Chapter 28
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
First thing on Tuesday morning, Rowan had already been called back to Adele’s office.
Her pulse pounded in her throat and blood rushed in her ears, drowning out any other sounds as she made her way to the small room, which might very well seal her fate.
She hadn’t been greeted at the door with cops, and the stabbing hadn’t even made the news that morning, so Rowan suspected the reason for this summoning was Delilah related instead.
But that only made her more anxious. It made the creeping paranoia that something had happened crawl through her entire nervous system. She hadn’t seen Delilah yet today. No one had attempted to call her last night on Delilah’s behalf. Something could have happened.
Rowan took the chair in front of Adele’s desk without so much as a “hello.” Her nerves were getting the better of her as she ran through a hundred different scenarios in her mind.
Adele looked up, her gaze briefly flicking over Rowan.
Then, she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes while Rowan waited with mounting anxiety.
After entirely too long, Adele removed her hand from her face and spoke, her voice laced with disappointment.
“You should have hidden it better, Rowan.” Adele shook her head, leaning back in her chair. Her mouth formed a thin line as she looked on. “I really thought you’d be smarter about this. Hell, let’s be honest. I thought you’d take longer to break.”
Rowan swallowed a thick lump that had formed in her throat. No way. No fucking way Adele knew.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said weakly. Adele’s subsequent look could only be described as pity mixed with condescension.
“Rowan…”
She was about to deny it again, to continue pretending that she had absolutely no idea what Adele was alluding to. But then that opening statement rang through her head again: Thought you’d take longer to break.
“How long have you known?” Rowan asked instead, leaning back and hoping that she looked calmer than she felt.
“Since Riley contacted me about having Delilah transferred here.”
Rowan quickly shut her mouth, which had fallen open at the confession. Adele? She had helped set this up? It didn’t seem plausible to Rowan that this mild-mannered woman in front of her, the one Rowan had never known to get angry or swear. This woman was working with Delilah?
“Why?” Rowan asked, even though what she really wanted to ask was why the hell Adele was risking everything for a serial killer.
It was a hypocritical line of thought given that Rowan had literally killed for that same murderer last night, but that was different.
What Rowan and Delilah had… it was beyond any comprehension.
They both had a darkness that called to each other, that filled them with the need to consume. A trauma. A craving. An addiction.
Adele had none of those things.
“When I was ten,” Adele started, folding her arms on top of her desk and leveling Rowan was an incredibly serious expression, “someone close to my family started assaulting me. It continued until I turned eighteen and left home. I was never believed. Nothing was ever done.”
“Until Delilah,” Rowan guessed, a pang of sympathy shooting through her. Adele swallowed, nodding and shifted in her chair. She took a deep breath before continuing.
“She offered me an out,” Adele said. Her voice was choked and she cleared her throat.
“A way to finally feel free, to be safe again.” A noise sounded on Adele’s computer, pulling her focus for a second before she shifted back to Rowan.
“She was already in jail by that time,” she continued.
“I don’t know how she did it, I didn’t ask, but he was dead within days. I’m in her debt—exactly as she planned.
“I convinced the board that this was a worthwhile investment. That the fame our establishment would garner from housing Delilah would be worth the financial blow.” Adele explained steadily. Her words were slow, allowing Rowan to take everything in before she delivered the cutting blow.
“I also introduced Riley to Eliza, and I ensured that you stayed as Delilah’s primary guard, per Delilah’s request. I—I didn’t have a choice, Rowan—” Adele stopped herself, clearing her throat again.
“You have no idea how often I had to talk Eliza down from wanting you switched out with someone else.”
Rowan stared at her. Adele shook her head again, her large hoop earrings swaying with the movement. She barely even looked at Rowan as she said, “Delilah is not going to be happy about this.”
“Then let me stay,” Rowan argued, trying to avoid the strange feeling of betrayal from this information.
“I can’t. Rowan, you don’t understand. You’re on camera. Multiple people saw the footage before it was brought to my attention. This is not something I can sweep under the rug.”
Rowan clenched her fists in her lap, blunt nails digging into her palms. “How were we caught on video?” she asked, she’d been so careful.
“You were sloppy,” Adele hissed, clearly frustrated. “There’s a camera outside, where you took her yesterday. You, of all people, should have known that.”
Adele was right. She should have known that.
She checked the cameras every. Damn. Day.
But the issue was, Rowan only cared about the cameras in the building.
She only needed to know that they had functional surveillance on the patients and the workers while they were inside.
Those were the cameras they actually needed.
So yes, it had slipped her mind that there was one useless camera pointing at the employee smoking area.
A camera that, in Rowan’s aggravated opinion, shouldn’t fucking exist. But it did. And she’d messed everything up. She’d been too consumed in Delilah to think for one damn second.
“What happens now, then?” Rowan asked, silently kicking herself for her foolishness.
“You’re fired. Of course.”
“And Delilah?”
Adele pursed her lips. “I assume she’ll go back to prison. She was only here for one reason, and now that you won’t be here anymore, she has no use for the rest of us.”
Silence closed in around them as Rowan found herself at a loss for words, letting the news sink in.
She couldn’t lose Delilah, not so soon. All her planning, the years of work, would go to waste.
Rowan would have to start again, but it would be harder with this blight staining her record. She needed Delilah.
Adele broke the stillness that had settled before Rowan could go down a full-blown spiral.
“I can give you ten minutes,” she said, and Rowan was out of her chair in an instant.
“If you take longer than that, I’ll be forced to have someone escort you from the premises,” Adele called, her voice ricocheting off the walls as Rowan wasted no time rushing down the empty hallway to Delilah’s room. One final time to have Delilah.
For the first time since they’d started this dance, Rowan took Delilah by surprise. She’d not spoken a word to the guards as she yanked the door to Delilah’s room open, closing it just as swiftly, and spotted Delilah reclined on her bed, staring at Rowan with slightly parted lips.
Rowan knew she had to look crazed, the time limit front and center making her movements more frenzied as she slowly lost her mind. Delilah tried to get up, but Rowan pushed her back down, taking control—another first in their dynamic. She climbed on top of her. They had so little time.
“Rowan,” Delilah gasped, her voice thick with arousal. She pushed Rowan away, holding her back with one hand while she studied the desperate need in Rowan’s expression. A slow smile crept along her face. “You did it,” she said, gleefully, eyes roaming Rowan’s form.
“Yes.” Rowan was breathing hard, holding herself up, barely holding onto her restraint as she leaned further down, Delilah’s palm burning into her chest. “Delilah. Please,” she breathed, hoping her voice conveyed the urgent need threatening to take over, hoping Delilah would grant her this one final mercy.
Rowan sat up abruptly, hooking her fingers under the hem of Delilah’s pants.
She waited a split second, and when Delilah said nothing, she tugged, the pants coming free easily as Delilah lifted her hips, letting Rowan undress her.
She didn’t spare a single thought to the camera in Delilah’s room, to the guard behind it who could be watching them.
Nothing mattered right now. Nothing other than the woman under her. In a way, it made her feel free. Even if they only had eight minutes left.
Maybe Delilah could sense her urgency too. Maybe Adele had already warned her, because she didn’t speak as Rowan settled between her legs. Delilah tangled her hand in Rowan’s short hair, tugging hard until her scalp stung.
Rowan dug her fingers into Delilah’s hips as she tasted her for what could be the last time.
She memorized the tangy arousal that she’d become addicted to after one lick and sunk her tongue in deep.
Her teeth scraped over Delilah’s swollen, needy clit.
Delilah’s quiet moan was exactly what Rowan needed.
She wished she could take her time, could make Delilah come again and again, drawing out her pleasure until it hurt, until her own jaw ached and her neck cramped. But time wasn’t on her side. She’d be lucky if she got to feel those walls clenching around her at least once before she had to leave.
Rowan flattened her tongue against Delilah, moaning around her clit and maneuvering so she could shove two fingers inside. Delilah ground against her, taking control of the pacing once again while Rowan happily lapped at her, curling her fingers and pumping deeper inside.
She snaked her other hand under Delilah’s shirt, desperately grasping her breast and squeezing, barely reaching Delilah’s taut nipple.
She rolled the bud under her thumb, pinching at the same time as she curled her fingers again.
Delilah’s following moan was the loudest Rowan had pulled out of her yet, so she repeated the movement, stiffening her tongue to add harder swipes against Delilah’s clit.
It didn’t take much longer for her to come undone. Delilah tightened around Rowan, thighs squeezing her head before her body convulsed. Rowan gladly licked up her release, savoring it and refusing to stop until the sound of a fist on the door broke her from her haze.