“You’re treading hot water, Captain Save-a-Ho,” he warned, folding his arms behind his head and staring at my peeling ceiling with a smile.

“Is this the part where I pretend I know what you’re talking about?” I strolled to my fridge, plucking out two beers and throwing one into his hands. I popped my bottle cap off with the edge of my breakfast nook.

“I’m not talking about you.” Hale took a sip from his drink. “I’m talking about Jesse Carter. You’ve been seen with her outside Café Diem, making a scene. A lover’s quarrel?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. Just the fact that he’d called her a whore made me want to smash my fist in his face so hard he would be unrecognizable, even to his own parents.

“Is she your angle?” Hale moved sideways on my sofa to turn his whole body toward mine, tilting his head sideways. “Is Darren Morgansen your investor? I wish you’d tell me more about SurfCity.”

“She’s not an angle,” I gritted out.

“Well, she is not a date, that’s for sure. I mean, you don’t do girlfriends. What is she, then?”

“A toy.” The word slid between my teeth angrily. Fine. I was mad at Jesse. I wanted to hurt her, but not enough to say this kind of shit to her face.

“Couldn’t you find a better toy? One that hasn’t been played with by every guy in Todos Santos?” He snorted.

I discarded my beer in the sink and walked over to him. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

Hale stood up, smirking. “Easy there, tiger. Are you planning on keeping this one?”

“Jesus.” I shook my head. “Why do you give a fuck?”

“I don’t. But this piece of hot gossip has caught me off guard, so I thought I’d check for myself.”

Dude seriously needed a girlfriend. And some life to go with her.

“Get out,” I said.

“You’ve never spoken about any girl the way you do about the Morgansen chick.”

“Her last name is not Morgansen.”

“See!” His eyes widened, his smile gloating. “My point exactly.”

I erased the space between us, standing toe-to-toe with him now. My breath mingled with his, our noses nearly brushing, and my eyes must have been blazing, because for once in his miserable life, Hale looked less than keen to ruffle my feathers. “Bane…”

“One more word about Jesse Carter, Hale. I dare you. I don’t want you anywhere near her. Consider this a warning—not as a business partner, or a friend, but as an enemy. We clear?”

We held each other’s gaze for a long beat before Hale’s jaw ticked. Finally, he dragged his gaze to my bedroom door. “Tell the lady in your bedroom eavesdropping is grossly impolite.” He grinned, sauntering out of my houseboat. The wooden door slapped in its frame.

I turned around to see Grier sloping against the doorframe of my bedroom, her eyes shimmering with something I was too much of an emotional fuck-up to decipher.

“Now I’ll ask again, Bane—were you distracted this evening?”

I growled a sound that wasn’t a yes or a no.

“Is she worth it?”

I thought about the six million bucks and gave her a half-shrug. “Yeah.”

“Does she need you?”

The third question left me unprepared. Did Snowflake need me? Was it fucked-up to think that she did? Because she definitely needed someone. I didn’t think I was the best choice she had, but I sure as hell was the only thing available currently.

“She needs me.” I didn’t just say the words. I felt them. They crushed into my chest. Because I needed her, too.

Not just because of the six million bucks.

The five minutes in front of the mirror felt like a lifetime.

I needed some kind of atonement. Closure. Something to separate me from him.

And that was one truth even a liar like me couldn’t deny.

I waited for Jesse to pull her head out of her ass and make the first move. I gave her two days to show signs of life. A phone call, a text message, a goddamn carrier pigeon. Alas, the girl was quieter than a dead cheerleader in a horror flick. I half-missed our back and forth, but carried on with my life like she’d never happened. She was funny and unaffected, and I really liked that about her. And she used movie titles as verbs. That shit was sexier than an edible thong.

I spoke with Darren on the phone later that week, and he complained that I was slacking off and not doing my part of the deal. I wanted to argue with him, but at this point, I’d already spent four hundred thousand of his advance on Café Diem and the refurbished boutique hotel. It was small, but it was also fucking expensive. I was waist-deep in the quicksand, and I knew it.

That’s how I ended up heading to Mrs. Belfort’s. When I’d called Darren, he’d said Jesse would probably be there. Guess I was hanging out with an eighty-year-old today. I parked outside of her mansion, hanging my helmet on the handle and shaking the desert sand off my combat boots before ringing her doorbell. No one answered. I punched it a few more times. Nada.

The house was framed by rosebushes and nothing else. None of the houses in El Dorado had any additional gates. The neighborhood was walled and hermetically locked by an electronic gate and artificial lake. I walked freely into Mrs. Belfort’s backyard. There was a hedge maze at the center of the garden, and a set of rocking chairs overlooking it on the massive porch, with an elderly woman occupying one of them, sipping lemonade. The other seat was empty and rocking back and forth, telling me the person I was after was probably nearby.

“It’s been a while,” she mumbled to herself, her eyes glued to the maze like it was the most interesting thing in the world. I decided the best course of action was to make myself known. I did the whole awkward hi thing with my hand, even though I was a giant subhuman enveloped in ink and carved by brutality. “Oh, Fred, how I’ve missed you.” She smiled at me with tears in her eyes.

And the plot thickens. Mrs. Belfort wasn’t lucid. That, or I had a strong resemblance to a dude named Fred.

“I’m a friend of Jesse’s. Do you know where she is?”

“Jesse doesn’t have any friends. It’s just Shadow and I.”

“She does now. Where can I find her?”

Mrs. Belfort tilted her chin to the maze.

“She can be there for hours. Sometimes even days.” She paused, sipping her lemonade with shaking hands. “The maze is enormous.”

Mrs. Belfort wasn’t kidding, either. It was the size of the average Target. I knew exactly why Carter liked getting lost there. It was because she didn’t want to be found.

“Remember the maze, Fred? You and I used to go there all the time. It was our secret spot away from the children.”

“Sure, sweetheart. Sure.” I patted her knee distractedly, slowly walking toward the labyrinth. I stood at the edge.

“Jesse?” I took a step in, glancing left and right. All I saw were lush, green shrubberies. They were all a few inches taller than me, which meant that I couldn’t cheat my way to the exit.

No answer, but footfalls thumped on the ground. I tried to remember what shoes Jesse wore, and surprised myself by recalling her dirty white Keds. Then an image of her slender white ankles popped into my head. They were almost as fair as her shoes. The mental image shot a missile of blood straight to my cock, making it swell and twitch.

Now would be a good time to focus, horn dog.

“How well do you know this place?” I made conversation, even though I had no idea if she was anywhere near me. Didn’t matter, as I couldn’t turn back now. I was in too deep, and wasn’t that a perfect fucking analogy for the clusterfuck that was our relationship? I was playing her. Using her. Toying with the frayed leftovers of her trust. If Jesse could hear me, I couldn’t tell. She remained silent. She obviously wasn’t sure about my angle yet, and I loved that I needed to earn her trust, even if I didn’t deserve it.

“So, you like getting lost.” I listened to the silence, drinking it in. I stopped for a minute, thinking I’d already been in that same spot. Was I walking in circles?

I looked around me. “You like the thrill of it. I get it. I have the same thing with ink. It’s the endorphins. Everybody chases their high.”

“Some more than others,” I heard her mutter somewhere in the distance, to my right. My cock swelled in an instant. I needed to keep myself in check when it came to her. It shouldn’t have been difficult. Six million dollars and my beloved SurfCity were on the line. Bonus points: she’d sworn off men, and last I checked, I had a dick between my legs.

“See?” I grinned. “I knew you wouldn’t pass up a chance to talk shit about me.”

“Really, Bane? Mrs. Belfort, too?” Jesse sighed, her voice becoming more distant. She was running. I was chasing. It’d been a fucking while since I’d chased. Sex was readily available, like buying meat at a butcher’s shop. I liked hunting more.

I liked it a lot.

I picked up my pace, realizing her implication, and let out a chuckle.

“I’m not porking your senior friend, Little Miss Sass.”

I turned left, my fingers brushing the carefully cut bush. Her footfalls descended to my right.

“Why are you here?”

“Because of you.” The truth felt like a cotton ball in my mouth.

She turned sharply again, her steps becoming less prominent. Fuck, Jesse, fuck.

“When are you going to get tired of chasing me around?” Her breaths were fast, hard, desperate. I felt them in my own lungs.

“Never sounds like a good time to me.”

“Bullshit. Even my mom gave up on me. So, the town’s bad boy? Yeah. Not holding my breath here.”

“Hold your fucking breath, Jesse. I’m not a stereotype, or a title, or the town’s bully. And I’m going to get you.”

“Get me, then.”

“Give me a clue.”

“The maze is the shape of a snowflake. I’m at the center.”