The echo of Martin’s confession hung in the cramped, shadowed space of the sports car, thick and suffocating. For a second, neither of them breathed. The engine hummed low beneath the floorboards, a quiet vibration that mirrored the frantic racing of Javed’s pulse.
Then, as if waking from a trance, Martin blinked. The fierce, unhinged heat in his eyes flickered, replaced instantly by a wave of stark, icy panic. He ripped himself away, backing across the center console until his spine slammed against the driver’s side door. He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned a ghostly white, his chest heaving as he stared straight through the windshield into the dark night.
"Forget I said that," Martin growled, his voice tight, stripped of the raw emotion from a moment before. "I am
