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“Okay . . .” I say.
“The door seal is also compromised, and the temperature inside is inconsistent. Anything you are storing in there could go bad until it’s fixed.”
“Right,” I reply, because telling him the seal has been broken for well over a year is probably not what he wants to hear, or that I have been unable to afford to fix it. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re all inside my house.”
Noa straightens up, pushing off the counter. “Well, we all came here together, which was an experience. Cipher tried to pull my cassette player right out of the dash. I like 80s music, but him, not so much. Then the big man got mad because I slapped Cipher’s hand.”
“Noa . . . I’m asking how you got inside my house.”
Noa opens his mouth and closes it as he glances at Cipher, who answers me. “The lock on your front door is a single-cylinder deadbolt, which was installed incorrectly. Anyone with a basic lock-picking set or a credit card and thirty seconds could get inside.”
“But we had tools,” Noa adds.
“I can see that.”
“In our defense,” Noa continues, “we didn’t come here to break in, but the door being broken . . .”
“Was an opportunity to let yourself in?” I drawl sardonically.
He points at me. “We were concerned for your safety, which is why Cipher is going to fix it before we leave.”
Cipher reaches into his pocket and pulls out a deadbolt, as if that’s a normal thing to have available.
Cave grunts and turns the paper over, sliding it toward me. When I walk over and scan it, I see it’s an NDA with a lot of legal jargon I don’t know shit about. There are clauses about the island’s operations, night events, and the staff. At the bottom there are two signature lines, one of which has already been signed.
“You came here with an NDA?”
Cave doesn’t respond.
“Well, when you were asking about the island, I couldn’t tell you anything, but after you left, I bumped into Cave. I told him about our talk, and he dragged me to Cipher’s shed. I think it was supposed to be a meeting of sorts, but since he doesn’t talk, Cipher and I did, and it has been made clear Cipher belongs to Cave.”
“I do not belong to him,” Cipher says, and Cave grumbles. The big guy doesn’t like that correction.
“I just thought that if you sign it, and you wanted to come back, I don’t have to worry about saying things I shouldn’t,” Noa explains. “And also, you won’t have to leave before the guests arrive. Ares is a stickler for the rules.”
I don’t have to think about it hard—digging a freaking grave with a man I just met was the most fun I’d had in a long time. Besides, I really want to know what goes on there, and they can’t tell me without me signing an NDA.
“I don’t have a pen.”
Noa reaches into his pocket and pulls one out, holding it toward me. He smiles as I take the pen, and Cave watches me lean over the table to sign my name, then set the pen down. Cave picks up the paper and folds it in half, then carefully puts it inside his weird jacket.
“So,” Noa says. “Do you have anything to eat? We’ve been here for two hours, and I only had half a sandwich before we left.”
“You can’t eat her food,” Cipher says from the floor.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s rude. She wasn’t expecting us, so order some pizza.”
Noa claps. “Why didn’t I think of that two hours ago?”
Noa starts opening my drawers, rifling through the contents. “Do you have a menu anywhere?”
I laugh. “No, I can’t afford takeout, but there is a place down the street.”
Noa declares he will be back soon, and I take a seat opposite Cave. I wonder how my life went from being kidnapped from an alleyway to having three men in my kitchen. Sure, they’re all weird in their own way, but they seem harmless enough.
Chapter Eight
