16. Nora #3
He increases the pace, his thrusts becoming shorter, faster, more desperate. He is cupping my breast with one hand and driving his thumb into my clit with the other, until my knees stop holding and the only thing keeping me upright is him.
I feel the first wave of my orgasm hit - a long, rolling clench that grips his cock and drags a gasp out of him.
My legs give out, shaking uncontrollably, and he holds me up, his arms locked around my waist, hugging me tight against him as I spiral. My moans turn into breathless gasps, my entire body vibrating under his touch.
The sight and feel of me breaking sends him over the precipice. He lets out a guttural roar, driving himself into me one last time, pinning me against the wall as he erupts.
I feel him come in deep, hot bursts, filling me, his body racking with the intensity of a release that feels like a rebirth for both of us.
He stays there for a long time, buried inside me, our breathing the only sound in the hallway. He presses his face into the crook of my neck, breathing in the scent of sex and skin, feeling the slow settle of our heartbeats.
Eventually, we drift toward the bedroom in a daze of afterglow. In the warm dark, his heartbeat slows under my ear and his fingers trace patterns on my spine. For the first time in two years, the silence in my head has no questions in it.
“What happens now?” I ask, my fingers tracing lazy patterns across his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart beneath my palm.
“Whatever you want.” He catches my hand, presses a kiss to my knuckles, holds on like he’s afraid I’ll dissolve into mist if he lets go.
“I want Lily.” The words come out fierce. Certain. I push myself up on one elbow, and something in my face must change because Theo’s expression shifts to match it. “I want my daughter back.”
“Then we’ll get her back.” No hesitation. No qualifiers. He says it like it’s already done, like the universe wouldn’t dare deny me anything after what I’ve survived.
“And Adrian?”
“He’ll have to live with what he did.” Theo’s voice is quiet, but there’s steel underneath it. His jaw tightens, a muscle feathering beneath the skin. “He lost you twice. Once to the river, and once to his own confession. There’s no coming back from that.”
I let the words settle over me like a blanket. Like a verdict. Like the closing of a door that’s been hanging open for two years.
My phone lights up on the nightstand. The screen glows white in the darkness, insistent.
Then his. A twin glow from the other side of the bed.
I squint at mine through the dark. Brielle. Six missed calls.
Then someone is pounding on the door.
I’m out of bed before Theo can stop me, my heart already hammering against my ribs. The sheets tangle around my ankles and I kick them away. The pounding is getting louder. More frantic. The kind of knocking that doesn’t stop for breath.
I yank open the door, not caring that I’m wearing nothing but Theo’s shirt, not caring about anything except the ice flooding my veins.
Brielle is standing on the porch.
Her makeup is destroyed - mascara carved in black rivers down her cheeks, lipstick smeared across her chin like a wound. Her dress is torn at the shoulder, hanging loose, and her eyes are wild. Animal. The eyes of a woman who has finally hit the wall she’s been running toward.
Behind her, in the driveway, her car sits perfectly straight, perfectly composed. Lights off. Engine off. Nothing about it parked in a panic.
I don’t process it. I can’t process anything.
“She’s gone,” she gasps, the words tumbling out between ragged breaths. Her hands claw at the doorframe like she needs it to stay standing. “Lily. She’s gone.”
The world tilts.
My knees buckle.
And somewhere behind me, I hear Theo say my name like a prayer that’s about to go unanswered.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I went to check on her - after we got home - the sitter was asleep on the sofa, she never heard a thing - and her bed was empty.” Brielle’s voice fractures on the last word, her whole body swaying like a tree in a storm.
She grabs my arm to steady herself, and I let her, too shocked to pull away. “And on the pillow-”
She holds out her phone with shaking hands. The screen trembles so violently I can barely read it. Her nails are broken, I notice distantly. Like she’s been clawing at something. Like she’s been tearing the world apart looking for a child who isn’t hers.
A text message. From a number I don’t recognize. No words.
Just an address.
The numbers swim before my eyes. Then sharpen. Then burn themselves into my brain like a brand.
The street where I grew up. The house where I learned to walk. An address nobody on earth would send to a nanny named Eve Martin - unless they knew exactly who was going to read it.
My hand flies to my mouth. A sound escapes - something between a gasp and a moan, the kind of noise that comes from a place beyond thought.
“She knows,” Brielle whispers, her wild eyes locked on mine. Her lips are trembling, cracked and dry, and for the first time since I’ve known her, she looks like something hunted instead of something hunting. “Whoever has Lily - they know exactly who you are.”