Twist My Heart by Brooke Taylor (ebook audio reader .txt) 📕

back on the road. It had to come to an end sometime. Sucked it had to be like this.

Chapter Ten

Nik stared straight ahead as I got into the Jeep. A strange tension filled the vehicle. Had something changed while I was in the bathroom? He seemed different, distant. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like how he could switch from being so warm and safe to this. I didn’t like not knowing what this even was. Mad? Sad? Tired? Tortured?

Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

I curled around the seat, checking on Titan, who was making quick work of his meal. At least he seemed happy. I turned back to Nik. As he gnashed his teeth, the wooden toothpick jutting out between his lips bounced. His gaze remained trained on the diner as he lifted a brow and asked, “Do you want to know your name?”

I sank into my seat. Here we go again… Back to delving into my battered brain trying to pull her out. I’d hoped he’d given up, especially since we’d connected in the diner. Clearly I’d misjudged his tenacity.

“Sure, what’s my name?” I asked sarcastically.

“It’s Thea,” he said, more to the entrance of the diner than to me. “Your name is Thea Gale.”

“I don’t understand?” He knows my name? Has he known it all along?

He pulled out his phone and after a few moments of navigating it with his finger, he passed it over to me. I squinted as a shadowed female manhandled the frightened employees, locking them into a dog kennel before she aimed her gun at the camera and the video clip ended in static. “You think this is me? You can hardly see her face.”

“You were smart to shoot out the camera before it got a good angle on you. But they already had all your info from Titan.”

“Stop. You don’t know it was me.”

“A German shepherd. A Glock. The clothing matches what you had on last night. And I’d know your tail anywhere, Tigger.” He looked me in the eye, but I didn’t want to see the dark emotions settling behind those deep-green irises. Short moments ago, they’d drawn me in, but now I knew they’d reject me with the very loathing I felt for myself. I dropped my focus to the piercing wooden tip protruding from his lips as he moved it from one side of his mouth to the other. “It’s you, Thea.”

The heavy weight of being trapped in the tornado’s debris returned, pressing down on my chest. Just as I’d feared, I had been running from the police. ‘Armed and dangerous.’ So much for pink toes making you a good person… Thea.

No wonder Nik wouldn’t look at me. I desperately wanted to explain the she in the video was not the me who was here with him now. I was as horrified at her actions as he was. But I also understood she and I were locked in this body together. She was here, tucked deep inside of me, and I detested her for it.

Unfortunately, there was only one thing to do.

“You turn me in now, right?”

Nik put the Jeep in gear and pulled out, spraying parking lot gravel as he jammed down on the accelerator. His jaw ticked hard, but his expression remained unreadable. We rode in silence as he drove back to the hotel, the only noise besides my sniffling was Titan’s panting. Tears burned raw trails down my cheeks as I tried to work through various scenarios, none of them good.

* * * *

Pulling in behind the hotel, Nik backed the Jeep into a parking spot in the middle of the lot—less likely to be monitored by the cameras mounted at either corner of the building’s roofline. “Stay in the car with Titan. I’ll get our stuff.”

Nik’s pulse quickened as if he were executing a critical mission with his team, but he was alone heading up the back stairs, taking them two at a time. No breaching of the doorway needed, only sliding the key into the slot.

Just packing my bag. He shoved the blood-soaked hoodie and all of Thea’s other ruined clothes into the paper laundry bags from the closet then into his duffle. He’d dump them somewhere far from here.

Simply tidying up. He wiped fingerprints from all the surfaces he or Thea had touched.

The SEAL community had its fair share of blemishes. Arrests for violent behavior, drug use, even sexual assault had rocked their proud tradition. Too many, and one was too many in Nik’s estimation, believed they were above the law. The press salivated for another headline aimed at knocking the Special Forces down and Nik refused to be their next clickbait headline. To be safe, he needed to erase his connections to Thea and fast. Even if it meant yet another favor from his go-to man.

“Checking out so early, Mr. Steele?” Dylan asked as Nik sauntered through the lobby as casually as he could with a bag stuffed full of evidence slung over his shoulder.

“Yeah. I’m going to pay with cash, but I need another favor,” Nick said tightly.

“Of course, sir, let me finish typing this in.”

Nik’s anxiety ramped full throttle as Dylan’s manicured fingers skillfully tapped away on the keyboard.

“There seems to be something wrong with our system, Mr. Steele. I don’t even show you stayed at the Siesta Inns and Suites last night.” Dylan hitched his shoulder and turned his palms toward the ceiling as his lips quirked in a whatcha gonna do? fashion.

“Looks like you don’t owe us anything after all.”

How did he know?

What did he know?

Nik blinked, struck speechless. He pulled his wallet out, prepared to hand over every last bill, but Dylan shook his head and put his hand up. “You never stayed here, no need to pay for anything. Like I informed the witch with the broomstick up her butt a few minutes ago, we have a stringent No Dogs policy at the Siesta Inns and Suites. No one with a dog stayed here last