I wished he would look at me.

He'd recovered from his initial shock, inhaling and holding his breath as if he'd just been ordered to reach into a bag of month-old garbage. He hadn't even greeted me as he brushed past and started fiddling with the front of my car. And now, as we stood in silence with the wheel lift whirring into place, he kept his eyes studiously averted.

I wrung my hands as he climbed back into the truck and, staring straight at the windshield, sighed. "Get in, then."

After a second of debate—I was still on edge after Clarissa's overly cautious show, and his demeanor didn't exactly reassure me that he wouldn't murder me—I obeyed. As I settled into the seat beside him, squished as close against my door as I could get, he cast me one look, eyeing me up and down.

Something about his gaze made me feel like a child caught playing dress up.

Without a word, he shifted gears and pulled onto the road, driving carefully as the Golf rattled along behind us.

I shrank even further against my seat, trying to shrivel into nothingness. If I compressed myself enough, maybe I'd become a black hole and I'd crush the void between us instead of it crushing me.

He smelled like motor oil and a long day at work. His white t-shirt was smudged with stains the color of his hair—inky black, fading to the faintest hint of brown around the edges. I would've suggested a darker wardrobe, but I got the feeling he purposely wore light colors to flaunt the grub and grit.

But it wasn't the odor or the stains that made me want to throw myself out of the truck. It was the piercing, paralyzing silence that he made no effort to break. It was the fact that he'd only said three words to me. It was the anger and hatred that he emanated, just as strongly as the desperation that had seeped off Donovan earlier.

The ten-minute drive passed like an eternity: Unknowable, impending, stretching and winding and pressing against my ears like cotton. And in those ten minutes, certainty pooled in my heart.

Clarissa was looking at the wrong brother.

I didn't doubt her that Donovan had committed the cyber crimes. But he hadn't killed anyone, I was sure of that. Ciar, on the other hand....

Stop it, I scolded myself as we pulled up to a well-lit garage and my concerns over being murdered abated, just for a second. You don't know either one of them.

But why did I feel like I did?

The slam of Ciar's door jolted me from my reverie, and I watched the ripple of his shoulder blades through his shirt as he stomped into the garage. No invitation to follow, no directions to a waiting area. He just left me in the truck, as if he would've been totally fine with me camping out in there all night.

I took a deep breath and opened my door. I had to hold my own. I would not let him intimidate me.

I waited until he had my car off the truck and inside the garage before I cleared my throat. For the second time, he glanced my way, but it only lasted a millisecond. Retreating to a desk in a corner, he rummaged noisily in a drawer for several seconds before slapping a paper down.

"Fill it out. Leave your license."

I sat down in the folding chair, picked up a pen, and set to work. How many words were we at now? Nine?

When I peeked over my shoulder, he had the hood of the Golf propped open as he leaned over it, scanning the car's internals.

The chair creaked as I twisted to face him. "Are you here alone?"

His spine stiffened, and the unintended implication of my words ballooned between us. Are we here alone?

I didn't mean it the way he thought I did. It wasn't an offer. It was a plea. Don't kill me.

"Nobody else works the night shift," was all he said.

I stood, a sudden itch slithering under my skin and demanding that I move. I paced to the front of the garage, peering out into the dimly-lit parking lot. Assorted cars sat in rows, perhaps waiting for their owners to return or for someone to come along and buy them. Only a handful had license plates; the others looked naked without them.

Most were fancy, or what I considered fancy. BMWs, Mercedes, Porsches. One or two of unidentifiable origin, but definitely Italian sports cars. What looked like a black 70s muscle car rounded out the bunch, out of place among the other sleek, modern form factors.

"What are you doing?"

I jumped at Ciar's harsh tone. He peered around the edge of the hood, eyes narrowed at me.

I stood taller. "If it's going to take a while, I might just go home."

"Nope. Not at this hour."

"No, it's not going to take a while? Or are you trying to insinuate I'm not allowed to leave?" I asked, crossing my arms.

"Yes," he said, then disappeared back behind the hood.

I tried to keep my jaw off the floor. Did he know how annoying and childish he was being? Not to mention creepily kidnapper-esque.

"You can't imprison me here," I said pacing back into the garage and stopping beside him. I wished it had come out a little more like a statement than a plea, but I couldn't take it back.

He tilted his head, staring at me from the edges of his vision. "It's dark outside," he said. "It's not safe for someone like you."

I searched his face for any hint to help me unravel his implication, but I found nothing. Not a twitch of a muscle, not a hint of a smile or a scowl. His face was a void to rival my heart.

"Someone like what?" I snapped.

Instead of answering, he straightened abruptly, walking to a row of shelves and rummaging through their contents. I watched impatiently as he flipped open a toolbox.

"Car's not broken," he announced, refusing to look at me and instead sorting through the box's contents.

"Um, yeah, it is," I said. "It doesn't start."

"'Broken' implies you don't know what's wrong with it."

My mouth fell open, wondering at his balls as he tossed a screwdriver aside with a clatter. The accusation in his voice ruffled my feathers, and I squared my shoulders.

"If I knew what was wrong with it, I wouldn't need your help," I said coolly, my eyes half-lidded.

Ciar spun to face me so quickly that I had to stop myself from taking a step back. "Your starter relay is missing."

I raised my chin, unsure why it sounded like a threat. "Can you put a new one in?"

"I could." He mirrored my pose, arms crossed and eyes hooded. "But it'd be a whole lot easier if you just gave me the original."

"Look, I get that you're trying to accuse me of sabotaging my own car," I threw back, "but why would I do that?"

He shrugged. "Why would you call this shithole to fix it?"

"Because it was the closest one." I sighed. "Sorry if you have a reputation."

At that, he let his head fall back and unleashed a short bark of laughter. I jumped as it boomed, suddenly making the garage seem tinier than my shoebox apartment in San Francisco.

"Not talking about the garage anymore, are we?" he asked, a sly smirk tilting one side of his mouth up. His eyes, though, remained steely.

I frowned, a sudden chill zinging my spine. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. If you can't fix the car, I'll take it somewhere else."

"No, this is the good part." He leaned back against the Golf and crossed his ankles, looking delighted with himself as he surveyed me like a cat cornering a mouse. "I'm not an idiot, Maisye. You really thought I'd mistake you for her?"

My heart sputtered and died in my chest, and I fought to keep my breathing even. "How do you know my name?"

For a moment he only stared back at me in stony silence, and I readied myself to run. This man lacked the grief of his brother, but he was soulless in another way. A sinister way. It rolled off him like waves on a beach, eroding everything around him until it was all raw, distended fear.

"It's on the paperwork," he finally said, even though we both knew damn well he hadn't even looked at the papers.

I smoothed the front of my dress, struggling to regain my composure as I tried to imagine what Tilda would do. Tillie. Did he know her by that name, too?

His eyes followed my hands until they returned to my sides, and the smirk reformed, dimpling his right cheek. "Red's not really your color."

Asshole. "Do you treat all your customers like this?" I huffed.

"Nope." He pushed off my car, probably leaving an entire oil slick in his wake. "You're special."

"If you have something to say to me, just say it."

He kicked a creeper out of the way, and it rolled across the floor like a wayward skateboard. "Why now?"

"Wh—?" The question got stuck halfway out. I hadn't expected him to ask that. I hadn't expected him to know who I was. And I could tell he knew, not just from my name on the car's title or the driver's license I'd handed over, but from the second he'd set eyes on me. Even if he had somehow seen my name on a piece of paper, he hadn't needed to.

"It's been years," he said, his glare intensifying. "Why come here now?"

What could I say? Because I got locked in the loony bin and then dragged through divorce proceedings, and while I was running across the country the FBI recruited me to stalk your brother? Clarissa would kill me, and Ciar Cosgrave probably would, too.

"You know what, it doesn't matter." He seized my keys off a workbench and chucked them at me, too hard to be friendly. I lunged for them and just barely managed to snatch them out of the air, wincing as they struck my palm.

The strap of my dress slipped down my left shoulder in the scuffle, and for half a second, I thought his eyes lingered there. Then he blinked, and before I could right myself, he turned away, throwing a careless glance over his shoulder as he opened the office door.

"Find someone else to fix your damn car."