10 Everett
July 2nd, 2022
I pressed my lips together as her soft, barely present snoring filled the room.
Had I not been so selfish, I might not have done what I did to her last night. As it was, I was a covetous man, and I was proud of it.
The man she described was unremarkable, as for her description of me? I found it to be believable, and I half wondered if she would have confessed such a thing had she not been so desperately tired.
The door opened again, and I spared Evelyn a glance before returning my attention to Olivia. “She thought it was you,”
I told Evie as I held out the note.
Evelyn took it from my hand.
I leaned over Olivia, carefully taking the wig off and the cap, tossing them at her purse before I gently massaged her head for a few seconds, and finally forced her to lean forward.
She fell forward as if I had put her through another session. I couldn’t blame her. I truly felt a bit of guilt growing in the pit of my stomach. I hadn’t quite realized how draining what we had done yesterday was. I had been ignorant, which I would never admit out loud.
It would take her a few good days to recover from that, but all I had given her was a few hours before doing this, which had turned into an all day event too.
She would need a week, at the very least, to recover from everything.
“When did she read it?”
Evelyn asked.
“Just after you went after Azrael. Did you catch him?”
She clicked her tongue as I wrapped my jacket around her shoulders, threading her arms through it, and pulled the hood over her head. “No, but I did run into Pops. She says Azrael’s going through a thing again. She’s barely been able to keep up with him these last few weeks. She’s also doing dreads now.”
I paused and glanced back. “Dreads?”
Evelyn shrugged. “Looks good.”
I studied her, picturing Poppy in my head. “Still black and red?”
“Always.”
“Hmm.”
I turned back to Olivia. She’d look good in dreads.
“Anyway, Azrael’s spinning again, but Pops said he’s shifted, becoming a lot calmer, a lot more deliberate. I think that whatever it is he thinks he’s hunting, he’s closing in on it soon.”
I tucked Olivia’s hair away and shifted my stance, easily pulling her into my arms, her body falling into mine limply. “Maybe all of this craziness will be over soon then,”
I told her, straightening. None of us were close with Azrael, and he had always had a little bit of psycho in him, but it didn’t take off until after he escaped that asylum. Maybe if he was getting to the end of this hunt of his, we would get him back as he was.
Olivia curled into me tightly, stretching and then relaxing until she was tucked into my chest.
I watched her pull the sweater closer, curling her arms into her, turning her head against me before settling, relaxing completely. Fuck, she was gorgeous.
“Okay, that was super cute,”
Evie cheesed.
I shot a glare at her. “Azrael told her something, I’ll figure it out when she wakes up, for now, just keep eyes on her. You bugged her new office?”
“And sound proofed it for all of your kinky needs,”
she beamed, gathering up Olivia’s things and following after me.
Evelyn found a spot for her office yesterday evening, signed and paid for, perfect for her. She had spent the night filling it with everything we needed in order to move forward, and she assured me Olivia would like it.
Whatever Azrael knew, it was time for him to come clean because him playing games with my girl was not going to continue. He would not catch her in his web of psychotics and drown her in terror and lies like he had everyone else. This was the Delepski’s, plain and simple, and we would finish them off like we should have done in the first place.
And if Azrael couldn’t come back from fucking Wonderland then he’d die there with every one of his precious little delusions.