Misha cackles. “I know. Insane, right? But all the horse shit somehow reminded me of the knight games we went to in college. Although then we looked like peasants in comparison.”
I smile to myself.Those weregood times.
Maybe we can take Amelia to one of them when we’re back.
“That charade is nothing like the knight games,” Grey retorts dryly, rolling his eyes. “Those at least have some historical accuracy.”
“Oh, right.” Misha chuckles, flopping back against the headboard, his arms spread wide. “I forgot you’re into that shit, and you always wanted to be a knight in shining armor. Rescuing your princess. And here we are.”
“Shut up,” Grey grumbles, the corners of his mouth twitching upward despite his irritation.
I’m fine with him playing knight as long as we get Amelia out of here.
Speaking of…
“What are we doing now? She looked so fucking uncomfortable. But I don’t think we’re any closer to bringing her home. She’s still mad.” The image of Amelia’s strained smile and tense posture flashes through my mind, making my chest tighten with concern.
“Rightfully so,” Misha adds.
Grey runs a hand through his hair, his expression thoughtful. “We’re just gonna play this game, have patience. It’s not going to be a quick fix, but we’re in it for the long haul anyway.”
“That she thinks we only watched her for our project hit hard. She doesn’t really believe that we’re here for her.” The hurt in Amelia’s eyes when she’d said those words still haunts me.
Misha looks at me, his expression softening. “Why wouldn’t we be here for her? We flew ten hours just to say we’re sorry. That’s got to count for something, right?”
“Priority number one is to make her feel it,” Grey says, determination in his voice, his jaw set in the way it does when he’s facing a particularly challenging coding problem.
Misha sighs, sinking deeper into the bed. “Well, I wanted to show her tomorrow, but that’s going to be a fuckup with all of them coming too. So much for a moment alone.”
“You’re gonna do your thing, and we’re gonna make sure they’ll leave you alone for a little while at least,” I reassure him, although I have no idea how we’re going to manage that. It seems like August is determined to keep us away from his sister.
“That would be amazing, thanks.”
Misha’s words settle, his gaze lifting to the ceiling, the weight of uncertainty hanging in the air.
“I’m still not quite sure if she believes that we weren’t the ones who took her project,” I confess, the doubt gnawing at me.
How could she think that of us in the first place?
Because we broke her trust.
“Another reason to find out who did it as soon as possible,” Grey replies, moving to sit at the desk. The soft clack of his laptop sounds loud in the silence.
As loud as the name that keeps popping up in my mind.
Hendricks.
I can’t shake the memory of tackling him, the fear in his eyes. Something about him just seemed… off. It’s like a nagging itch at the back of my mind, refusing to let go. Every time I close my eyes, I see that moment, the desperation in his movements, so different from the calculated calmness he always radiated before everything happened.
“I’m still thinking it was Hendricks. There would have been enough time for him to steal it, hit Amelia over the head, go change, and then come back to look after her, appearing innocent,” I say, voicing my thoughts.
Grey nods slowly, his fingers already flying across the keyboard, pulling up files that might help us piece this puzzle together. “We need to look into this some more. Track his movements from that day, check for inconsistencies. Anything that can give us a lead.”
Misha groans. “Already checked. Ollie, we would have seen him going to his place on the building’s surveillance. But the guy in black left.”
“True, but there aren’t enough cameras on the streets around the building for Grey to check where he went. He could have just changed and turned back around.”
I know he could have.
