41. The plan – Atticus
41
THE PLAN
ATTICUS
E li comes into the living room with his defenses already up and his expression guarded.
“Hey,” he says, his gaze snagging on the file atop the coffee table in front of me before shifting to search the front of the house. “Where’s Aurora?”
“Good morning,” Aurora says, padding down the stairs behind him. She’s been up since six. I know because there was a pot of java that had to be at least two hours old by the time I got to it, sitting half empty in the kitchen.
“Morning,” Eli replies, nothing but openness and smiles for her as she comes to give his arm a little squeeze before sitting down opposite me.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she’s been just as anxious to get started as I have.
For a fleeting second, our eyes meet, but she quickly looks away, and I want to know what it means. Does it mean she won’t do it? Has she already decided?
“There’s fresh coffee in the kitchen,” I tell Eli.
“You want some?” he asks Aurora, waiting for her like he expects her to join him. To take the opportunity to run away from me.
She smiles tightly. “Already had some, but thanks.”
“All right, well, I’ll be back in a sec.”
Eli glances between us, as if he isn’t sure whether he should leave us alone together. Maybe he shouldn’t.
After our little chat on the pool deck last night, I couldn’t get her out of my head. And it isn’t just because we need her.
There is something far too familiar in her eyes when she looks at me. I think it’s the way I looked at Eli and Sev when they first let me crash their little bromance. When Eli started bringing me home, and I saw what a real family should look like. What I could be a part of if I didn’t find a way to fuck it up. If they would accept another wayward misfit with nowhere else to go.
It was fear. Longing. And hope.
A three-punch combo I didn’t want to remember the feeling of because I wasn’t fucking downplaying it when I said this could get dangerous. I can’t afford to care about this girl like that. One of us needs to stay level if this is going to work.
Seven bounds down the stairs just as Eli comes back with two mugs of coffee. “That for me?”
Eli hands him one without a word, and Seven hisses as he burns his mouth trying to drink it before it can cool. So impatient. Some things never change.
“Will you guys come sit down?”
Sev and Eli share a look.
“Sev and I talked about it a bit,” Eli says. “We can find a way to get what we want without using Aurora.”
They talked about this without me?
“Like we’ve been doing for the past year?” I snap back. “We’re still no closer to Ambrose than we were when we fucking started.”
“We’ll find another way,” Seven repeats, and the exasperation is clear in his voice. He knows I’m right.
I can’t believe they’re dismissing this opportunity before they’ve even fucking listened to my plan.
“I’d still like to hear it.” Aurora’s voice is so small that it’s nearly inaudible over all the blood rushing to my head. But the tides go back out when I register what she said.
She wrings her hands in her lap and sits up straighter. “If that’s okay.”
“You don’t have to,” Eli assures her, his brows drawing together.
“I know,” she replies. “I want to.”
Sev’s brow lifts at Aurora, and a cheeky grin pulls at his mouth. He’s surprised. Honestly? So am I. But maybe we shouldn’t be.
Aurora Bellerose isn’t at all what I thought she was. She’s definitely trouble, but she just might be the good kind.
“You heard the lady.” I give Aurora a nod that I hope conveys my gratitude. “Come sit your asses down.”
Sev parks himself on my right, and Eli drags an armchair closer to sit to my left as I open the file.
Aurora folds herself onto the floor in front of the coffee table to get a closer look at the document at the top of the pile. It’s general intel on all Ambrose’s legitimate operations.
Just like us, most of Ambrose’s money is run through larger public-facing corporations that actually turn a small legit profit of their own. Ours runs through real estate. Ambrose’s is mostly traded through cryptocurrency. Though he does run some through a chain of casinos owned by his family.
“We’ve talked before about trying to get someone on the inside. But Ambrose’s security is tight and he vets his men well. Getting someone in as implanted muscle or security would be next to impossible, but there’s another way.”
I flip the top sheet over to reveal the next page—where his money goes isn’t important right this second.
“You remember Diana De La Rosa?”
It’s a full-page image of the woman. Her last known photo before she vanished. In it, she’s smiling, but the emotion doesn’t reach her eyes. It was taken outdoors, and the sun highlights the lighter strands of glossy brown in her long, dark hair. Makes her oceanic blue eyes bright and clear.
“Is that his wife?” Aurora asks, spinning the image around and lifting it for a closer look. Her brows knit.
Eli taps the photo. “She was abducted,” he explains.
“Allegedly,” I correct. “She was allegedly abducted. It happened a long time ago. Before Ambrose ever met Julian. He never remarried, and he never stopped looking for her. Julian even tried to help Ambrose find her. The authorities in Oregon where she went missing never found any trace of her.”
“Okay, so how does Diana have any sort of usable connection to Ro?”
“It wasn’t just Diana who was supposedly abducted,” I remind him.
I flip to the next sheet. It’s a printout of the original newspaper beseeching the public to help find them.
Wife and Two-year-old Daughter of Wealthy Casino Magnate Abducted.
Aurora frowns.
“The official investigation was closed within a year of their disappearance, but he never stopped trying to find them,” I drag the photo of Diana back to the top of the pile. “It was always her, though. Always Diana. Until now.”
I flip to the next sheet, another image, and the shift in the room is palpable. Aurora audibly gasps.
“Who is that?” Eli looks between Aurora and the image on the table, seeing what I saw on the midnight highway after she almost killed Seven.
“It’s his daughter. Or at least, it’s what modern age progression software says she would look like now. A few months ago, Ambrose started putting this image out to multiple PI firms and posted this message on his official social platform.”
I show them a copy of his most recent post.
It has the image and a short message.
“It’s been exactly twenty years since my wife and daughter were taken from me,” I read aloud. “And not a day goes by that I don’t think of them. Today, I received this image of what my Delilah would look like from a friend at Harvard. It was created using the most advanced age progression software available on the market. Please, spread this far and wide. If you’re out there, Delilah, know that I will never stop searching. #FindDelilah.”