Chapter 14 · The Badge That Doesn't Lie

"Don't touch that." Knox's hand closed over mine before I could flip the badge faceup.

Too late. I'd already seen the photo. Younger. No scar through the eyebrow. But him.

"Temp access." I read it off the laminate, water dripping from my hair onto the plastic. "Casino Ops, dated eleven months ago. Signed off by..." I turned it and my stomach dropped. "You. You signed your own temp badge, Knox."

"Give it here."

"No." I stepped back into the rack, the tray still crushed against my ribs, the badge held up out of his reach even though he had six inches and eighty pounds on me and could've taken it if he was willing to bleed for it. "This was under the inventory box. Under evidence. That's not storage. That's a plant."

His jaw worked. Water ran off his chin, off the collar of a shirt that hadn't sat right since his mouth was on my neck twenty minutes ago and turned me into somebody who still couldn't stop shaking, even furious, even freezing.

"You want the truth or you want to keep waving that around like it proves something."

"Both. Start with the truth.