears about it. She’d rather hate me than owe me.”
He touched the ring in his pocket. He had carried it for seven years.
At breakfast, her phone buzzed. Brent.
Gabe took it out of her hand before she could blink. “Call her again and I’ll find you before Kessler does.”
“You can’t threaten my brother!”
“Stepbrother. And I just did.”
She should have been angry. Instead she pulled up the photo she had never deleted. It showed Gabe outside a motel with his right hand low on a blonde woman’s back. Under it was Brent’s text from seven years ago: “July 2. The night he swore he was working late.”
“You kept it,” Gabe said quietly.
“You never explained it.”
“I tried. You blocked me.” He stepped in until her back hit the counter. “I’m done explaining. One day you’ll look at that picture and see it yourself.”
His mouth stopped an inch from hers.
Then he walked away.
Two days later, Brent was waiting at her nurses’ station in front of half the night shift.
“Look.” He shoved a bank screenshot at her. “Rourke Holdings to Kessler. Eighty grand. Eleven fifty-two p.m., the same night those guys broke in. He paid them, Sloaney. He scared you straight back to him.”
Her coworker Denise stopped typing.
That night, Sloane stood in Gabe’s kitchen with her bag packed.
“Did you wire Kessler?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
