Chapter 6
BECKETT
“Idon’t like this,” Ryker rasps out, pacing. Ice-blue eyes narrow at us from beneath his gray hoodie. “I don’t fucking like this at all.”
Ellie licks her lips and fiddles with the rim of her glasses, the way she often does when she’s nervous. “I know, but I think we can all agree that this is the best course of action. We need to get Fischer on our side, and soon.”
Shortly after the meeting with Raymond, the six of us moved to a half-completed room on the far side of the hotel. Landon and Ellie chose to sit in folding chairs already there, while the rest of us remained standing.
Or in Ryker’s case…pacing.
“Does anyone else think that Raymond is a walking red flag?” Zane asks, waving his hand in the air like a little kid waiting to be called upon by a teacher. “Just me?” He lowers his arm back to his side and blinks innocently down at Ellie. “No offense, El.”
“None taken,” she says, settling back in the plastic seat with an elongated sigh.
“I mean, the man is supposed to be part of the FBI, yet he’s willing to put his niece in harm’s way just to get information,” Zane continues, echoing what we’ve all been thinking. “Not only that, but he’s had the five of us doing his dirty work for years now.”
“What do we think?” Landon drags a hand down his face, the skin around his eyes bunching.
He’s unnaturally pale, and a fine sheen of sweat coats his forehead and cheeks.
He needs to get to bed. He may be on the mend, but he isn’t at one hundred percent yet.
The stress of the last few hours has taken its toll on him. “Do we believe Raymond is truly FBI?”
“I saw his badge,” Ryker growls out, still pacing incessantly. At this rate, his feet will wear a hole in the carpeting.
“I don’t trust him,” Dominic says blandly.
“Me neither,” Landon agrees.
“Ellie?” I turn toward the girl who has captivated me—who owns the entirety of my heart and soul. She nibbles on her lower lip, seemingly lost in thought, and I repeat her name until she finally glances up at me. Her blue eyes appear slightly unfocused behind her glasses. “What do you think?”
She doesn’t answer right away, but none of us rush her. We know she needs time to get her thoughts in order and then find a way to articulate them. I can practically see the wheels churning in that pretty little head of hers.
“I…” Her eyebrows scrunch together. “I honestly don’t know.
You’re right. There’s a lot about Raymond that doesn’t add up.
But is it because he’s hiding something, or is he just that desperate to take down POP?
” She chews on her plump lower lip once again, and I badly want to replace her teeth with my own.
“We can’t trust anyone but each other,” Ryker rasps, flicking his gaze from face to face before settling on Ellie, as it always does. She’s his gravity, after all. The center of his world.
Our world.
“So it’s agreed, then?” Dominic forks his fingers through his platinum-blond locks. “We’ll be cautious around Raymond?”
“We need to get The Divine One’s little black book. Destroy every last member of this sick organization once and for all—with or without Raymond’s help,” Landon spits out.
“Which means we need Fischer,” Ellie concludes.
Something akin to fear—but infinitely more pronounced—surges in my chest, and my pulse misfires. The thought of Ellie returning to that hellhole…
“I’ll be with her,” Dominic reminds us, obviously sensing our mounting panic, the smoke of it seeping into our lungs, laboring our breaths. “I won’t leave her side once.”
“And we’ll be masked,” Ellie adds. “No one will know who we are, even if they’re looking for us.”
“This could be a trap,” I say.
Normally, I’m levelheaded, able to see the entire picture instead of just the minuscule details that everyone else is hung up on. It’s like when I’m designing a dress. I focus on the piece as a whole and then work inward, adding diminutive flares and details to bring my vision to life.
But this time…
The muscles in my shoulders are so tense, they physically spasm, the full reality of what Ellie is about to do wreaking havoc on my insides.
“I don’t think it is a trap,” Ellie tells me evenly.
Dom nods in agreement. “My father is a duplicitous man, sure, but I don’t think he’s trying to set us up. The sick fuck simply wants me to take over the family business—and he believes using Ellie will be the way to do it.”
“It’s bloody idiotic,” I bite out. Shaking. I’m shaking. Why am I shaking? I can’t seem to stop the tremors that reverberate through me.
And since when is Dom on Team Bring Ellie Directly to The Divine One? I want to punch him in the face, and a part of me resents the fact that my first thought is one of violence.
“It’s the only way to get to Fischer. What do you suppose we do? Hide the rest of our lives?” Ellie asks, and though her words may be acerbic, even bitter, her tone is gentle.
“Yes,” I snap, taking up Ryker’s stalled pacing. Unfettered fury pulsates through me. I pass Zane, who watches me with wide eyes. As a general rule, I’m not the type of man who blows up in a fit of anger. That’s not me.
But this…
This is Ellie we’re talking about. Her safety. Her life.
“I think it’s someone’s time of the month,” Zane mock-whispers to Ellie, and I fucking snap, whirling on him.
“How can you make a joke at a time like this?” I throw my hands in the air, resisting the urge to deck him across the face. “Do you not give a shit at all that Ellie is putting her life on the line? That she could die?”
Zane’s smile doesn’t gradually slip off his face—it disappears in less than a nanosecond.
There and gone faster than a bullet shooting from a gun.
In its place is an intensity I’ve only ever seen reserved for when we’re cutting people apart or burying bodies.
The madness in his eyes morphs from a mere ember to a blistering inferno that sears my flesh.
“Do not ever say that to me again,” Zane warns, his voice low and deadly, teeming with unspoken promises. His eyes narrow. “You won’t like what will happen next.”
“Knock it off!” Landon tries to stand but wobbles slightly. Ellie is on her feet in an instant, one arm snaking around his waist in an attempt to keep him upright. He shoots her a grateful look before refocusing on us. “Both of you!”
“Oh, fuck off!” I snap, whirling on him.
I don’t know why I find him a suitable outlet for my anger.
I’m not mad at him. Honestly, I’m not. But I have so many emotions inside of me that I feel like a bloated storm cloud hovering on the horizon, gray expanding in every direction, just waiting to release a torrential downpour on the unsuspecting population far below.
“Beckett, I realize you’re upset—” Dom begins, taking a measured step toward me. He stares at me like I’m a live wire whipping around and sparking against anyone who comes too close.
I hate it.
And I know I can’t stay here a second longer. Not with my emotions so turbulent. Not with rage coiling inside me like a hungry beast. The last thing I want to do is say something I’ll regret to the people I love most in the world.
With a growl, I spin on my heel and stomp out of the room, trying to keep my head held high despite the seventy-pound weight on my shoulders, pressing me into the ground.
Irritation thrumming through me, I move toward the room I’ve called my own during my time here, grab my sketchbook, and move through the hotel in a perpetual daze until I finally find a spot away from everyone else.
The concrete is cold against my thighs, but I barely notice.
My sketchbook balances on one knee, the edges of the page curling in the breeze that blows through the hollow ribs of the half-built hotel.
This particular room smells of dust and metal.
Overhead, scaffolding groans gently as the wind pushes it, and somewhere behind me, a loose tarp flaps like a tattered flag.
I press harder with the pencil, the graphite scratching across the page in angry strokes. I’ve redrawn the hemline four times already, each iteration tighter, sharper, like I can slice away the feeling building in my chest if I just get it right.
Her dress.
I’m imagining her dress.
For Ellie.
For the woman who owns me…and is doing everything in her power to take herself away from me.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
The alcove I’ve found myself in is barely more than an unfinished bay window, three sides of concrete framing the forest like a fractured portrait.
Footsteps sound behind me. Light and familiar.
I don’t look up.
“How did you know where I was?” I ask, my voice low.
Ellie doesn’t answer at first. All I hear is the whisper of her shirt brushing the concrete as she sits beside me. No ceremony. No hesitation. Like she belongs here, even in a skeleton of rebar and rust.
Belongs with me.
God, she’s so stubborn, even when I’m mad at her.
I glance sideways.
She has her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms looped around them. Her face is soft in the moonlight, the white creating enthralling flecks in her blue-gray eyes.
“I’ll always be able to find you,” she says simply. And goddammit, my heart stutters at those words.
I turn back to the page. The bodice is coming together now, an asymmetrical neckline with a single sculptural sleeve—bold, like her. The fabric will need structure. Silky frill, maybe. Bone white. Pure. Defiant.
“I’m working,” I mutter, though I find myself tilting the sketchbook closer to her.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispers, lifting a finger and hovering it over the design like she wishes to touch it, trace it.
“It’s not done.”
“Neither are we,” she tells me.
The words land with more weight than I expected. The hand holding the pencil clenches, my knuckles bleaching white.
I turn toward her incredulously. “Of course we’re not fucking done,” I snap, unable to believe the gall of her. “We’ll never be fucking done.”
Her lips twitch in the beginnings of a smile before compressing in a thin line once more. She nods. “Good.”
The silence stretches between us, thick with things we aren’t saying. Things we can’t say. The hotel creaks again—wood and wind conspiring to make this moment feel even more ominous.
I swallow hard and glance back down at my notebook, the edges of the page blurring.
“I keep thinking,” I begin, “if I can just make this dress perfect, it’ll keep you safe. Like stitches and seams will hold you together when the world tries to tear you apart.”
Ellie reaches out, her fingers warm as they brush mine.
Sparks skitter through me, and I swallow convulsively.
“I’m going to be okay, Beck. We’re going to be okay.
Landon already discussed putting a microphone on me or a tracker.
Zane even said that he might be able to sneak you guys in as well, the way he did before. ”
“I just need you to be safe,” I whisper, swallowing around the sword in my throat. “I can’t lose you, El. I won’t.”
She leans in, resting her head lightly against my shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I know,” she says. “But I’ll try. For you.”
The wind picks up again, tugging at the tarp above us. I pull her closer to me, allowing the sketchbook to fall to my lap. I need her in my arms.
The dress can wait.