Swallowing, he granted me a slow nod.
“So there’s no escaping this feeling?” I whispered miserably.
“No. Just… you delay it.”
“How can we ever find peace, Nyx?”
He sucked in a breath. “I wish I knew, baby. I wish I knew.”
From: [email protected]
Subject: Love you
I know you’ve seen my texts and aren’t answering, so I figure things are crazy over there.
I’m so sorry, baby. So fucking sorry.
I love you. More than my life. I would fucking kill to take this from you, but I can’t. Instead, the only thing I’ve ever been able to do is to be there. Even when you didn’t want me.
I didn’t run from you when I went to LA. I need you to know that.
I dealt with business, and then, when I was getting gas, something happened and it made me realize I had shit I needed to do on the other side of the country.
I needed a break—that’s no lie. I needed to get away.
From everything.
From life.
But not you.
I’ve done some stuff over the years, but I never imagined having to do what I did… That broke me. After… the shattered pieces of my fucking soul were just incapable of holding up under what went down.
I will always be your shelter in a storm.
Get some rest, baby, knowing that I love you.
K
FORTY-ONE
RACHEL
GIRL - DESTINY’S CHILD
Rex texted a few times before I fell asleep, but I didn’t have the energy to handle that, not after Giulia went nuclear.
Not at me, but in general.
She and Nyx were exhausting. They seemed to consume all the oxygen in a given space, and that bathroom was far too small for the three of us.
When her eyes lit up like they were on fire, and her hair looked as if it were standing on edge, I knew I was staring at the exact reason why she and Nyx worked—he was the Joker to her Harley Quinn.
Without the breakup.
The next morning, after I cried myself to sleep, I read Rex’s email. Too tired to call him, I just replied, telling him that I was okay and that I’d call him sometime later. I also asked to reschedule the video call with Wynter.
After showering and changing, I found myself driving over to Lily’s, grateful for the reprieve.
Parker and Susanne were quiet because they had a caseload that told me I needed to hire some more staff, and while I knew I should take advantage of the ride to her place, I’d given Emile the day off because I needed him not to see the wreckage after this initial group meeting.
The house was beautiful. A mansion set amid a blanket of snow. The ornate driveway was twenty-feet long and was dusted with more snow, but it looked like powdered sugar. Some drifted to the ground after I pulled up at the intercom to declare my name, and the gates opened inward. As I drove down the driveway, I found myself impressed by the grandeur.
When I pulled up outside the house, I noticed Lodestar was standing in the doorway.
As I studied her, I thought about how odd a woman she was.
The kind you didn’t know whether you liked or not.
I couldn’t deny that she was a hard worker, solid and dependable in a sense, especially when it came down to securing the Sinners, but there was also something untrustworthy about her.
I figured it was because I knew she had her own agenda for being here, and right now, it suited her to help the Sinners out.
That wasn’t how loyalty worked.
Rex had once told me that her own people had sold her out, that was how she’d gotten involved with the Sparrows. She’d been inducted into their sex trade as a punishment.
A part of me wanted to believe the US was incapable of treating their citizens like that, but I knew better.
Was it any wonder loyalty for her wasn’t an olive branch but a potential minefield she had to cross?
When I climbed out of the car, she didn’t move, just waited on me to approach her.
I was early, but not that early, and I didn’t want to talk about whatever had her looking so grim.
Not that I had a say in that.
As I walked over to her, she dipped her chin and strode out of the doorway so I could step inside too. Following her, I moved into the kitchen and watched as she settled herself behind the kitchen table.
A screech from upstairs had me jerking in surprise and peering up at the ceiling.
“It’s Kat,” she answered, her gaze on the computer.
“Shouldn’t you check if she’s okay?” I asked warily.
“She’s always screeching.”
Okaaay.
“What do you need, Lodestar?”
She pursed her lips. “Got some information today about a body that washed up in Edgewater.”
My brow furrowed. “Bodies are out of my wheelhouse.”
“They aren’t while Rex ain’t answering his phone.”
I grunted. “Whose body is it?”
“Officially, they’re saying it’s a missing person.”
“Unofficially?”
And who the hell were the ‘officials’ in question?
I didn’t ask that because knowing Lodestar, I’d be wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.
“Prelim DNA suggests it’s Kevin Sisson.”
The name hit me like a ton of bricks.
Staggering forward, I dragged out one of the stools by the table and sank down heavily onto it.
“When it rains, it pours,” I whispered, reaching up to rub my brow.
Lodestar hummed. “It’s quite by chance that I learned this, but I like to think that chance does favor those with their fingers in all the pies.”
Weary from last night, exhausted from my own problems, this was just the final nail in my coffin.
Slumping back against the seat, I rasped, “Was there… what…” My brain clearly wasn’t working.
Lodestar’s disapproving frown told me she expected more from me.
“Do you have coffee?”
I was trying to cut down on my caffeine intake, but if this wasn’t a moment deserving of coffee, I didn’t know what was.
Silently, she moved over to the counter and poured me some from a carafe. I hated filtered, but I was so far beyond caring that I’d take what I could get.
I didn’t doctor it, just when she handed it to me, took a deep gulp.
The caffeine hit was nice. Beyond nice. Orgasmically nice.
“Okay, what are our options?” I inquired.
“As of right now, offensive. Head to the morgue in Edgewater, swipe the body out from under their noses, and dispose of it ourselves.”
I grimaced.
Why was it that everyone was messing around with dead bodies? What with Luciu Valentini, Giulia last night, and now Lodestar?
“Prelim DNA was sent out before an autopsy was completed—”
“That’s unusual, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “A fifth wheel detached itself from the cab of a semi. There were people hidden in the back of it who died. That kept the morgue busy—”
“The Sparrows were behind the people smuggling?”