My heart raced. He’d said the next move was mine, and there was only one I could make. I brushed my lips across his.
“I’m scared I’ll get this wrong,” I whispered.
“Your foray into the dark web?”
“No, us.”
“There is no wrong or right. We’re just Nolan and Alexa, making shit up as we go along.” Yeah, because we never did get around to making that relationship plan. He returned my barely there kiss and wiped a tear from my cheek. Where had that even come from? “What can I do to help tonight?”
I choked out a laugh. Or was it a sob of relief?
“What I really need is coffee.”
“Espresso? Americano? Cappuccino?”
“Only heathens drink cappuccino in the evening.”
“Guess I’m a heathen then. You should try to eat something, even if you don’t feel like it.”
“Do we have ice cream?”
We. This thing was real, wasn’t it?
“Mint choc chip or cookie dough?”
“Cookie dough.”
Nolan let go, but before he reached the door, I stopped him.
“Wait.”
He turned. “You want whipped cream?”
“No. I mean, yes.” I was doing this. “The others I’m close to are Chase, Jez, Jay, and a covert team I work with to resolve problems we prefer not to talk about.”
“Is Jerry also on that team?”
I hesitated, then nodded.
“Are you okay with it?” Nolan asked. “Nobody’s pushing you into it? With your past…”
“My past doesn’t limit me. It drives me.” I wanted to be everything my parents thought I couldn’t. “Nolan, I don’t exactly know what love is supposed to feel like, but I think that maybe I love you too.”
A slow smile spread across his face, and the chains of tension that wrapped around my chest like a lumpy boa constrictor eased a couple of notches.
“Glad you finally got with the program.”
CHAPTER 23
ALEXA
When I shared a bed with Chase, we had rules. No stealing the blanket or quilt, no weird breathing, no straying from our respective sides of the mattress. Even in sleep, Chase was disciplined. He never snuck so much as a toe over the centre line.
Last night, I’d been too tired to explain the rules to Nolan. Too tired, too distracted, too traumatised. At three a.m., fuelled by caffeine and righteous anger, I’d witnessed a woman bleed out on camera. Seen the fear in her eyes. Watched as GutterMuse sawed open her throat and fucked her windpipe, then finally slipped a stiletto blade into her heart in his sick signature move.
Chase, Mr. Zen, had taught me breathing exercises, and I used those to stay calm as I streamed the session live to Special Agent Branning. In the chat box, I’d requested GutterMuse remove the woman’s ornate carnival mask, and Branning’s team had quickly identified her as Sasha Cheesel, a twenty-one-year-old college student who’d gone missing after a night out in Roxboro, North Carolina. So I was almost right—they’d moved south, but gone a little farther east than Alabama. The three other guests in Room 72 had been depraved assholes, determined to get value for money with ever more bloodthirsty requests, and Sasha had jerked and screamed as the_dollmaker first carved into her body, then branded her face with a red-hot screwdriver. Local law enforcement had begun going door to door in a desperate and ultimately futile attempt to find her.
The victim tally ticked up to forty-two.
