“Then let’s eat.”
We did. But it wasn’t lasagna. And it wasn’t enough to satiate our desire.
I knew then, I would never be able to let her go.
13
JOLYN
I found Emerson watching TV,a lighter in his hand. It was Father’s lighter, engraved with his initials, but neither of them smoked. Emerson clicked it open, then closed, then open, then closed, the sound loud even with the news showing the recent multigovernment summit.
“These beasts, they’re everywhere.”
My heart leaped in my throat. I stared at the TV, not understanding what he was seeing. “What do you mean?”
“That guy, dictator in the Middle East, he’s one of them.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. They give off…an energy I can see.”
I swallowed, not having any way to dispute his claims.
“I understand it all now,” he went on. “They’re the ones responsible for Mother’s state. And her death.”
“How?”
“The marks on her car and body. She hit one of these beasts, and either it, or its friends, attacked her.” He looked at me then, cold determination in his eyes. “No one is safe with them around.”
* * *
The overhead light buzzed, making the throb in my temple intensify. After the night we’d had, and being up so long, I should take a nap, but I couldn’t turn off my brain. The words on my laptop screen blurred into nonsense. I touched my phone and noted the time: eight thirty in the evening.
Alina sat across the dining room table from me, a laptop in front of her as well. She didn’t look any better than I felt. We’d been too electrified from last night’s mission to relax.
It wasn’t like I slept well anyway. Chronic insomnia had plagued me since I was a child. The only time I’d ever experienced a full, uninterrupted night of sleep had been when Landon held me tight to his chest. I rubbed at the sting in my breastbone, shaking my head so I wouldn’t think about it. Right now, my fatigue was worse because the ebb of adrenaline was taking effect.
I flicked my gaze to Alina. She hadn’t said anything about the way I’d frozen last night. There hadn’t been reprimand in her tone after we’d gotten to safety, or censure in her gaze. I deserved both, but appreciated the lack.It won’t happen again.
If—when, the moment came to face my brother, I wouldn’t hesitate. Lives depended on it—and not just my own.
Not counting the near miss, the mission had been flawless. We deserved a win after the debacle at MBI. What we had now was a whole heap of intel that needed to be analyzed on top of the stuff Marley was trying to sort through from Alaska—and only three of us to do it.
And I could admit I was shit at going through data. Plan an op, no problem. Boots-on-the-ground mission? I had that covered. Read through pages and pages of files? You’d only get a couple hours out of me before I wanted to stab something. I think it had to do with my brother forcing me to go into the business program. I hated being in front of a computer.
“Um, Alina?” Marley called from the cockpit, and both Alina and I straightened at the strange tone in her voice.
“Yes?” she asked, standing.
“You swept the place for bugs and trackers after Mr. CEO left, right?”
Alina and I glanced at each other, eyebrows raised, then headed to the cockpit together.
“Yes,” Alina replied.
We stopped inside the door to see one of her monitors with a view of our property. My heart sped up. In the rays of the setting sun, Landon was at the gate, bolt cutters in hand—a contradiction to the fancy gray suit he wore. He broke his way through our fence to access the empty yard where I’d escorted him blindfolded only a day ago.
Titty fucker.
