18. What a fucking mess – Atticus
18
WHAT A FUCKING MESS
ATTICUS
S even’s back already? It’s barely one in the morning.
I click to zoom into the camera feed, watching Sev come in the back door.
He couldn’t have gone very far to get rid of the body if he’s finished already.
Unless he half-assed it. Again.
I take another swig of the power smoothie on the desk, checking the rest of the cameras. I haven’t seen Aurora try to leave at all and she’s only touched her phone a total of three times.
Once to google the symptoms of shock.
Once to google if it’s illegal to know about a crime and not report it.
And once to type out a message to someone named Chris asking if her room is still free, only to erase it before sending.
I make a mental note to watch communications with ‘Chris’ since it seems she’s deleted the majority of the chat history and I can’t get it back.
Surprisingly, there have been no attempts to call the authorities. The Wi-Fi calling feature would allow it if she tried, which is why I need to be diligent. They wouldn’t be able to triangulate the call, but I’d need to cut it off before she could say anything that might lead them to look for us.
The local PD is in our pocket, but I don’t need any bigger fish biting at the bait of a mysterious untraceable call from a frantic girl squawking about murder.
I push away from the desk and tuck my M18 into the back of my waistband before going to meet Sev. If that corpse is anywhere on the property or in the surrounding area, he can damn well go dig the fucker back up and plant him somewhere else.
We said no more corpses within a fifty-mile radius after the other night and we all fucking agreed.
I stop dead when Aurora comes around the corner into the kitchen, tucking myself back into the shadows of the hallway, careful not to make a sound as I watch her.
She digs around in the fridge, tension in the way her shoulders are hitched high and the way she jumps every time she makes a sound.
First she pulls out the carton of chocolate milk Sev thought he was hiding from me in the back of the fridge, then…
Is that my fucking pastrami?
The almost ninja level silence of Sev’s footsteps reaches my ears and I realize Aurora hasn’t heard him.
I open my mouth to say something before she can be surprised, but think better of it.
This is better. I need to see how she’s going to react.
Carefully, I tug the M18 from my waistband and check that there’s a round in the chamber.
The kitchen is the last place I want to do this, but if she completely loses it…
It’ll be best to just get it over with.
Aurora gasps when she finally sees Sev, and I grimace when the offensive sound of the carton hitting the tile and milk splattering all over my freshly cleaned floor reaches my ears.
I wait for the inevitable scream. For her fight-or-flight response to kick in. I’m genuinely curious which it will be.
But seconds pass, and she does neither.
Their hushed conversation is too low for me to hear more than a few words, but it seems more or less calm.
Surprised, I peer around the corner to see them just…talking. Even if Aurora is trying to keep the kitchen island between them as Sev grabs the clean white kitchen towel from the hook, waves it around, and bends to sop up the spilled…
Seriously?
I turn on my heel, not even trying to be quiet as I stalk back to my office before I can lose my shit.
“There is a fucking arsenal of cleaning supplies and disposable cloths under the sink, but no, you just have to use the white fucking towel,” I mutter to myself, tucking back into my office with a heavy sigh.
I swear it’s like he wants to piss me off lately.
I sit down hard at my desk and shut my eyes, steepling my fingers against my lips while I take in several calming breaths, consoling myself with the fact that Aurora seemed more or less all right.
But that’s fucking weird, isn’t it?
My eyes flick open and my fingers fly over the keyboard, ready to do another deep dive into her phone’s history. There has to be more there for me to find. If I could just get my hands on all her deleted chat history, that could give me some insight.
Why delete it to begin with?
It isn’t just her conversation with ‘Chris’. There’s evidence of deleted messages in most of her text conversations.
Who does that?
People who have something to hide.
I’m just about to run another ghost bot through her messenger to try to spook out anything recently deleted, when a metallic clang rings through the main floor of the cabin. I shoot to my feet and race to the door, but don’t rush out, pausing to listen first instead.
Part of me wants to see if Sev will handle this without me.
He handles any threat against us with unwavering, unflinching action. It’s so ingrained that it’s a reflex for him. One we’ve been trying to temper.
But with her…
He’s different.
She’s not some asshole bent on hurting us. She’s just a girl. A girl with trauma scars that might be a close match to his own. Someone who’s been hurt and needs protecting.
He wouldn’t have killed her ex if he didn’t care about her.
And that’s a terrifying thought.
The gun in my waistband feels hot against my back. Heavy.
I reach for the door handle and hear a new sound, one that makes me freeze.
Was that a moan?
As quietly as I can, I twist the handle, opening the door just an inch. Enough to better hear what’s happening way down the hall.
Glass shatters and I almost rush in, but stop. There it is again. That sound.
Aurora moans loudly and there’s a rattle and a bang.
No fucking way.
I listen harder, and hear her cry out. Not in pain. No, definitely not in pain.
The sound of shattering glass punctuates her next cry of pleasure and I clench my teeth so tight they squeak from the pressure.
What the fuck , Sev?
My skin heats, itching as I clench my fists, and my knuckles pop.
I told him. I fucking told him I had a plan for her.
And he goes and kills her ex and fucks her in the same twelve-hour span.
Something slams loud enough to echo down the hall. It slams again.
More glass breaks.
The rhythmic rattle and smash of something being rammed into the wall again and again and again has me pacing the small space inside my office, breathing smoke and spitting fire.
Fuck.
“ Fuck .”
My dick responds to her next moan and that’s fucking it. I will not allow myself to be attracted to this girl.
She chokes on another moan and I imagine those pouty lips parting, her eyelids lowering over crystalline green eyes.
I grip the edge of the door, ready to wrench it open and break up what’s happening in my fucking kitchen, but I can’t.
I can’t go rushing in there because despite the very rational part of my brain that’s screaming hell no , my dick is now harder than stone. Growling to myself, I jerk my hand free of the door and curl it into a fist, breathing through clenched teeth.
Come on, get it together.
I grip my erection roughly, but that only makes it worse and I snatch my hand away as if burned.
“Okay. You got this. Fucking get rid of it.”
My hands go to my head, as if I can slap some sense back into myself, but all I manage to do is tear some loose hair free from where it’s tied back as I curse under my breath.
I recall my training. The rigorous bullshit I put my body and mind through when Florence finally passed away and I couldn’t stand to be in the house where she still haunted the halls. Where I could see the ghost of her in Julian’s eyes as he taught me how to read blueprints. In Sev as he self-destructed. And in Eli who didn’t do anything but paint for months, throwing himself into his work to cover up her loss.
Florence’s last words to me fill my head, bringing clarity I desperately need.
“I’m so glad they have you, Atty. I know you’ll take care of them. I know you’ll do whatever it takes to keep them safe.”
When I became an absolute menace, high-strung with anger and control issues that I couldn’t temper, it was Eli who suggested I put the energy into something useful before I drove myself mad. And since I’d just completed my certificates in cybersecurity and digital forensics to better help Julian with the family trade, I made the perfect candidate to work in intel for the Marines.
The training was grueling. The rules strict. The sense of structure, no matter how hardcore, gave me back at least partial control of my mind.
Remember. Your. Training.
Already, the need starts to abate.
With a gun in my hands and my boots on the ground, I learned quickly that it wasn’t about the weapon or the armor, but the man. It’s all a mindfuck and if I was able to find my way through it from inside, I could get through anything.
I could do anything.
Even come home after a tour in Iran and face the worst.
Breathing to a count of nine, slow and measured, the tension in my chest eases, but the tension elsewhere winds tighter and starts to ache, bringing the rage right back to the forefront just in time for the song of Sev and Aurora’s fuckfest to hit its crescendo.
Motherfuckers.
I wrench the door open and storm down the hall, holding on to that rage because if it slips for even a second, I know what will try to replace it and I’m not sure I can deal with the problem twice.
Sev’s body blocks most of Aurora’s from view, but only because she’s inside the motherfucking refrigerator.
A puddle of god knows what combination of fridge contents, slowly spreads over the tile in a flood of horrific green-brown, interrupted by sparkling bits of broken glass and floating peas.
Aurora gasps when she sees me, but Sev doesn’t so much as flinch, turning his head just enough to peer over his shoulder at me with a maniacal grin. “Hey, Atty. Hope you didn’t want a snack.”
Aurora’s eyes widen over Sev’s shoulder, her lips press tight, and I’m confused by the look on her face until it turns red and she lets out a stifled sound that turns into a laugh.
She’s…laughing?
“ Sev ,” his name comes out in a lethal hiss as Aurora continues to laugh, dropping her head against Sev’s shoulder to hide her face. She tries and fails to contain the sound that’s starting to border on madness.
“You good, Ro?”
Aurora nods against his shoulder, still shaking with the spasms of her laughter.
“Sev,” I repeat. “A fucking word?”
“Right. Yeah. Give us a sec?”
“Now.”
“I heard you, man,” he snaps back, and I don’t fucking like his tone. It softens as he whispers something to Aurora, carrying her over the broken glass to the safety of the hardwood beyond their blast radius.
“Okay, crazy-pants, you go have a nice long shower,” he tells her as he sets her down. “I’ll take care of this.”
Aurora can’t get away fast enough, clinging to the scraps of her shirt as if they are doing anything to cover her perky tits or the bouncing peach of her ass as she sprints from the kitchen.
Sev turns to face me, pulling his jeans up as if he’s completely unaffected by the fact that they are absolutely disgusting. “If this is about the mess, I’ll clean it up.”
I stoop to pick up my pastrami from the floor and it drips with green smoothie, the red paper wrapping disintegrating until it falls back onto the floor and splashes fucking pig slop onto my socked feet.
“Fucking Christ, Sev. What the hell were you thinking?”
His violent blue eyes narrow. “Me?”
“Yeah, you , asshole. We don’t even fucking know this girl. We can’t trust her. And here you are acting like…like…”
“Like what, Atticus? Fucking say it.”
Heat rushes up my back. “Do you have feelings for this girl, Sev?”
“And if I do?”
I lower my voice. “Then I’d fucking remind you that she is part of a plan ? —”
“What fucking plan?” He pushes back from the island and stands taller, reminding me that beneath his very human exterior, Sev is a hand grenade one finger pull away from detonation.
And he’s aiming his wrath at me… because of her.
I scoff, shaking my head at him. He’s never been like this with the other women we’ve brought in. He’s never been this agitated on anyone else’s behalf except for ours.
“I never should’ve brought her here.” I say the words under my breath, but he hears me, and stiffens.
“Too late for that, bro.”
A muscle in my jaw tics as he roughly pulls several bottles of cleaning spray and the disposable cloths from beneath the sink and slams them onto the counter.
Dammit.
I am not handling this well. I open my mouth to try to change tack, hating how his energy is diluting my rage.
Shoving a loose strand of hair back from my face, I sigh. “Sev, I just mean that?—”
“Unless you want to grab a mop and help me, I suggest you get the fuck out of my face.”