Inside I found a handgun, a few envelops full of cash, and several keyring full of keys with little plastic colored circles on the end of them that had numbers printed on them. I found the one with the number to Vivian’s locker on it and removed it from the ring.
I put everything back where I found it and pushed the woman in the chair back in front of the desk. I left the office and locked the door behind me using my magic.
I might not have given a shit about the woman I’d left in there but I felt a certain responsibility towards her until my magic wore off and she was no longer sitting there vulnerable and unable to defend herself. I wasn’t a complete asshole after all.
The SUV was silent when I climbed back in behind the driver’s seat. The tension was also there with Ariel but the silence was otherwise comfortable. So I knew my brother hadn’t said something stupid to make the situation any more difficult while I’d been inside. I knew I could trust him but sometimes his impatience could get the better of him.
I followed the signs around the lanes that indicated where the unit was located and parked in front of it. I shut the SUV down and turned in my seat to ask Ariel if she was ready. And found her looking right at me, finally looking like she’d left her mind for the real world once again.
Thank Christ.
I hadn’t even wanted to admit it to myself but I’d been staring to get a little worried about her frame of mind. A person could only take so much until they reached their breaking point and she had to be getting close to the edge.
“I need you two to make me a promise.”
That got my hackles up. I didn’t much like secrets and knew she was about to ask us to share one with her. There were some things that my brother and I wouldn’t be able to promise her, no matter how hard it would suck for the two of us to have to tell herno. Our loyalty would always lie with her but there were others we would always have to take into consideration as well. I hoped she wasn’t about to try and put us in an uncomfortable situation here.
That would piss me off and make me disappointed in her because she was better than that.
But this was Ariel I was talking about here. Anything was possible.
“I know how close you two are with my dad…”
Jesus. This shit just got worse and worse with every word out of her freaking mouth.
“Depending on what we find in here, I might not want you guys to tell him about any of this.”
“Ariel,” Simon started but she cut him off to speak over him in a rush.
“My dad spent years as a ghost of a man and it was all because of the actions of this woman. She wrecked his whole life. Over and over again. He’s been through hell and back so many times I can’t even keep track of them all. He’s finally at a place in his life where he’s truly happy and has everything he could ever possibly want. I don’t want to dredge up the past. It’s just going to hurt him. He deserves so much more than that and if we have a chance to save him from going down that road then I don’t think it’s so wrong to keep this from him. Just try to see things from my point of view here, please.”
I chewed over her words, carefully digesting them. I got where she was coming from. Her dad wouldn’t hesitate to keep something from her either if he thought it would hurt her. And I absolutely wouldn't fault him for that.
I caught my brother’s eyes and held them. We had a silent conversation where words weren’t needed. I could tell by just looking at him that he wanted to give her whatever she wanted without question. It was me who was the problem here. I did notwant to ever lie to Rain or hide anything from him. He deserved honesty from the two of us. He’d more than earned it from us.
But Ariel was right. He was happier than we’d ever seen him before and he didn't deserve to have his whole world rocked right now if we could avoid it.
I dipped my head and my brother sighed in relief. He’d been worried that I was going to say no. He should have known me better than that.
“Okay,” I told Ariel. “We’ll do things your way. For now. But you need to understand that if we find something that he absolutely should know about then it’s going to be you who calls him to explain to him what it is exactly that we’re doing here. Neither Simon or myself are going to get in the middle of that. You’re going to do it and you’re not going to be a brat about it. Okay?”
I didn’t care if she got offended by being called a brat because she damn well was one and she knew it. We all knew it.
“Trenton, come on, man.” My brother whined.
It did nothing for me. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t hesitate to do for my brother but his whining had lost the ability to affect me a very long time ago. You’d think he would have gotten that by now but apparently not.
They were both pains in the ass.
“No, Simon,” Ariel interrupted our stare off. “He’s right. I can agree to those terms and I know what you’re giving up in order to agree to this for me. I appreciate it. Thank you. It means a lot to me.”
“Now that we got that out of the way let’s stop procrastinating and get this shit over with.”
I wasn’t about to let her sit in the car all day in order to avoid going inside and dealing with this. She might have come out of her head and back into the real world but that didn’t meanshe still wasn’t attempting to stall in order to hide from things. Because she’d do that shit all day if we let her.
And since we were already here we might as well just get on with shit.
I got out of the vehicle and walked over to where the lock was at on the steel door. I dug the key out of my pocket and unlocked the lock.
