There’s a tense moment of silence. My eyes widen. “Italy,” I whisper.
“This is the proof we need! We can take them down, Nova. And it will likely help your case, too,” Noell says, beaming, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her smile.
“But what about Owen?” I ask, happy that we’re getting what we need to end the crime syndicate once and for all, but I’m still worried we won’t be able to save the man I’ve come to love.
Everyone stares at me blankly except Parker. His face falls, and it looks as though he might cry.
I pull back from the computer screen. “Compile all the evidence against the crime syndicate. Peyton all but confirmed their headquarters is the Vivario in Sicily. I do not doubt that if we raid the place, we’ll find the people in charge. In the meantime, I’m going to Owen’s house. He said he kept all correspondence with the CEOs of the companies he acquired. I’m hoping there is something in there that can help us.”
“Did he say there was?” Parker's hopeful voice makes my heart sink.
I shake my head. “He said it only implicates him further, but I’m checking anyway.”
“Oh,” is all Parker says as he slumps against the couch cushions.
On my way out, Parker blurts, “Do you want company?”
I don’t turn right away. I want to say yes, but I also don’t know if my heart can take it. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold myself together in the one place that is completely and utterly Owen.
When I face Parker, he’s looking at me expectantly, with misplaced hope dancing in his eyes.
“I could use the company,” I squeak out.
Parker smiles, the identical dimple to Owen’s making an appearance. My heart clenches at the sight of it. He jumps up off the couch, grabs his half-drank coffee cup and his black leather jacket, and follows me out the door.
Noah’s waiting to escort us. He leaves behind a few of his security guards to protect the apartment.
None of us says anything on the thirty-minute drive to the small, stone cottage. Noah stations himself outside the house, checking the perimeter. Parker grabs the hidden key under the flower pot by the front door, and I roll my eyes at the idiocy of hiding it there.
When we both step inside, it’s silent. The only sound comes from the faint hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.
Parker walks toward the sink. A few dirty dishes sit there as if someone’s still living here. Nothing, it seems, has been touched since Owen’s arrest. It still smells like coffee, with a hint of pine. A hint of Owen.
I choke down the emotion threatening to burst and turn right, toward the living room. The books haven’t been touched. Owen’s notes are still spread across the coffee table. I blindly follow the directions Owen wrote on the piece of paper he gave me at the jail. The folder we’re looking for is tucked under the couch cushion closest to the window.
Sure enough, when I pull the cushion up, there’s a sizable manilla folder overflowing with papers.
I smell a new batch of coffee and register the quiet clanking of dishes. I read copies of email after email. The reasons why Owen did what he did solidify with each one I read. Those men were monsters, and Owen knew it.
I’m so absorbed in reading that I don’t recognize Parker standing right in front of me until he shoves a steaming cup of coffee right under my nose.
I finally look away from what I’m doing and mumble a quick thanks as he plops down next to me. He takes a large sip of his own coffee before asking, “Find anything?”
I shake my head. “Aside from the fact that all of these emails make me want to murder these men all over again?”
Parker raises a brow. “That bad?”
“That bad.”
“But nothing that might help him?”
“Not yet.”
We sit in companionable silence for a while as Parker reads the emails I’ve finished, the crease in his brow deepening with each one.
I’m three-quarters of the way through, and am about to give up, when a single word catches my eye on the next paper.
Kill.
