Chapter 39 Sloane
Sloane
It can’t have been Oliver. There’s no way it could have been him.
It was the women’s bathroom, for crying out loud.
The rest of the day goes by with me feeling flushed and distinctly like I just got caught with my pants down.
And my shirt off. While being instructed to do very graphic things to myself.
I want to smack Zeth so hard my palms tingle for the rest of my shift.
When it’s finally time for me to clock out, I find Lacey asleep in the on-call room where I left her, swaddled in blankets.
She doesn’t look like she’s moved at all since this morning.
She blinks groggily at me when I wake her, and we leave St. Peter’s via the rear exit, first to avoid the curious eyes of the nursing staff, second so I don’t run into Oliver again ( just in case), and third so I can try to sneak the Volvo out of the lot without being seen by any mysterious black cars with tinted windows.
Everything goes off without a hitch. No nursing staff, no Oliver, and miraculously no black car.
The vehicle isn’t even parked outside the coffee place anymore, which makes me feel kind of foolish.
Maybe whoever that was this morning just happened to be going the same way as us and stopped off for a quick coffee on the way to work.
Both Lacey and I watch carefully all the way home, though, just in case.
I park the car, and we head inside. I make sure all the windows and doors are triple locked just as a precautionary measure.
The action brings to mind Zeth snooping around the place, inspecting every square inch to make sure it measured up to his idea of secure.
He probably already knew he would be dumping Lacey on my doorstep and wanted to make sure she would be safe.
The thought plummets me into an irrationally sour mood.
“I’m too tired to cook. You’re just gonna have to make do with takeout.” I hurl the words over my shoulder at the girl following behind me, and I immediately regret it. A shutter comes down across Lacey’s already wary features.
“It’s okay,” she says mechanically. “I can cook.”
“No. Shit, no, I’m—I’m sorry, Lace. I’ve just had a really long day.
” I blow out a long breath, pressing my fingers into my forehead as I wince.
“But that’s no excuse.” I haven’t had a roommate since college, and even then, I didn’t do all that well living with other people.
I shouldn’t be shitty with Lacey because of him, though.
I definitely should be an asshole to her because I’m jealous of the bizarre relationship they share.
“I don’t want you to cook. I really do just want takeout. Is that okay?”
She nods, hanging her head as she makes her way to the breakfast bar.
She likes it there. Seems to make her feel inconspicuous.
I take the stack of home delivery menus from the drawer next to the cutlery drawer, and I let her pick.
She chooses Chinese food, selects what she wants, and to my amazement orders the meals for us, too, giving my address without even having to ask for it.
I crack open a bottle of wine (much needed) and offer her a glass.
She shrugs—why the hell not?—and we settle on the couch, the TV playing quietly in the background while we wait for our dinner to arrive.
There’s a bitter taste in my mouth despite the red wine, though.
Ahh, to hell with it. I have to know what’s going on with them.
“So…” I begin—the best way to broach a topic when you don’t have a decent segue.
“I know you told Pippa you didn’t know why you liked being with Zeth so much. But I thought—”
Lacey lifts her glass, holding it with two hands, almost hiding behind it.
She chugs the wine way too fast. When she lowers the glass, her eyes are watering like crazy.
She peers askance at me. From her reaction, I was actually going to let the matter drop, but she chooses to speak of her own accord.
“I found him,” she says simply. “I was looking for him for a long time, and I found him.”
Well, that’s a confusing statement if ever I’ve heard one. “Found him, like… you were looking for ‘the one’? Like, your soul mate?” Holy shit, could I get any more awkward? I sound like an online dating site. Hell, maybe they did meet on an online dating website.
Lacey’s face is a picture of puzzlement. “What? No. No.” She shakes her head violently. “My first foster family told me about him. Told me that he was living north of Los Angeles with his uncle. They said when I was old enough, I could go and live with him.”
“Why the hell would they say that?”
Lacey’s mouth puckers. She doesn’t know what she should tell me.
How much she should reveal. Her gaze roves from my eyes to my mouth to my nose and then back to my eyes again.
She draws her arms tight to her body, apparently having made up her mind.
“He’s older than me. My older brother. I traveled all over Los Angeles trying to find him when I finally…
when I finally got away from Greg. But he wasn’t there.
” She absently chews her thumbnail, staring into space.
Meanwhile, I sit with my hand over my mouth once more, trying to let the information sink in.
Sister. She’s his sister? “I found his uncle, though.” She ignores my stupefied look.
“My uncle, too, I suppose. He said Zeth had moved to New York, so I went there. But he hadn’t moved to New York.
He was in prison there. I didn’t know what to do, then, so I left and came here.
I’d found out his boss lived in Seattle.
I figured Zeth would come back here at some point, so I decided to wait. And then, one day, there he was.”
I can’t believe it. They are like night and day, one tall and dark, the other tiny and colorless, like a gust of wind. Lacey drinks more wine while I run my finger around the rim of my glass, trying to make the pieces fit. “So… you approached him and told him you were his sister?”
She looks at me, surprised. “No.”
“He already knew?”
Another shake of the head. “No. He doesn’t know we’re related.”
“So how did you end up living with him, then?” This is getting more confusing by the second.
The girl smiles carefully. “It was raining. I’d been sitting outside for hours, trying to figure out how to introduce myself.
I was soaked through. I thought he’d probably let me come in and dry off, at least, once he found out we were brother and sister.
But I couldn’t find the right way to word it in my head.
I passed out from the cold. He was going out somewhere and found me on his doorstep.
Nearly tripped over me. He was dressed in this smart tuxedo.
He still picked me up and took me inside, even though it got him all wet.
He asked what the fuck I was doing outside his place.
Did I know him? I said yeah, I did. But then I was stuck again.
I still couldn’t figure out what to say to make it make sense.
He asked me if I’d fucked him. I said no.
He asked if I was gonna tell him how I knew him, then, and I said, yeah.
At some point. When I’d worked up to it. And then that was that.”
“And then that was that?” Incredulous, I shuffle closer to the girl. “You said you’d get around to telling him, and you’ve been living with him ever since?”
She nods, like this is completely normal.
“How long ago was that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Six months or so,” she replies.
I have no idea how this man’s mind works, or his sister’s, now that I know that’s who she is. But they’re each as strange as the other. “So he has no idea? After letting you live with him for six months?”
“I don’t think so.”
Wow.
A knock at the door cuts off further questioning. I answer—our takeout, finally arrived—and I decide to let the matter drop. We eat in silence, Lacey laughing quietly at the rom-com playing on the television, while I sit and stew about what I’ve just discovered.
Hah.
The irony of it all doesn’t escape me.
I am taking care of Zeth’s sister, while he attempts to take care of mine.
ZETH
I can’t get that girl out of my fucking head.
The sounds she made on the phone, the things I told her to do to herself, and the way she caved like a landslide as soon as I got her past the first gate.
Not to mention the horrified silence when that toilet flushed.
I’m still pissing myself every time I think about that little gem.
Somehow makes it even more taboo. Especially since that sort of thing, getting busted, makes me harder than fucking tempered steel.
I’d had to spend half an hour stroking myself before I’d been able to erase the idea of that from my head.
Afterward, I spent the rest of yesterday making plans with Michael.
He had more photos—confirmation that Alexis definitely is somewhere within this compound.
The girl was curvier than her sister. Well-dressed.
Clearly, she’s being taken care of, but there were shadows beneath her eyes.
She looked haunted. She’s definitely in trouble, but I can’t just go sneaking around the compound looking for her today.
Far too suspicious, especially after I knocked Alaska back.
The woman has been sulking about it all day.