Chapter 12
I'd been playing with fire for so long, but it still surprised me when I got burned.
The confrontation with Beck, and now Ray, had my head spinning, and the severed hand in a box in front of me didn't help.
Was the ominous message for Adelaide or me?
Paranoia crawled over my skin like bugs.
Adelaide flicked me a narrow-eyed look, like she expected me to faint at any moment.
It wasn't the blood or the severed limb turning my stomach. It was duplicity.
"You look green, girl," Adelaide said.
I flattened my lips. They expected me to be upset. It wasn't normal to have macabre warnings delivered to your apartment. But how could I tell them that this was nothing new for me? I'd seen my fair share of missions gone wrong. Once you witness brain splatter on a wall, you get desensitized fast.
Adelaide and Ray had been attacked, and I couldn't shake the reality that it was likely my fault.
I was being played by an ex-agent who could move through this city like a ghost. If Ellington was messaging me, he'd made me suspicious of Beck, and because of the stupid organ beating in my chest, I'd been too scared to pick up the phone and speak to him.
The Unseen.
The threatening messages.
A shooting and a severed hand.
Ray kissing and rejecting me.
Seeing Beck after so long.
Beck admitting… emotions?
Each problem was a chink in the shield I'd built around myself.
Beck had been reluctant to leave me at my apartment, but it didn't make sense to invite him up.
Not when my doorman was watching and listening.
Luckily, Adelaide sent Jonah to meet me there, so I wasn't alone after Ray left and someone dropped a bloody hand off on my doorstep.
My head was a swirling mess, and I couldn't concentrate.
There was a highlight reel of danger on a loop.
I deluded myself, and I was useless. A pawn on a chessboard too big for me to grapple.
Beck was a bishop, barreling toward whoever The Unseen pointed him at.
But he wasn't a king. He didn't hold all the power.
Someone else had that, and my body tingled with weakness.
Who watches those in the shadows? Me. What happened when I was running blind?
Jonah reached over and squeezed my hand. "Are you alright? You look sick," he whispered.
Adelaide kneeled in front of me with a creased forehead. Dark bags anointed her under eyes, and she pressed her fists into her creased pink jumpsuit. But she still looked impossibly strong. How I wanted to spill everything, to tell them the truth.
"Your lips are almost blue. It's not your most flattering color."
I'm lying to you.
My stomach cramped, and for a moment, I considered unburdening the weight on my tongue.
Adelaide was my best friend. I would do anything for her.
Even defy an organization that would think nothing of killing us both.
I needed someone to lean on so badly right now.
All my seams shuddered apart. Even though I was trying so damn hard to hold it together.
I pulled my shoulders back and shook my head. This was my burden to balance.
I made every choice that led me here, and I owned that.
She was worth the sacrifice, and I hoped one day, when I told her the truth, she would understand and find it in herself to forgive me. A small part of me ached thinking of Beck, Jonah, and Ray. What was I thinking, opening my heart enough for them to slip in and tear up my insides?
"Don't worry about me." I attempted to smile, but it was a twisted effort.
Adelaide rocked back on her haunches, an argument brewing on her pursed lips, but her phone rang.
She answered it. "Where have you been, Ray? I've been trying to contact you. Come to Lara's immediately. We have a situation." Adelaide's eyebrows shot up her forehead. "Of course, Lara's fine, but we got left a little package."
Ray's familiar drawl was soft as he told Adelaide he'd be there in fifteen minutes. His voice knocked down my crumbling reserves. The weight of my lies heavy on my chest.
Ray didn't owe me anything. Instinctively, I knew he didn't want anyone to know he'd been here, and I kept it to myself.
Perhaps it was my bruised pride, wanting to brush over the tenderness I felt for the heir.
He'd pursued me, and I stupidly let him in.
I put myself on the line for him, and he didn't realize how much.
But I also couldn't tell him. Everything bubbled over, and I stood.
"I'm going to get out of your way, alright?"
I scurried away to my room like a cockroach.
Feeling just as filthy and disgusting. My handbag slipped off my shoulder, forgotten in all the chaos.
The contents spilled out. I sighed and crouched down to pick them up.
Even my fingertips were numb. I shoved my lip gloss, fake driver's license, and other random bits into the black sequined purse.
But there was one item that didn't belong to me.
My fingers went numb, and I stifled a gasp of dismay.
It was a gold figurine of a jester.
An innocuous item, made to look like a cheap gift shop trinket. But those who knew The Unseen recognized the symbolism.
You don't see us, but we see you.
Even a jester can control a king. The cornerstone of The Unseen. We didn't have to wield power, only control those who did. I felt a chill run right through my bones, and my lungs burned as if someone had turned them inside out. The jester tumbled to the ground.
Only Ellington would laugh at me in this way. On the same night Beck and I reunited, it was too obvious. My skin prickled, and I crawled to the end of my bed, leaning against the mattress. Everything was falling apart. The cheap gold paint on the jester glinted in the soft glow of the lamp.
It had taken me a while to add anything personal to my bedroom, and it was the only one in the house I'd made any effort with.
Growing up, my mom bought decorations from charity shops to make our house seem less like a dump.
I learned not to keep valuable things out in the open.
Anything worth selling would disappear when she wasn't sober.
What was the point of decorating a place you were going to leave, eventually? But I'd spotted the vintage artwork above my bed at a secondhand market the first week I'd been in Greenich Bay. It was frivolous. Over time, I'd added plants, rugs, and enough things to say—this room was mine.
I'd pretended to be a thousand different people. I didn't even know what I enjoyed doing apart from cracking code. But in Greenich Bay, I felt the real me creep back.
My breath rushed out and took my panic with it. Hadn't I trained for this? I would give myself a night to break down. I would talk to Beck tomorrow. By ignoring him, I'd messed with our foundation. It had always been me following, devoted and obsessed from afar. Now, I forced him to follow me.
I showered quickly and crawled into bed in an oversized T-shirt and panties. But I still couldn't relax. I left my phone out in the living room so I couldn't even doomscroll.
As if my thoughts summoned him, Jonah slipped through my door.
He perched on the side of my bed and tossed my phone.
If any other person had walked through the door, I would have tensed up.
But something about Jonah calmed me. Maybe it was the way his shoulders spanned the door, or his expression that softened when he saw me bundled up.
I waited for Jonah to say something to me. Complete the trifecta. Was wallowing the best course of action?
No.
Was I going to stay under my bedcovers for the foreseeable future?
You bet.
Until the sting of both Beck's and Ray's interactions faded. I hadn't been ready for either of them, and I wasn't used to being caught off guard.
But it wasn't just the two men that had me wanting to sink into a hole. This entire night was a clusterfuck, and I didn't know who was behind it all. Jonah grabbed my phone and tucked it under the cushion in front of me.
"You're worried about him," Jonah misinterpreted the look on my face, attributing it to Ray.
Oh, you sweet mountain man. If only you knew the things I was worried about.
I'd give anything for simple boy problems, not the weight of my secrets. Jonah clenched his fists, as if he wanted to strangle Ray and force him to placate me. I knew if I asked him, Jonah would drag him in by the scruff of his neck.
"You look like you've been crying?"
I screwed up my nose, cupping my face to shield my heated cheeks.
"It's rude to point that out."
Had I let a few tears leak out in the shower? Of course. I was under extreme pressure, and sometimes the only thing for it was a cry. And everyone knew crying in the shower didn't count. You had water splashing on your face anyway.
"Something happen with the chief?"
"What? No, he just wanted to drill me about Adelaide." I was so tired of lying. "Is my skin splotchy?"
"Is this some bullshit where you make noise about how crying makes you look ugly? Because you'll never catch me buying into that." He pinned me between his beefy arms. "In my eyes, you're always fucking beautiful. Got it?"
My eyes widened, and every sharp-edged trouble cutting into my stomach melted away. The intense gray of his gaze sucked me in. It should have been cold, with how potent and hard he was staring at me. But it was flint sparking up my insides.
I trailed my fingers up the cage of his arms, stifling a groan at the hard muscle underneath his dark, long-sleeved shirt.
"You think I'm beautiful?" I fished, breathless with sudden need.
It pulsed between my legs with an urgency I knew I couldn't trust. My attraction to Jonah was undeniable, but I also wanted to forget everything happening in my life. Forget the lies, the danger, and the shadowy hound of Ellington.
"You're perfect." He leaned closer, licking his lips.