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THIRTY-SIX
Emiel
I STILL COULDN’T WRAPmy head around the idea of Byron stashing Tony away from his fucked-up family. Byron was supposed to be the asshole. It was how things worked in this house.
Sure, he was good with the kids at the Hope Project—convincing them to listen to boring crap like lectures on budgeting and investments, even though half of ’em would normally be fast asleep within the first ten minutes. Butthis... it was different.
He’d kept that shit quiet for how long, exactly? Just done what needed to be done and not told the rest of us, because if Zalen found out, it’d put him in a bad position. Course, now Zalenhadfound out, and it didn’t sound like he was gonna be rushing to tell the cops or Tony’s shitty parents where the kid was hiding. Not anytime soon.
Really, it was perfect—Tony just needed to stay off the radar until he was old enough for the courts to grant him emancipated minor status. Then he could reappear mysteriously with some story about living on the streets or whatever, and get the piece of paper that would protect him from his asshole stepdad.
In fact, it was so perfect I was a little bit pissed off that Byron was the one who’d come up with it. Which, yeah, waskind of stupid. Zalen couldn’t have done it with the police and Tony’s mom breathing down his neck about the whole thing. And I didn’t have anyone I could have sent Tony to stay with for safekeeping. Same for Luca, I was willing to bet.
So, okay... maybe it had to be this way. I just didn’t like having to change the way I thought about stuff. Or people. Especially people like Byron.
Byron and me, we had our thing. Which was basically that we lived together and kind of hated each other’s guts, but we’d still help each other out in a bind because—thanks to Zalen—we were sort of a pack, even if no one liked to talk about it.
Anyway, now I had to think differently about the asshole because he’d done something really good, when none of the rest of us could. And he was missing, along with Luca and Nat.
Zalen had trudged down the hall to his room after talking to me. I hadn’t heard any noise coming from inside for the last couple of hours. Which hopefully meant he was grabbing a bit of sleep.
Mia shifted restlessly against my side. She’d managed a few fractured hours of rest, punctuated by whimpers of distress that tore at my heart. Of course it had ended up being the three people she was closest to that got snatched. Life was fuckin’ unfair like that... but somehow it was even harder to swallow when it was unfair toher.
“Wha—?” she rasped, lifting her head away from my chest.
I’d spent most of my life avoiding touch, and only a handful of weeks allowing this kind of closeness. So, why did her absence feel cold the moment I lost contact with her?
She sat up, blinking in the mid-morning light filtering through Luca’s heavy blinds. I saw the weight of what had happened last night settle over her slender shoulders as confusion gave way to dismay.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
“Zalen came back earlier,” I told her. “He talked to Byron’s gran, an’ she gave him another lead to check on. I think he’s getting’ ready to leave now.”
I could hear clumsy movement stirring down the hall; the kind of stumbling around that meant someone should’ve either slept longer, or not gone to bed at all.
“Oh,” she said again. “Okay. That’s good.”
“You need to get ready for the restaurant?” I asked.
She chewed her lip. “Emiel, I don’t know if I can do this. Act normal when they’re missing, I mean. Go into work like nothing’s wrong.”
I climbed to my feet on creaking joints and went to pick up Princess from the pile of cushions where she’d been curled up. I dropped her gently into Mia’s arms. “Pretty sure you can do anything you set your mind to,” I told her. “I expect Princess agrees.”
Mia always tried to make it sound like I was the one that rescued Princess. But the truth was, if she hadn’t been here to light a fire under my ass, Princess would’ve been put to sleep in the animal shelter without me ever finding her.
Mia cuddled the little gray cat against her chest for a long moment, pressing her face against Princess’ sleek fur. Then she got up, and there were fresh tear tracks on her cheeks as she cradled Princess in one arm, reaching out to grab my shirt front with her free hand.
I didn’t expect the press of her lips against mine as she pulled me down, and herself up enough to slot our mouths together. The unexpected kiss sent blood rushing down to my dick, which sprang up hard and ready against the inside of my pants.
Run, screamed the broken parts inside me. The muscles in my arms twitched with the instinct to push her away, to stop everything before a terrible monster made of shadows attacked both of us.
But this was Mia.
Mia, who’d said she wanted it when I’d had sex with her and believed that maybe I’d raped her.Mia, who’d slept curled up against my side on what was probably one of the worst days of her life. I let my breath out slowly through my nose, and tentatively reached a hand up to cradle the back of her neck as our lips slid together.