It's hard to sit still and listen and I wish Atty would've brought the wireless headset so I could move, but I settle for bobbing my leg instead as Aurora does a really stellar jobof sounding like an anxious, innocent twenty-something who thinks she might be meeting her bio dad.
Fuck, she's really good.
Seven wags his brows at the look on my face, and even though he's muffled through the headphones, I hear him say, "Told you she'd ace this."
I wave him off, wanting him to be quiet so I don't miss anything, but the conversation has ended and Linette is on the phone with someone else now.
I wait a few more minutes to be sure they're done talking and then pull off my headset at the same time Atticus does.
"She's meeting him for dinner," I tell Sev.
"Sounds like it'll happen within the hour," Atticus confirms, fingers flying over keys as he continues trying to find a backdoor into the security system at The Rose Grand hotel and casino. He won't do it if it'll leave any footprints, but I think he wants a visual on Aurora as badly as I do, so he won't stop trying.
Sev's hand comes down on my shoulder and squeezes. "She's got this, E. She'll be back in Boone tomorrow, and we'll do the whole debrief together."
Atticus makes a sound of annoyance in his throat but says nothing. I think he's beyond trying to stop us from all going to the laundromat to see her at the same time.
I want to tell him if he's so worried about it thathecan be the one who stays back, but I know he'd never be cool with that.
Anyway, Sev's right, if anyone can do this, it's her.
"How's Ellie?" he asks, and Atticus brings up a photo Céline sent of Ellie on her leash, which says it was sent an hour ago.
"How didyou manage to convince Céline to leave her salon?"
"There were a lot of zeroes involved," he grouses, but we all know she would've said yes to helping us even without them. Atty now has her in an apartment only two blocks from Aurora's. She'll walk Ellie every day while my angel is in classes, sincetaking the city bus won't get her back and forth in time to do it herself, and buying her a new car would look suspicious.
"Think we can get some haircuts in while she's here?" Sev asks, running his fingers over the sides of his head. Normally, you can see the Greek crown inked into his skin there, but it's grown out so much that it's nearly invisible now.
"Not exactly a priority, Sev."
"It was just a question. You guys need to calm the fuck down."
I want to point out that he's the one who keeps getting up in the middle of the night hungry because he can't sleep. Atticus told me as much. I know why Atty was awake—I'm still processing that my angel drove her car off a bypass…but Sev? Nothing rattles him. Nothing keeps him up at night. So while he likes to pretend this isn't making him as uneasy as it's making us, I know the truth.
My hand begins to ache when Sev says, "They're there," and I see the little blue dot that's Aurora pulling into the parking garage of The Rose Grand.
I massage it absently, pulling the headphones back on to listen.
It's mostly quiet, and I flinch as I hit a sore spot in the tendons of my fingers, easing off the pressure.
There's muffled conversation as her clothes rub against the mic, and for a second, I think this was the worst idea.
I pull a headphone back. "Are we sure he won't check her for bugs?"
"Why would he?" Atticus asks, biting at a spot of dry skin on his lower lip.
"What if he does?"
"He won't," Atticus insists. "Not this time, anyway. He's meeting her for the first time. He's cautious, but not enough to want to come across as a paranoid psycho. We have to rememberthere aren't many people who know about his criminal empire. What reason would a businessman have to be that thorough?"
Sev pats my shoulder. "Relax, bro. Have some faith."
As I listen to Linette prattle on about the grandeur of the hotel and Ambrose's casino chain, I try to channel my inner Seven. Wishing for a morsel of his confidence. Because it's not that I don't thinkshecan do this, it's that I don't trusthim.
I trusted him once when he said he would give my mother's art back to me after painting for him for a year. Then he burned some of it in front of me.
I trusted him when he said he'd let me go home, but he never intended to.
