“Having trouble concentrating?” Alina asked from where she sat on one of the sofas, her own laptop balanced across her knees.
“You could say that,” I muttered, unable to meet her gaze, embarrassed I was mooning over LandonfuckingUrick like a teenager.
“Would this have something to do with Lover Boy?”
Scrubbing my hands over my face, I groaned and turned to her with a “what do you think?” expression she couldn’t mistake.
She set her laptop on the coffee table and patted the space beside her. “Come here and talk it out.”
I couldn’t resist the offer, and dove at my friend, setting my cheek on her stomach to grip her around the waist in the hug I desperately needed. The scent of wildflowers swirled around us.
She waited, stroking my spine, not offering any words, just comfort. My throat tightened at the kindness. What did I do to deserve friends like Marley and Alina? Two women who’d dropped everything to move to Detroit when I told them what kind of trouble I was in and what I planned to do.
Growing up, I hadn’t made many friends, even though Goldenlach Ridge wasn’t that big. A lot of that had to do with my brother. First, it was him telling me not to bring people home because it upset my mother, even though she never showed signs of being upset. Then it was the knowledge my friends would be at the mercy of Emerson’s whims as much as I was if they were in his sphere. Call it a self-preservation instinct, but I stopped trying to make connections because of it. Everyone in school labeled me a rich snob. I used that label as a weapon, keeping people away. It was one of the reasons my infatuation with Kane Baird became a safe haven, an imaginary escape.
I’d never realized how lonely I was until I’d gone to university. By then, I’d already built solid patterns to keep myself distant from others. It wasn’t until Emerson sent me to work for Landon that I opened myself up to someone.
God, I was so fucked up. It could have been another of my brother’s manipulation tactics. Had he known how hard I’d fall for someone who showed me the least bit of affection? With Landon, I hadn’t been able to keep my distance. He’d knocked down the bricks in my walls one by one. If it hadn’t been him, but someone else, would I have fallen as hard?
No.There’d been other boys, other men. I’d dated in university and none had stirred me the way Landon had. I’d seen two guys while in the military, and neither had come close to the connection I had with Landon. It had been impossible not to compare any guy who’d shown an interest in me to him.
While I sorted through my thoughts, Alina stroked my arm, both of us silent. Only the quiet sounds of Marley moving around in the cockpit broke the hush now and again.
“He hates me,” I said finally, admitting to the true crux of the matter. “He used to love me.”
Alina didn’t ask a question or make a comment, but stayed quiet with a supportive hand on my shoulder.
I finished the thought. “I could survive living with the fact he’d probably been hurt, probably didn’t like me much. But now he knows the truth—that I went to work for him under false pretenses and stole from him—and I can’t hide from the facts. I’m no longer blissfully unaware of his feelings. He hates me and he’ll never forgive me.”
“And it bothers you why?”
I already knew the answer to that, and Alina probably did too. Did she really need me to say it aloud?
She gave me a gentle shake when I didn’t speak.
I sighed with a heavy breath. “Because I care about him. Of course it matters what he thinks if I still have feelings for him.”
“And it would be so much easier if you didn’t have feelings for him, but we can’t turn off our feelings, unfortunately.”
“Yes.” I closed my eyes, remembering the coldness in his gaze as he slid into the taxi. If I didn’t care, then it wouldn’t have hurt so much.
“Hey,” Marley called from the cockpit. “Both of you get in here.”
The edge of her tone got us moving. I untangled my limbs from Alina’s embrace, and we hustled to the cockpit. Two of her monitors were filled with code, the other two with what looked like forms and documents.
“What did you find?” I asked, moving to stand behind Marley’s chair while Alina sat in the second.
“Something interesting. I made some leeway with the files you collected in Alaska. I’ve done a lot of keyword searches and have separated some important documents into categories. Most of the ones regarding the Alaskan compound I’ve filed under ‘reprogramming.’ There’s something else that has a lot of documentation and it’s called BDX-32. I didn’t know what it was at first, but it might be some kind of drug. I haven’t found anything about it online.”
She glanced at me then, and I shook my head. “Haven’t heard of it either.”
Marley turned to her monitors. “Following that path, it’s mentioned in conjunction with an abandoned and condemned warehouse outside of Detroit. Your brother bought the place using a shell company. I’m also seeing invoices for the same property. I don’t think it’s vacant.”
“You think something’s going on there right now?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
