Chapter 13
ELLIE
The guys move immediately.
Zane storms toward the bathroom and begins opening drawers at random. Beckett whips off the quilt on the bed, the bedsheet following soon after. Dom begins emptying out drawers in the vanity.
Something occurs to me as I watch them move. This room…it’s eerily similar to my bedroom. My actual bedroom, in the house I share with Fischer.
Didn’t I leave my writing desk exactly like this? Wasn’t I drinking tea the last time I was home? Aren’t my bed sheets that same color? My quilt too?
A shudder reverberates through me. I tell myself I’m being paranoid, seeing patterns that don’t truly exist, but my spine prickles and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck straighten.
The room isn’t exactly like mine, but it’s close enough that, if someone were to describe it without seeing it, they would create this.
Fuck.
I’m losing my mind. I have to be. The alternative is too goddamn creepy to even comprehend. I don’t want to believe that Aria has been watching me, studying me, piecing together fragments of my life.
My guys continue to tear the room apart, pulling me kicking and screaming back to reality.
“Um…what are we doing?” I blink at them, wondering if they’ve collectively lost their minds. It wouldn’t surprise me, not after all the shit we’ve been through.
Beckett, who is now standing on the bed studying the three-tiered chandelier, grunts out, “Searching.”
“For your brains?” I arch an eyebrow.
Zane snorts from the bathroom. “No, princesa. Listening devices. Cameras. Anything like that.”
“We don’t have anything with us to scan,” Beckett explains. He sweeps his hand over the top of the chandelier, frowning when his fingers come away coated in dust. “And until we do, we need to make sure the room is clean of bugs and cameras.”
“Or, at least, as sure as we can be,” Dominic adds.
“Do you think it’s possible that Aria hid her little black book here? In her home?” I ask, fiddling with my glasses.
My guys all pause and exchange wary glances.
“That would be too fucking easy,” Zane says at last.
“Aria isn’t stupid,” Dominic agrees. “She won’t have it anywhere we can easily access it. She knows us too well. She has to suspect that we’ll tear this house apart searching for it.”
“And we will,” Beckett assures me. “Tear this house apart, I mean. As soon as the queen bitch leaves, we’ll go from room to room. But…”
But we probably won’t find it here.
The knowledge sits like a lead weight in my chest.
If the little black book isn’t at the place Aria considers “home,” then where would it be?
For the next two hours, my guys work diligently, meticulously, to check for these elusive bugs and cameras. I swear they tear the entire room apart.
I stand away from them, knowing I’ll only get in the way. Until a few months ago, when POP first started inserting themselves into my life, I’d been living in a bubble. A rich, privileged bubble where the worst thing that could happen to me would be breaking a nail.
Or cutting, though I don’t like to think about that time, when the darkness became too much, too oppressive, and I thought there was no escaping.
Almost absently, I run a finger across the mutilated skin of my wrist. The wounds have healed, technically, but they’ll never go away. My body will always wear the scars of the lowest point of my life.
“You should change, love.” Beckett’s accented voice sounds from directly beside my ear, startling me. His breath fans across my neck in a way that elicits a fresh round of goose bumps.
“Change?” I ask, somewhat dazed. It’s only then I realize I’m still dressed in the god-awful cloak that all Paragons of Prosperity members are required to wear. At least I’m no longer wearing the mask.
Nodding, I duck into the bathroom—which Zane cheerfully declared is “clear of creepy, crawly, mechanical bugs”—and pull off the cloak, tossing it on the floor. Fuck that shit.
I don’t have any pajamas to wear here, and I sure as hell am not going to wear any of the clothes in the armoire, so I settle for straightening out the outfit I have on. The gray sweater dress isn’t exactly comfortable, but it’s better than nothing.
Though the thought of wearing “nothing” when three of my guys are just out the door…
Heat crawls up my neck, and I quickly turn on the faucet, lowering my hands to cup some water. I splash it on my cheeks, but that does little to dispel the inferno in my lower belly.
God, it’s been too long since I’ve been with any of the guys intimately. After Landon was stabbed, I found that I couldn’t. I was too racked by worry and guilt. Then, when he was recovering, I decided it wasn’t fair to be with anyone else, not until he was one hundred percent again.
I was being an idiot.
I know that now.
My aversion to sex wasn’t about Landon or any of the guys, if I’m being completely honest. It had to do with me.
I… I killed someone. Again. Me. I killed someone, and I watched the man I love bleed out, and I was sold, and it all became too much.
I don’t want to say I shut down, because I didn’t, but a part of me pushed away every little thing that would’ve made me happy.
It was like I didn’t believe I deserved it.
But I do deserve it.
I deserve them.
My heart quickens, thundering erratically, and I bring my fisted hand to my chest.
When did I come to this revelation?
I can’t say for sure, but admitting it to myself is freeing. Liberating. A homecoming.
I.
Deserve.
Them.
Quickly, I scrub at my face and use a comb to untangle my brown hair. There are toothpaste and toothbrushes still in boxes, and I hesitate only briefly before opening one up. I brush my teeth, feeling infinitely better after the few minutes of primping.
I leave the cloak on the floor and return to my guys.
All of them have already removed their own cloaks, leaving them in the corner of the room.
Beckett wears a gray cotton shirt that looks absolutely delicious on him, the thin material clinging to every dip and crevice of his muscles.
Dom’s wearing red, and the color is a startling contrast to his platinum-blond hair and striking green eyes.
And Zane?
The bastard is shirtless.
I find myself licking my lips as I take in his bare bronzed skin. And is that…? Is that a bandage on his chest? What the hell happened?
Panic overrides coherent thoughts, and I’m moving before I can think better of it, halting directly before him. Wordlessly, I trail a hand up his corded abdomen, my fingers trailing across every accentuated muscle, stopping when I reach the expanse of skin just before the bandage.
“If you wanted to feel me up, princesa, you only needed to ask.” Zane’s voice is husky. His eyes have darkened to an onyx smolder.
“Are you hurt?” I ask somewhat breathlessly.
His brows draw together. “Hurt?” He glances down, as if only just noticing the bandage on his chest, and a wicked smirk curls up his lips. “No, I’m not hurt. This is your next surprise.”
“My next surprise?” I stare at him, confusion thrumming inside of me, but before he can respond, I spot movement in my peripheral, just outside the bedroom window.
Dom and Beckett notice as well and charge forward, their mouths tight.
“What the fuck?” I breathe, staring in horror at the masked figure crouched on the tree branch directly before us. Fear squeezes my throat in an iron vise, making it impossible to suck in a full breath.
Dom wrenches open the window, practically vibrating with an elemental fury, the type capable of burning enemies alive, conjuring storms out of nothing and causing tsunamis to sweep through entire cities.
“You have five seconds before I kill you,” he warns, his voice a growl.
“You could at least ask him what he’s doing here,” I mutter. “Or maybe his name.”
Beckett releases a long-suffering sigh. “Ellie, we plan to kill him.”
“We could kill him politely.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose.
Instead of running—like I would if threatened by a furious Dom and a smiling Zane—the stranger tosses something into the room. At first, I think it’s a bomb, and panic and fear war for dominance.
When Beckett steps forward, his brows furrowed, I want to slap him.
“What the hell are you doing?” I reach for his arm and desperately try to pull him away. Because if it is a bomb, he’s a damn idiot for getting close to it.
Then again, I’m not leaving the room either. I don’t care if that means I’ll go up in a fiery explosion. I won’t leave my guys behind.
Beckett’s eyes light up, and a grin unfurls on his lips. Without a word, he grabs the mysterious object, tinkers with it, then waves it around the room.
Umm…?
Has he lost his mind?
I joked about it before, but now I’m beginning to wonder if there’s some truth to it.
Beckett moves the indecipherable object over every surface and then declares cheerfully, “We’re clear. No bugs.”
“I thought we already checked for bugs.” I furrow my brow.
“We physically checked,” Dom tells me. “But this device allows us to scan for them.”
The stranger gracefully leaps into the room, landing in a crouch. At first, I’m confused, especially when my guys don’t start freaking out and, you know, murdering him, but then a shock of electricity races through me. It feels like I’ve been struck with a lightning bolt.
I know that crouch.
I know that body.
I know that man.
We’re soulmates, after all. I would recognize him anywhere. My soul calls to his across the entire godforsaken world. His…and four others’.
Ryker removes his mask with an irritated flick of the wrist, like he hated every second of having the cold plastic on his face.