That could be true. Not that I had literally anything to go off of. I was being consumed by paranoia and my brain was willing to latch onto any plausible theory. No matter how outlandish.
Leo leaned forward. “You have every right to be concerned, but we’ve got you. Nothing is going to happen to you so long as we’re breathing.”
She was right. I knew she was right. But then why couldn’t I quiet this voice?
Then I caught on Dom, silent. In the months I’d been here, I’d learned little about her. The one thing I knew for sure was that she wasn’t one to keep her opinions to herself.
“Any thoughts?” I looked over at her, spotting somewhere to target my anger.
With a jilted laugh, Dom slammed her computer shut. “Come again?”
Her hackles were up, something about the question slicing through her armor.
Now Spencer and Leo couldn’t help but turn their attention too. Leo’s forehead wrinkled as she studied Dom’s face.
It was Spencer who hopped in first. “Yeah, what do you think about all of this? You looked at his phone, what’d you see?”
Dom swallowed hard, gaze flicking between all of us.
All eyes were on her.
14
DOM
“Nothing.”Another bald faced lie I was telling to the only two people in this world that I trusted. “His phone was just full of dating apps and dick pics.”
“Ew.” Spencer cringed, leaning back in her chair.
It was obvious that Kiera was suspicious of me, but she’d spread that concern to Leo. For now, Spencer hadn’t noticed another wrong. But I knew Leo. Like a dog with a bone, she wouldn't let it go once she got a scent.
And I couldn’t be sure they’d believe this lie. Because Ididfind something else on his phone: an app I’d never seen before. One with the Zeus industries logo and a password encryption that scumbag-Grant wouldn’t give up.
Finding it had sent a wave of shock through my body. All of my worst fears realized in a matter of seconds.
But the worst part was that Spencer, Leo, and Kiera were starting to catch on. Every day that I kept the truth from them — that Zeus must have something to do with the men building a trafficking ring in our own backyards — was another day of lost trust I’d have to fix when they inevitably found out.
And I wasn’t ready to beg for forgiveness. Especially not fromher.
Leo scoffed. “Bullshit, it couldn’t have been nothing. You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
Yeah like my own mother resurrected in front of my face.
But she wasn’t wrong, just wrong about when the haunting had begun. My eyes flicked over to my personal apparition, Kiera’s prying eyes peeled on me.
She wouldn’t look away. Something she’d always been good at, staring me down until I told her the truth. Out of all of them, Kiera just might have been the best at seeing right through me. She just didn’t realize why.
I wondered if she felt haunted by me, by this house as much as I did.
Maybe we were just two ghosts dancing in the dark halls of this abandoned manor, waiting for someone to free our souls.
No one would come to free us, no priest with holy water to rid us of this demon. We’d have to do that ourselves.
Right now, all I needed was to get Leona off this. If she could be diverted, I could keep hiding from the truth.
“No. Frustrated by more dead ends.” Swallowing the truth, I looked back at Leo and tried to sell the lie.
I felt Leo’s suspicious eyes, taking in my every mannerism.
