“She had shit to do.” Like clearing out of his place and ghosting him.
Tyr shot him a sour look. “You want me to keep her safe, I need to know where the fuck she’s supposed to be.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Anything happens to her when she goes rogue, that’s on her, but it makes us look like we can’t protect our own. That’s unacceptable, so she can’t go off doing whatever the fuck she wants.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Loki said again, finally giving in to the need to head back toward Alice’s apartment. “Let me know when you’ve got the name of the bookie.”
The sound of Tyr’s bike faded as Loki reentered the building. He didn’t bother to knock on Alice’s door, instead using the keys he’d had made long ago when he’d first taken her jacket. It came as no surprise when the apartment door hit up against something solid when he tried to push through.
“It’s a metal desk wedged between the door and the wall.” Alice’s voice came from just the other side of the door mere inches away. She might as well have been on the moon. “You’re not getting in again, so you might as well slide that key you obviously had made under the door and go away.”
“You’ve got to be out of your fucking mind if you think for one second I’m going to do that,” he growled, locking his muscles in place. It was the only way he could stop himself from seeing if he could rip the door off its hinges. “We had an argument, Alice. That’s all. You don’t burn the fucking house down over one stupid argument.”
“I didn’t light this match. I just got out before everything burned down around me. Keys. Under the door. Now.”
Goddamn it. “You’re that pissed off that you’re not getting your way? Or are you just trying to get me to do what you want me to do? If that’s what this is, you need to know right now that kind of shit’s never going to fly with me. I won’t be manipulated by you threatening to leave every damn time you don’t get your way.”
A short sigh reached his ears. “Wow. You’re a real fucking piece of work, you know that?”
His scowl should have melted the door between them. “What?”
“First you tell me that you didn’t ask for the gift of my love—which is exactly what it is. A gift. And it’s a gift you rejected. Okay. That sucks, and it hurts so bad I can’t fucking breathe, but okay. Yet somehow, I’m now being manipulative because I accepted that precious gift back from you. Not like I had much choice, since you threw it back in my damn face. And now, after all that, you have the gall to say that I’m being manipulative. That makes you a real fucking piece of work. I could use other words to describe you, but this is what I’m going with. Keys.”
An unpleasant jolt went through him at her stunning pronouncement. That wasn’t what happened at all. “What the fuck, Alice. I didn’t reject you.”
“Uh-huh. Keys.”
“Alice—”
“Keys.”
“Goddamn it, stop saying keys.” He braced both hands on the doorframe as an icy tide of what he refused to call desperation slowly rose inside him. “Listen to me, all right? That’s not what happened today.”
“I was there, Loki. You don’t get to tell me what fucking happened.”
That didn’t stop him from trying. “You got pissed off because you didn’t want me going to the Lower Lower. That’s all this is.”
The silence that followed this was so profound he thought she’d gone off somewhere. Then he heard her sniffle, a sound which filled him with dread. Maybe he was wrong, but it sounded almost like his strong Alice was crying.
Someone will answer for your tears, you’ve got my word on that.
Shit.
It was him.
He was the one who was making her cry now.
“Here’s the thing.” When she spoke, her voice barely wavered. But it was there, and it cut him deeper than the image of her tightly clenched hands. “I’ve never told anyone that I was in love with them before, because I’ve never actually been in love. Not ever. I don’t know how to do it, or talk about it, or show it, and I sure as hell shocked myself when I heard it blurt out of me like that. I just couldn’t take the terror that filled me when you announced you were going to put yourself in danger. All I could think about was losing the one person who had come to mean everything to me. There are no words to describe how much that freaked me out. Then you said you never asked to be the center of my universe, and that was the moment I realized how pointless loving someone is. It makes you vulnerable in ways you can’t defend against. Worse yet, if the person you love doesn’t give a shit about how vulnerable you are, love becomes the very definition of misery. I’m not into living that kind of life.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck… “Baby, you’ve got it all wrong. I never said I didn’t care about how you felt.”
“Like I said, I was there,” came the hollow reply. “And, like I told Felix, I’m done with holding on to things that are bad for me. So…keys.”
Nothing could have stopped him from hitting his fist against the door as the icy tide of desperation swallowed him whole. “No.”
“Then I’ll get the locks changed. Goodbye, Loki.”
There was no mistaking the finality in her tone, the same tone she’d used to say goodbye to her foster brother. He’d actually felt sorry for Felix in that moment, because it was clear all she wanted was to be shut of him.
Now it was his turn.
Oh, God.
What the hell had he done?
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” Hands clasped in her lap, Alice regarded Cap Fogelmann, founder of Private Security International, seated at his desk across from her. He was very much like she’d imagined him to be—clean-shaven with horn-rimmed glasses, military-short hair that had once been black and was now an attractive salt-and-pepper mix. Though well into middle age, he was trim and undoubtedly still in fighting-form, like every other member of PSI. To even think she could be a member of their elite team still boggled her mind, but she was ready for a change.
The faster she could get away from House Of Payne and Loki, the better.
“I must admit, I was surprised you called for an interview now, and not when your probationary period at House Of Payne was up.” Cap leaned back in his sleek executive chair and regarded her curiously. “Luke was certain you wouldn’t be ready for the move until June. It’s so rare for him to be wrong when it comes to predicting a person’s moves, especially when he knows that person so well.”
“Should I have waited? I can always come back.” It would be nothing short of agony, waiting those three weeks to get out of House Of Payne, but like everything else in life, she’d grit her teeth and bear it. The hard part was behind her, she reminded herself grimly. The death of her relationship with Loki was behind her. Now all she had to do was mourn it, and move on.
Somehow.
Cap shook his head. “I was just surprised, that’s all, and at this point in my life I’m almost never surprised anymore. What made you decide to go through with this interview today?”