A little surprised, Kiera smirked back at me.
Dom was scary, but she was also our rock. Our new guest would learn that soon enough. Valemont Violence needed her.
Kiera and Leo moved toward the couches, ready to lounge around.
But I couldn’t stop looking down the hallway. If Dom was off kilter, all of us were at risk. There was a chain reaction for us. There was no Justice without balanced scales.
So whatever was going on with Dom, I needed to find out and fast. Because whoever this girl was, she was enough to knock all of us off course.
14
DOM
Fuck,fuck, fuck!
The word echoed off the walls of my mind. My footsteps on the hardwood sped up to match the heartbeat thundering in my ears.
I never should have agreed to let her stay — I should have dragged her out the night she showed up, before I ever found out who she was. I should have burned this entire house down years ago. Instead, I’d built a home on haunted grounds and was surprised when my demons came back to play.
It’s Kiera — my Kiera.
I shook my head. Kiera was never really mine. It just felt good to pretend she was.
It would be more accurate to say that I was hers — her watchdog, her shadow. One peal of her laughter was enough to crank the vise around my lungs. One tear, and I would rip whatever had hurt her apart with my bare hands.
But that was then. And now —
I found myself standing in the center of this old bedroom, holding vigil to the dust my idiot roommates had unsettled. I’dmeant to head for my office, but of course my feet brought me here instead.
Eyeing a crease in the dusty, pink duvet, I scowled. All I wanted to do was send her away.
But that wasn’t an option — not without a plan that would keep her hidden, safe.
I paced, looping between the window and the door but careful not to touch any of the furniture.
Maybe it’s a good thing she’s back.I tried hopelessly to convince myself. If I could keep Kiera close, keep an eye on her, maybe I could figure out how much she remembered.
Not much, it seems.I scoffed, scuffing my foot over the worn floorboards, ignoring the sharp pain in my chest.
If this was Kiera, then her boyfriend — the douchebag Leo and Spence had beaten up — was definitely Gabe. It was too strange to be a coincidence. I’d been desperate enough to convince myself it wasn’t true before, but I couldn’t keep running from the truth.
Does Isaac know?A chill ran down my spine.Definitely.
It was his trade, after all, to know. Brokering privacy into false security for the customer. Turning their private data into a profit for shareholders.
Decades of practice let me build a life within the margins of his blindspot, but someone as loud, brash, bold as Kiera? He knew exactly who she was — probably sent Gabe after her, if I had to guess.
The real question was why.
I’d hoped they would let her fade into the past, an unfortunate yet insignificant blip — it was certainly what I wanted to do. But if they were keeping her so close, they must know something I didn’t…
Lucky for me, Gabe’s little fuck up had given me an advantage here — they’d lost an asset, and I’d gained a clue.
It didn’t come free, though — if Isaac found out that my roommates were the ones to come after Gabe, he’d weaponize the morality clause in my contract and have me removed from Zeus’ board — The Oracle wouldn’t stand for that.
And if he found out Kiera was here? He might just kill me.
Is that why she’s here? To spy on me? To kill me?
