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18

MAEL

I should really work on her fear response.

Being stuck frozen in the face of danger because she was scared wasn’t good for her.

And with my line of work, we were bound to face some danger a time or two. Not that I would ever let anything happen to my girl. I would protect her, no matter what, but still.

I pulled back from her and took in her sleeping face.

It wasn’t peaceful.

I should probably leave her alone after this and let her relationship with me as Mael progress in the way I need it to, but like an addict who vowed to get clean, I broke my promise each and every time, coming back to her night after night.

Some good things came out of this. I now knew what her go-to fear response was.

I leaned down and kissed her cheek. She frowned slightly but didn’t wake.

I should probably leave soon, before she wakes up, and try to get at least a few hours of sleep.

I pulled her in closer to me, burying my face in her hair and taking in a deep whiff of her scent that seemed to always bring me comfort.

Finally, I forced myself to move away from her.

I didn’t go home and catch a few hours of sleep like I planned.

I went to the crematorium, where I knew Theo was. He had his own place. He didn’t have to spend so much of his time here, but he was a worse insomniac than I was.

He was still awake when I walked in, lost in thought and staring at the small ember of flame he had lit in the portable fireplace he had placed in the corner of the room. I knew he was aware of me the moment I pulled up. My brother wasn’t careless. I pulled out a chair and brought it close to him, taking a seat and staring at the flame as well.

I didn’t need to ask him what he was thinking about.

Probably more about our messed-up past. Probably about the fire that killed his mom and left him homeless and with no one to lean on until he met me. I had been the same way. Perhaps that was why we were so close and why our relationship could border on being codependent.

I didn’t say anything when he took out his phone, pulled up something, and showed it to me. It took a moment for me to realize what I was looking at.

“Lia’s friend and Leo Briggs?” I asked. That was a surprise. One I didn’t even know, and I knew almost everything there was to know about the fucker.

“They’re careful. They don’t want anyone to know.”

“Huh.”

So the friend had been sleeping with Briggs, even when she spent most of her time flitting from one man to the next. And I knew I hadn’t imagined it when she flirted with me back at the coffee shop.

But this?

So were they just in a fucking relationship, having fun, or was it something more?

“It’s been going on since the girl was a freshman in college,” Theo said before I could ask.

So something more.

If it had been that long, what role did Victoria play in all this?

I looked at the picture. It wasn’t the best shot. It was obvious Theo had been looking at them from a distance. They were outside Briggs’s house when it happened, which meant they probably tried to keep some emotion from showing on their faces, but I thought it looked like the girl was more than just infatuated with Briggs.

She was in love with him.

But the man was obsessed with Lia.

My phone vibrated in my pocket—not the phone I had taken from the fucker Briggs had put on Lia, but the phone I used to talk to clients. I pulled it out to see Briggs’s name flashing on the screen.

Speak of the devil, and he will come.

I showed the screen to Theo before answering it, putting the call on speaker.

“Briggs.”

“What is taking so long?” he said, impatience bleeding through his voice.

I narrowed my eyes. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. What am I paying you for if you can’t even do a simple task of finding a goddamn book?”

“You’re paying me to kill your friend and business partner. Or did you forget? Now I would watch how you speak to me if I were you. Lest I remind you just how good I am at my job.”

He stuttered a little on the phone. Briggs wouldn’t be hard to kill, but there was still something I needed from him. If he pushed me enough, I might just forgo everything and go after the man myself. I glanced over at Theo.

“I’ll also pay you to find his book,” Briggs said, the impatience now gone from his voice.

“That’s a little better,” I said, imagining the tic moving over his temple to showcase his annoyance. I grinned a little at the thought. “I’ve scoured every place Luckas owns. You know what would be helpful? If you told me where I should look. After all, you know the man better than me.”

“That’s your job,” he gritted out.

I didn’t say anything.

He let out a small sigh. “His daughter.”

His words had me sitting up. “What about her?”

“The book might be with her.”

“Does she know that?” I asked.

“Probably not. But she might be a good place to look into.”

How… interesting.

“If you’re going to look into her, I want you to leave her out of this mess, you hear me?”

My grip tightened around the phone. “Is she important to you, Briggs?”

“Just leave her out of it,” he snapped. “She has nothing to do with this, you hear me?”

“Crystal clear.”

I hung up the phone before he could say anything.

“Is the book really with her?” Theo asked.

“I haven’t seen it.”

“Have you searched her apartment thoroughly? You know, besides snooping in her underwear drawers?”

I shot him a look.

The fucker just grinned at me.

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the fireplace, thinking. If Lia had the book, surely she would have known about it and looked through the contents. And if she had, those rose-colored glasses she wore around her father and Leo would have been effectively off.

But she still looked at them like they were her heroes.

I didn’t know I was a jealous man until her.

Until I realized I didn't want her to look at any man like that, save for me, even if there was no fucking way possible she had any romantic feelings toward them.

No, she didn’t know about the book. And there was a small part of me that didn’t want to look any further, knowing I wouldn’t be keeping this from her.

There would be no secrets between us, but once she knew, once she realized she had been lied to her whole life, she would be hurt.

And fuck, how I hated the thought of her hurt.