Secrets and Sins: Raphael: A Secrets and Sins novel (Entangled Ignite) by Naima Simone

yourself feeling the slightest bit homicidal, just give me a call.”
    “I’ll place you on speed dial,” she muttered, earning a chuckle from Chay. And the sound of it was welcome. With his darkest secret aired for public consumption—including to the mother he’d tried to protect from the truth—he’d become even more quiet, more withdrawn, and private. Even with his three best friends.
    It wasn’t fair, damn it. Chay had been through enough, had suffered the hell that no one—especially an innocent child—should. Not that Chay had ever admitted to any of them that Richard’s attempted rape hadn’t been the first time. But he, Gabe, Mal…they’d seen the differences in their best friend weeks before that blood-drenched night. The loss of laughter, joy…innocence. Rage roared through Raphael, and he had to forcibly tamp it down.
    Noah moved closer to Greer, blocking out the rest of them and recapturing Rafe’s attention. “Greer, please reconsider,” Noah murmured. Rafe frowned as he cupped her upper arm and lowered his head toward hers. “This isn’t nece—”
    “Ethan, I have a guy headed over to your house to install a few more security measures just in case this person returns. While he’s there, Greer’s going to pack up her stuff. You want to meet us there?”
    Her brother didn’t hesitate but nodded and turned toward the door. Noah glanced at Ethan’s retreating back. “Hold on, Ethan, I’m coming,” he called after him before pinning Greer with an intense, hard stare. “Are you sure?”
    “Yes, Noah. I’m sure.”
    He sighed. “Fine. I’ll call you.” He brushed a kiss across her forehead, stabbed Rafe with a hot glare, then followed Ethan out of the office, taking all of the tension in Rafe’s body with him. The blond was too damn intense. And touchy-feely. He didn’t know which bothered him worse.
    She whirled around, fury narrowing her eyes, tautening her mouth.
    “Those two are my closest friends,” she snapped. “Did you have to be such an ass?” Not waiting for his response, she wheeled around and stormed across the reception area. She yanked the door open, paused, and shot him another of those green death rays. “And for the record? All the Die Hard movies after two sucked.”
    Shock slapped him in the face. He might’ve gasped.
    “You take that back,” he shouted. But she ignored him and slammed the door shut after her. The hormones. It had to be the pregnancy hormones that made her say something so mean. So…so sacrilegious.
    Growling a “shut the hell up” to a laughing Chay, he stalked after her.
    The woman had lost her damn mind.

Chapter Nine
    Blood. Bright. Wet.
    Gaping, ragged tears in flesh.
    Bile. Hot. Burning.
    Pain. Blinding, hot pain.
    Greer jerked awake, jackknifing up. Harsh bellows echoed in her ears, lifted and lowered her sweaty chest. She blinked, but darkness greeted her, the images that had been so sharp fading into dim obscurity. Desperately, she tried to clutch at them, but they filtered through her mental fingers like wisps of fog.
    She groaned, half sobbed, and tunneled her fingers through her hair, cursing the black hole in her head. This fucking black hole. God, why didn’t her brain make up its damn mind? Either let her have a tear in her memories that encapsulated a murder, or give her the damn hours—the truth—back. But to torment her with trickles and flashes but still leave her damaged, lost? Broken. She hated feeling so…broken. All her life she’d been made to feel that way. But now? Now she actually was.
    One night, damn it. Just one night without the nightmarish visions that had plagued her every night for the last two weeks but never stuck around after she woke. At least this time the episode wasn’t followed by a teeth-grinding headache. Like the one that had sent her to the hospital the night before. Inhaling deep, she tried to calm her racing heart, shove back the fear that still crawled under her skin, curled in her