Chapter 61 Neve
SIXTY-ONE
NEVE
“If you two get my friend killed, I’m the next suspect dear Lincoln is going to be looking for.
” Cynthia’s voice hits my ears from downstairs as I pad out of Faust’s bedroom, freshly showered under the double rainfall showerheads, wearing shorts and a cami beneath a long red robe.
My hair is still wet, thrown up in a messy bun on top of my head so it’ll dry slightly wavy, and my skincare is done but there’s no makeup on my face.
“We’re the reason she’s still alive,” Sylvan says quietly.
There’s a soft pause.
I head down the winding, spiral staircase, my damp hand on the iron railing. When I thread through the darkened corridor and come into view of the expansive kitchen, the three of them sprawled out in different areas, Faust glances at me.
“Well, maybe not this morning,” he says lowly, with a wink.
Cynthia’s eyes find mine and she cackles. “Yeah,” she says, “you’re hot Neve, but you look like you got fucked.”
My mind flickers to each of them going back and forth last night, Sylvan’s fingers pinching my nipple and Faust biting his shoulder when he pinched too hard.
It’s Christmas Eve. A few days have passed since Sylvan went down on me in Blackwell’s—and I pray to God Casper only has cameras on the outside—and I’ve spent them all with the boys.
Their game was canceled, and the next one isn’t until next week, which gives me too much time to play pretend inside Castle Darling.
But spending the night with my best friend, my boys, and Tye—none of us gone home for the holidays—is exactly what I want. It helps me ignore the pit in my stomach, thinking of Nolan outside of Darkmouth’s door.
When I notice Cyn still staring at me, blush colors my cheeks but it’s just a physiological reaction. I’m not embarrassed. Last night was fucking delicious.
“I might’ve gotten fucked.” I shift my gaze from Sylvan standing at the counter slicing avocado with a slight frown on his face like Faust put him up to it, and Faust scrambling eggs and flipping bacon, the popping and sizzling growing steadily louder on the gas stovetop. “Twice.”
Cynthia bursts into more laughter, seated at the island, her head cocked as she grins at me. But despite the light moment, there are circles under all of our eyes. I know mine are bordering blue; I checked in the bathroom. Tye is probably still sleeping, and that’s on being a professional athlete.
Sleep evades me.
I clear my throat and take a seat beside Cyn, my favorite mug—SUCK MY BLOOD—filled with creamy coffee, ice, and whipped cream. Faust brought it home for me last night when he picked up food for me and Sylvan.
I glance at Cyn, but she shrugs at the question in my eyes. “Not me,” she says, wrapping her hand around her own warm mug. She ducks her chin and nods toward Faust’s broad back.
I’m grateful they’re both wearing shirts—Sylvan in white, Faust black—because I trust my best friend with my life, but I don’t want to share any part of them just yet.
“Thank you, Fausty,” I say in a singsong, sickly sweet voice.
He glances over one shoulder, his back muscles shifting beneath his shirt as his dark eyes meet mine. There’s no smile on his face, but I watch him watch me drink from the delicious iced coffee, and something like satisfaction glides over the planes of his cheekbones.
Then he gets back to the bacon.
“You all right over there, baby?” I call out to Sylvan, who is staring at an avocado with its skin on like he wants to smash it.
He cuts his icy eyes to me and grins. “I can think of better things to do, but you need your energy.”
“Damn right,” Cyn mutters into her coffee, but doesn’t address me directly, which despite the innuendo, makes me laugh.
But after a moment, silence—aside from the sounds of cooking—falls between us.
I take another long and slow sip.
“Have you heard anything?” I can’t help but ask, and I’m not even sure who I’m asking, but it’s Faust who responds to me when the other two stay quiet.
“No. But you don’t need to worry.”
Sylvan slices through an avocado with the same type of knife I was going to use to defend me and Cynthia the night I fell asleep outside of her door.
“No,” he repeats softly, staring at me as he cuts another wedge. “You’re not going anywhere without us until they find him.”
I hold his gaze.
Tasia’s phone is still missing. Nolan’s is off with no service, and Detective Lincoln reckons my brother ran over it or threw it in a lake. The camera footage from Blackwell’s doesn’t show where he went; when I didn’t open the door for him, he ran.
Nolan Devine is, still, a wanted man.
And until he’s found, we won’t have answers.
“You need to look after Cynthia too,” I say quietly. “I’m not leaving her.”
“You think Tylone won’t fight for me?” Cynthia tosses her hair over one shoulder and takes another sip of coffee. “No offense, but Tye will snap that boy in half.” She ducks her head in her mug. “I mean, when he wakes up.”
I laugh at that, but it’s hollow.
Cyn asked me last night after Tye had gone to bed and she and I sat in front of the living room fire if I ever thought Nolan was capable of committing a crime.
I told her honestly no, I didn’t. She pressed for signs, or strange behaviors, and the only ones I could come up with were the ones I’d already admitted to myself: He was more overprotective and invasive than a brother had a right to be, and maybe Mom cut us off because of something he did rather than solely for my stepdad.
Working in law, being as successful as he is, Nolan just didn’t fit my idea of a murderer.
And he still doesn’t.
I wonder if something made him snap, but I’m also scared to know.
“Still,” Faust says quietly, his back to us as he plates the bacon carefully, the burner off now. “Neither of you need to go anywhere alone.”
“Yes sir,” Cynthia says, giving him a mock salute which he doesn’t see, but Sylvan does, and he smiles slyly at me.