“Tomorrow,” Kane mutters.
My eyes drag to the closed door behind him. Trouble in the Berkeley household again, it seems. If I didn’t have her in the car, I would stay and help. But not tonight.
I step into the cool, misty night, placing my hands in my pockets as I make my way back, crunching burned-umber leaves into mulch under my boots. The moon shines through the narrow, split trees drawn in the dark sky, lighting my path back to her.
She must be waist-deep in my phone by now. I can only imagine her expression while she fishes for dirt. There isn’t much to find. Messages from my group chat in codes she won’t understand, and photos of her that she’s welcome to admire. Though hopefully nothing to do withthispart of my life. It’s too soon. If she saw what I’m like mid-hunt, she’d fucking run. The girl may have Elton’s DNA, but she’s through and through her Labour councilor father’s daughter. Ever the fucking morality police.
Not that she’ll make it far. I’ll chase her down and drag her back. But I’m trying to get her the right way. Even if she is making it as hard as fucking possible.
I reach the car and open the door slowly, my palm gripping the frame as the sight sinks in.
The passenger seat is a hollow imprint.
She’s gone.
She’sfuckinggone.
19
EVA
I can’t believehe brought me to some creepy, dark woods and just left me here.
Why are we here? What’s going on in that daunting lodge, hunched in the woods, like a trap disguised as shelter? The wooden carved name plate readsBerkeley Lodge.
Not that I needed to read the sign to tell meheis here. I recognize that Jeep. It belongs to the one and only Kane Berkeley—the second most powerful name in Fort. More popularly known as the Grim Reaper, as Penny said.
Most people consider Mason the scariest of Fort men, me included. But there is something about Kane Berkeley that is so cold and deadly, it makes a person want to scream just to know they’re still alive.
The man is always dressed in black; a shadow in the night. The deep ice look that holds the weight of an old soul. And that glare—like he already has a headstone picked out for you.
Seriously, if serial killers had a social media page, he’d be the profile picture.
Why would Mason assume I would leave the safety of thiscar and go anywhere near Kane Berkeley? Despite what he may witness on his midnight patrol, I’m not suicidal.
My gaze peels from the dark forest to Mason’s phone in my hand, my thumb hovering over the screen, flirting with a boundary that feels dangerously intimate. I’m not above snooping on Dan or Caden or raiding Penny’s snack stash. But this feels different. Strange. New. Personal.
With my teeth trapped under my lip, I flick the screen up and freeze at his wallpaper—me.
Asleep in my nightgown, mouth parted, hair all over my face.
My heart does a whole somersault before my brain has a chance to react. I honestly don’t know whether to be offended at being snapped when I was unconscious or to be flattered. Besides, the picture is anything but flattering. Why would he keep this?
I scroll across, back and forth, on his apps just to keep it from locking, secretly pleased to know Tinder isn’t one of them. Though what would Mason Grant need Tinder for? Not only is he hot as sin. Annoyingly so. But with the influence that comes with his name, he’s downright unreachable. And unlike me, he knows exactly how to use his name to his advantage.
After a few seconds of aimless scrolls, I click on his messages.
My pulse stutters.
Somuch worse than Tinder.
Rows and rows of sultry messages from unknown numbers, with hearts and emojis, flood his inbox. Some are just images that I’m scared to open. Apparently, neither did he. They areallunread.
Except the one I was most curious about. Third from the top, after a group chat and me.
Lottie Pike.
He has her saved under her nickname? Interesting.
