Chapter 16 Elio #2
“You’re right, we fucking will.” He sounds like he’s grinding his teeth on the other end of the line. “It’s already been over twenty-four hours—”
"I'll find out what happened," I promise, and at least that part isn't a lie. "But I need you to let me handle this my way. No rushing in, no making moves that could compromise the situation. I’ll go in and see what I can find out on this gang. See if there’s anything that points to them being in the area Annie was in the night she disappeared.
" If I can get Ronan to let me take the lead on this, I can control the situation better, I reason. “Look, Leila needs you too. All the people who depend on you need you. We’ll find her. Just let me handle this part, and you check up on some of the other leads we discussed.”
"How long?" The question comes out strangled. "How long is it going to take to look into them while my sister could be—" He can't finish the sentence, can't voice the horrors his imagination is conjuring. “We should fucking grab all of them. Question them, then—”
The violence in his voice forms a ball of ice in my stomach.
This isn’t how Ronan normally behaves. Losing Annie has snapped something, and the last fucking thing I want is that anger directed at me.
Christ help me if he has any reason to think I’m hiding something from him while he’s tearing himself and this city apart.
"Give me forty-eight hours," I tell him.
"If I don't have answers by then, we'll reassess. "
It's a dangerous promise, one that commits me to a timeline I'm not sure we can meet. But I need time to track down Desmond, and Ronan needs to believe that progress is being made.
"Forty-eight hours," he agrees reluctantly. "But Elio—if she's hurt, if anything happens to her because we waited..."
"I know." I close my eyes, feeling the weight of his trust and my betrayal in equal measure. "I know."
After I hang up, Annie appears in the doorway wearing only my T-shirt, her legs bare and her hair tousled from our activities.
She looks beautiful and thoroughly debauched, and I have to grip the phone tighter to keep from crossing the room and picking up where we left off.
It stops there, I remind myself. That’s all we can do. Where we stopped before. Nothing more.
"How is he?" she asks, biting her lip, and the sudden rush of desire cools slightly.
"Barely holding it together." I run a hand through my hair, the guilt eating at me like acid. "Annie, I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. Lying to him about where you are, about what happened—it's killing me."
"I know." She approaches slowly, like she's afraid I might bolt. "But it's the only way to protect him. You yourself said that he freaked out just from Desmond bringing up Siobhan. Imagine what would happen if he knew the truth about Desmond."
She's right, but that doesn't make the deception any easier to bear. Every conversation with Ronan feels like another layer of betrayal, another nail in the coffin of our friendship.
"I have to go back to the city," I tell her. "Keep up appearances, help with the search, start hunting Desmond seriously."
"And us?" The question comes out smaller than I think she intended. "What happens with us while all this is going on?”
There is no us. There can’t be. But I can’t bring myself to say it.
It's the question I've been dreading, the one that doesn't have a good answer. What we shared last night and this morning was incredible, everything I’ve ached for for years…
and absolutely catastrophic for every other relationship in our lives.
"I don't know," I admit. "Annie, if Ronan ever finds out what's been happening between us on top of everything else..."
"He won't find out."
"You can't guarantee that." I move to the window, needing distance from her to think clearly. "If he discovers I've been lying to him about your safety, he'll probably kill me. But if he finds out I've been sleeping with you while lying about your safety? He'll kill me slowly."
The words hang between us like a blade. Annie's face goes pale, but her chin lifts with that stubborn determination I know so well.
“He won’t find out,” she says firmly. “I won’t let him. Nothing leaves this safe house. He’ll never know.”
"Annie—"
“This is helping me. Making me feel like myself again. Reminding me of what we had all these years ago… this is ours, Elio. Yours and mine. We can have this for a little while.” She steps closer, and I can smell the sweet scent of her skin, warm from the sheets still, the faintest hint of sweat. "Don't take that away from me now."
The plea in her voice breaks something inside me."We can't let it go further than what we've already done," I tell her firmly. “If we… if this happens again, we stop at this line. We have to, Annie.”
She swallows, nodding, and I try not to look at the movement of her throat, at her lips, to imagine them around me like I have for eleven fucking years.
God, what I wouldn’t give to know what her mouth feels like on my cock.
It’d almost be worth the slow torture Ronan would put me through if I could remember that while it was happening.
"I understand," she whispers. And fuck, I hope she does. Because we both have to have some self-control if this is going to work.
I make us breakfast, then spend a little time briefing the guards I’ve left at the cabin on security protocols, making sure Annie will be safe while I'm gone. Then I drive back to Boston, my thoughts torn between the woman I'm leaving behind and the man I'm about to lie to again.
—
The mansion is a hive of activity when I arrive.
Ronan has mobilized every resource at our disposal—men from other families in Boston who can help, street gang contacts, police informants, even some of our rivals who owe us favors.
Maps cover every surface, marked with search grids and potential locations.
Photos of Annie are tacked to boards alongside known associates of various criminal organizations.
It's an impressive operation, and it makes my deception feel even more poisonous.
"Any word on the gang Rocco was working with?" Ronan asks the moment he sees me.
“I’ve sent several of our men to stake them out, and I’m looking into information on where they’ve been lately, what kind of jobs they’ve been doing. I’ll have information soon.”
The truth is, I've actually been tracking Desmond's movements since Annie and I talked last night, sending some of my resources to look into him. The man is clearly rattled—he's cancelled several business meetings, and according to his doorman, he's had food delivered instead of going out to eat.
I pull out my phone to check the latest updates from my surveillance team. "They seem spooked. Maybe it’s just that they’ve heard about us mobilizing, looking for someone. It doesn’t necessarily mean they were involved. But if they were, we’ll find out.”
"Good." The savage satisfaction in Ronan's voice is chilling. "They should be scared. If they had anything to do with what happened to my sister..."
He doesn't finish the threat, but he doesn't need to. I know perfectly well what a man like him is capable of when his family is threatened. And I know just as well what he’d do to someone who lied to him about it. Who let him go to these lengths when I could end it in a couple of sentences.
But he’s Annie’s brother. Not really mine, even if we were that close, once. Even if I lived here as if I were part of the family, I never really was. And if Annie thinks that finding out would destroy him…
I have to trust her. I’m going to betray one of them—it can’t be helped. Either I lie to Ronan, or I betray her.
And God help me, I know I can’t ever let myself hurt her again.
"You okay?" Ronan asks, noticing my expression. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Just tired," I lie. "Haven't been sleeping well since Annie disappeared."
It's not entirely false—I haven't been sleeping well, though it has more to do with the woman in my bed than worry about her safety.
"None of us have." Ronan's voice is rough with exhaustion of his own. "But we're going to find her, Elio. And when we do, God help anyone who's hurt her."
I nod and make appropriate sounds of agreement, all while thinking about Annie safe in the cabin, probably cleaning again or reading one of the books on the shelves there. The contrast between Ronan's anguish and the reality of the situation makes me feel like the worst kind of traitor.
The rest of the day passes in a blur of false leads and fake reports. I coordinate with teams searching neighborhoods where I know Annie isn't, follow up on tips about sightings that I know are impossible, and generally waste everyone's time and resources while feeling like a traitor.
By the time I make my excuses and head back to the safe house, I'm exhausted by the weight of my deception. The drive feels endless, made worse by the knowledge that I'm speeding toward a situation that is no less complicated than the one I’m facing with Ronan—just for very different reasons.
Annie is on the couch when I walk in, curled up with a book in her lap.
One of my men must have brought the items she requested—she’s wearing a pair of yoga pants and a long T-shirt, and I realize I miss seeing her in my clothes.
The thought hits me in the chest like a punch at the same moment that my cock thickens at the sight of her slender legs in the tight pants, leaving me tangled in a dizzying mess of conflicting emotions.
When she looks up and sees me, her blue eyes light up, and I feel like I've been punched in the gut.
I want her so badly it hurts. And I can’t let this go any further.
I have to sleep on the fucking couch tonight if it kills me. If we keep sleeping in the bed together, we’re going to keep pushing boundaries. Keep nudging those lines further and further until I’m inside of her, and we can’t go back.
"How was your day?" she asks, setting aside her book, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. My entire body throbs with the desire to go to her, pull her into my arms, and lick away the sting from her full mouth.
"Terrible," I admit, shedding my jacket and hanging it up on a hook. "I spent eight hours lying to your brother about where you are and what happened to you. It's eating me alive."
Annie presses her lips together. “I know,” she whispers. All the light in her face drains away. “As soon as we find him…”
“The sooner the better.” I pause, glancing toward the kitchen. “Have you had dinner?”
Annie shakes her head. “I ate some apples and some deli meat with cheese earlier. But nothing… substantial.”
“I’ll make something.” Before she can protest, or say anything at all, I stride past her into the kitchen just to put some space between us. To cool my head before I do something stupid like go to her and kiss her until we’re both breathless.
We haven’t really kissed again. Not other than that brush of her lips on mine in her bedroom. I didn’t kiss her last night, and she didn’t kiss me this morning. It’s as if we both know that, even though we’ve done that before, it might completely shatter what control we both have.
If I kiss her, I’m going to lose myself in it. And then we’ll both be lost.