Chapter 68
Chapter Sixty-Eight
No one got murdered. But talk about bad timing. I need to wrap my arms—and a few other body parts around the hottest SEAL on the planet.
My SEAL.
Forever.
The dreamer inside me squeals with delight. I might have spent an hour or three hundred looking at Pinterest wedding trends. But the practical side of me never thought about who he would be…
Especially after what happened.
But now? I’m wondering how I ever thought there could be someone else. He’s perfectly imperfect and so loving in his rough and tumble way. Which right now involves him tucking me in like he’s making a bed for a military inspection .
I suppress a chuckle at the ridiculousness of the moment.
The man who stole my heart in a matter of a few days is making a big production out of tucking me into bed as Griff watches with murder in his stone-gray eyes.
Is my life resigned to two over-protective alphas trampling all over my freedom? This thought makes me smile like I just won the lottery.
I’ll gladly sign up. I didn’t know I had so much room in my heart, but now that they’re both there it feels good. Really freaking good.
“Why don’t you sit?” I pat the bed and they instantly glare at each other.
“There’s room for all of us.” I scoot to the middle.
The two men laugh roughly in unison. There’s not an ounce of humor in the gruff sounds.
“That’s never going to happen,” Griff says as he drags a chair over to the edge of the bed since I can’t join him in the sitting area of the gigantic hotel room. My feet are bandaged up like two Michelin men.
Overkill, but hey, Scout made sure the doctor did EVERYTHING and then some. But the special sauce he and his team carry for injuries… that was the icing on the tootsie cake.
“How are you feeling?” Griff asks as Scout sits on the side of the bed within arm’s reach of me.
Protective much?
“Tired, but good. I’m really happy to be clean.”
I don’t tell my brother how I got so clean, or that as soon as he leaves we’re going to get really dirty. Instead I deflect. “How are you?”
His answer is instant. “Angry.”
I let his reply hang.
Wait ‘til I tell him I’m marrying Scout. Boom. His head might explode.
We’ll wait for another time. The hotel room is too nice.
When the silence gets painful and I get alarmed at the stare Scout is giving my brother, I break the seal. No pun intended. Carefully, I say, “I’m sorry. What’s going on?”
“Angry at myself. I should have done more when I recognized the signs that something had happened to you. Just never thought it was that bad. You know, maybe a typical break up. But rape?—”
Oh. Oh, no. That.
Glancing down at my bare wrists, I nip my bottom lip. “You weren’t supposed to know. I tried to hide the signs.”
“When you came to work for me and moved into my guest room, I should have realized something big had happened.”
I glance at Scout, he’s deep, deep inside his head right now and it’s not a good place.
“I was safe with you. I didn’t need to worry any more.”
Griff buries his face in his hands with a stifled curse. When he drops them he gives Scout a searching look. “Does she know?”
Scout’s head shake is tight as his shoulders stiffen. “She doesn’t need to know that right now.”
Hm. Know what?
Now they’re driving me mad. “You guys can’t do that. You have to tell me whatever you’re hiding.”
They exchange a long, calculating look.
My nerves flutter, the heat from the bath taking flight from my body like frightened doves. “You should tell me whatever it is.”
Scout speaks first, but they basically both tell me at the same time. “Adam’s dead. ”
I flinch reflexively. “When?”
“Earlier today.”
A weird, numb sensation washes over me like a wave of tepid water. It reminds me of when you touch liquid that’s the exact temperature of your skin. It’s almost undetectable.
My attention is dragged back when Scout’s strong hand slides up my arm and loops around the back of my neck. “Love you, sweetheart. It’s okay to feel however you feel.”
Soothing.
His understanding is so comforting.
Fresh tears pool in the corner of my eyes—a mix of relief, and maybe some disbelief, and also grief for a life that ended too young. But I can’t think of a single thing to say.
Griff fills the void for me. “None of us want to see someone die from a diving accident, but Adam made his own choice and you had nothing to do with that.”
“It was reckless, but he was always that way. I never really understood how he ticked.”
My brother’s silent for a few moments and the haunted expression in his eyes makes me wish I could go to him.
Scrubbing his palm over his face, he sits back into the chair. “I failed you, A. I was too busy caught up in my own bullshit.”
Scout takes my hand in his, lacing his fingers with mine. “You’re right, Kane, you should have known.”
An unhappy sound comes from my throat. “Hello, you two. It was my secret to keep. I didn’t want you to know, Griff. I knew you’d unalive Adam and turn him into fish food.”
Griff’s expression darkens as he wraps his hands around the back of his neck. “You’re probably right.”
Scout’s looking at Griff in the weirdest way. I look back and forth between them.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” They both say.
Oh my god. Twin nightmares. “How did Adam die?”
This question earns a very uncomfortable silence, one that might crush the whole darned hotel.
Oh no. My heart flops around inside my chest as a really yucky thought slams into the back of my mind. “Which one of you did it?”
They both answer. “Not me.”
Okay, this is good. But still, someone did. Argh. “Who then?”
“I thought it was you,” Griff says to Scout as he throws an arm over the back of his chair.
Scout fires back. “I was searching for Aria.”
“So was I.”
Are they really going to argue over everything? “Boys! Boys!”
It sure didn’t take long for them both to get red-faced.
“So someone kill—killed.” My throat constricts on the word.
“Suffocated,” Griff says, blunt as a sledgehammer.
Scout rumbles, “Who then?” as my blood rushes out of my head. I don’t feel so well.