I rise. “So, you were trying to trick me? You’ve known about the cameras all along?”
Saint rolls his eyes. “C’mon, Lo. You’re way smarter than this.”
“You’ve been deliberately messing with my head.”
He walks right up to me, grabbing the back of my neck. “At the start, yes. But not recently. We’ve begun to realize you’re not our enemy. We set this as a test, to see if we could trust you.”
“I guess I failed, huh?”
“You’ve just proven yourself now.”
I focus on the other part of his statement. “Why did you think I’m your enemy? And why didn’t you just come out and ask me about it?”
“Why didn’t you?” he asks in a softer tone.
I sigh, wondering how best to answer that. We both know this is more than just their trap. “Because I wasn’t going to do it.”
He nods, and I see the acceptance in his eyes. “I pushed you to it last night.” He grips the nape of my neck harder. “It was bullshit, babe. I told him what he needed to hear.”
“If you thought I’d betrayed you, why wouldn’t you have meant it?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
Prickles of awareness dance around the room, and he’s saying so much by not saying anything.
My tongue darts out, wetting my lips, and his eyes follow the movement greedily. “I’ve been so pissed all week that you did it. We didn’t think you would.”
I narrow my eyes to slits, because really? He smirks, instantly understanding my implication.
“Okay, Galen thought you would, but the rest of us bet on you remaining true to us.”
“Figures Galen would be the doubting Thomas.”
“Galen’s got…issues,” he says.
That’s putting it mildly.
“Discovering The Sainthood was responsible for your abduction softened him a bit, but he still doubted your loyalties because it takes a lot for Galen to trust people.”
“I can’t dispute that, because I did do it in the end.”
“You’re making it right now.” He pulls me into his chest, and I wrap my arms around his waist.
I look up at him, as his hands rest on my hips. “I’m sorry, and I regretted it the moment I did it.”
“It’s okay. There’s no harm done, and maybe, it was a good thing.” He takes my hand, bringing me back to the bed. He pulls back the covers, and I climb in.
“Why?” I ask when we’re sitting up, side by side, with the covers pulled up to our waists, our backs leaning against the headrest. “What don’t I know?”
“The Arrows have been making aggressive moves to take over our patch since we relocated to Lowell. They have gradually been getting braver. Sinner’s going nuts, and he’s not the type to sit around and wait to be attacked. He likes to bring the fight to his enemies.”
This is something I already know.
“One of our initiation tasks was to come up with a plan to draw them out. To force them into making a move so we can begin to take back control. Everyone wants to know where our warehouse is. It’s our most closely guarded secret.” He threads his fingers absently through mine. “So, we came up with a strategy. We’d give them a false location. False details of a new shipment. And then lie in wait for them to attack. Neutralize the threat.”
“The warehouse isn’t in Landing’s Lane?”
He shakes his head, grinning. “We use that premises for interrogation purposes, but we never store our supplies there. What most people don’t know is, we have a number of hidden locations. That’s just one of them.”
